You Journey, Let Us
Assume, To The Tomb Of Napoleon, Under The Great Dome That Rises
Behind The Wide-Armed Hotel Des Invalides.
From a splendid rotunda
you look down to where, craftily touched by the softened lights
streaming in from high
Above, that great sarcophagus stands housing
the bones of Bonaparte; and above the entrance to the crypt you
read the words from the last will and testament of him who sleeps
here: "I desire that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine,
among the French people I have so well loved." And you reflect
that he so well loved them that, to glut his lusting after power
and yet more power, he led sundry hundreds of thousands of them
to massacre and mutilation and starvation; but that is the way of
world - conquerors the world over - and has absolutely nothing to do
with this tale. The point I am trying to get at is, if you can
gaze unmoved at this sepulcher you are a clod. And if you can get
away from its vicinity without being held up and gouged by small
grafters you are a wonder.
Not tombs nor temples nor sanctuaries are safe from the profane
and polluting feet of the buzzing plague of them. You journey
miles away from this spot to the great cemetery of Pere Lachaise.
You trudge past seemingly unending, constantly unfolding miles of
monuments and mausoleums; you view the storied urns and animated
busts that mark the final resting-places of France's illustrious
dead.
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