No doubt I had seen the
emperor and all the troops. I succeeded in getting home just in the
middle of dinner, and by dint of hard eating caught up at the third
course with the rest.
That I consider a very white day. Some might call it _green_, but
I mark such days with white always.
In the evening we attended the _salon_ of Lady Elgin, a friend of
our hostess. Found there the Marquis de M., whose book on the
spiritual rappings comes out next week. We conversed on the rappings
_ad nauseam_.
By the way, her ladyship rents the Hotel de la Rochefoucauld, in the
Rue de Varenne, Faubourg St. Germain.
St. Germain is full of these princely, aristocratic mansions.
Mournfully beautiful - desolately grand. Out of the stern, stony
street, we entered a wide, square court, under a massive arched
gateway, then through the Rez-de-Chaussee, or lower suite of rooms,
passed out into the rear of the house to find ourselves in the garden,
or rather a kind of park, with tall trees, flooded in moonlight,
bathed in splendors, and with their distant, leafy arches (cut with
artistic skill) reminding one of a Gothic temple. Such a magnificent
forest scene in the very heart of Paris!
Saturday, June 18. After breakfast rode out to Arc de Triomphe - de
l'Etoile, and thence round the exterior barriers and boulevards to
Pere la Chaise.
At every entrance to the city past the barriers, (which are now only a
street,) there is a gate, and a building marked "Octroi," which means
customs.
No carriage can pass without being examined, though the examination is
a mere form.
Pere la Chaise did not interest me much, except that from the top of
the hill I gained a good view of the city. It is filled with tombs and
monuments, and laid out in streets. The houses of the dead are smaller
than the houses of the living, but they are made like houses, with
doors, windows, and an empty place inside for an altar, crucifix,
lamps, wreaths, &c. Tombs have no charm for me. I am not at all
interested or inspired by them. They do not serve with me the purpose
intended, viz., of calling up the memory of the departed. On the
contrary, their memory is associated with their deeds, their works,
the places where they wrought, and the monuments of themselves they
have left. Here, however, in the charnel house is commemorated but the
event of their deepest shame and degradation, their total vanquishment
under the dominion of death, the triumph of corruption.
Here all that was visible of them is insulted by the last enemy, in
the deepest, most humiliating posture of contumely.
From Pere la Chaise I came home to dinner at six. H., meanwhile, had
been sitting to M. Belloc.
