They went to the lodge to consult the porter of the
cemetery. The dead have a porter, and there are hours when the dead are
"not receiving." It is necessary to upset all the rules and regulations
of the upper and lower police to obtain permission to weep at night, in
silence and solitude, over the grave where a loved one lies. There's a
rule for summer and a rule for winter about this.

Certainly, of all the porters in Paris, the porter of Pere-Lachaise is
the luckiest. In the first place, he has no gate-cord to pull; then,
instead of a lodge, he has a house,--an establishment which is not
quite ministerial, although a vast number of persons come under his
administration, and a good many employees. And this governor of the
dead has a salary, with emoluments, and acts under powers of which
none complain; he plays despot at his ease. His lodge is not a place of
business, though it has departments where the book-keeping of receipts,
expenses, and profits, is carried on. The man is not a _suisse_, nor a
concierge, nor actually a porter. The gate which admits the dead stands
wide open; and though there are monuments and buildings to be cared
for, he is not a care-taker. In short, he is an indefinable anomaly, an
authority which participates in all, and yet is nothing,--an authority
placed, like the dead on whom it is based, outside of all. Nevertheless,
this exceptional man grows out of the city of Paris,--that chimerical
creation like the ship which is its emblem, that creature of reason
moving on a thousand paws which are seldom unanimous in motion.

This guardian of the cemetery may be called a concierge who has reached
the condition of a functionary, not soluble by dissolution! His place
is far from being a sinecure. He does not allow any one to be buried
without a permit; he must count his dead. He points out to you in this
vast field the six feet square of earth where you will one day put all
you love, or all you hate, a mistress, or a cousin. Yes, remember
this: all the feelings and emotions of Paris come to end here, at
this porter's lodge, where they are administrationized. This man has
registers in which his dead are booked; they are in their graves, and
also on his records. He has under him keepers, gardeners, grave-diggers,
and their assistants. He is a personage. Mourning hearts do not speak to
him at first. He does not appear at all except in serious cases, such as
one corpse mistaken for another, a murdered b