A GRAVEYARD OF THE TERROR

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1012, 30 December 1910, Page 8

A GRAVEYARD OF THE TERROR

A Paris correspondent writes:—Among the cemeteries where, on November 1 2nd 2, in spite of rain and storm, Parisinns laden with (lowers have gone to lay their tribute and to pray is a graveyard which is one of the most tragic spots within the city boundary. It lies in that ancient street, the Rue Picpus, where grim, grey buildings dating from the sixteenth century still stand, a forlorn district far from the stir and the gaiety of fashionable Paris. There, now a simple grass-grown square surrounded by high walls, is the pit where, in 179 i» the people guillotined in June and July of that terrible year were "buried. Fifteen hundred men and women, of all ages and differing ranks but chietly of the nobility, were cast pell-mell into the pit, brought thither in cartloads from the open space hard by, now the Place de la Nation,- where the guillotine stood when it was removed from the Place de la Concorde. For . some years few knew the exact spot where those fifteen hundred lay. Their friends and relations, if they remained alive, were either among the emigrants or in hiding, ,and the Revolutionists kept the spot secret. But oh one of those tragic summer mornings, a young workgirl had not only stood io see her die on the scaffold, she had followed him and those beheaded with him to the horrible pit on the city boundary line. She was able to point cut the : exact spot where so njany noted victims The ground was bought by thefamily of the DvNoailles, walled in, and cared for. And their friends, and relations, scions of almost, all the great families of the -old French nobility, were brought during the *ears that foliowed to ba buried in the ground adjoining that old pit. In that remote corner of PariSj little known to the world at.large, unknown even to the majority of the Parisians, mortuary chapels or simple headstones record historic names. In the angle nearest to the pit of the guillotined lies Lafayette—on his tomb a soiled American flag and the tricolour of France. American visitors find their way to this old cemetery, yet even they are not numerous. From time to time old tombs are opened to receive rv?ad relatives of the dead, and now find then fresh graves are dug, new vaults conceded to descendants o£ the victim* of the Terror. The buildings of an old convent from which the nun l ? have not >0 far been banished surround the cemetery. And in their e.hanel praverc are said daily f:r the dead of 17Pi. There are many other spots in Paris where the victims of th* Revolution were buried, but all these have lon* been covered by streets or-houses. °|