the whole scene was sublime in the
greatest degree. The black tapestry hung in heavy folds round the sides
of the Cathedral, and magnified the impression which its vastness
produced. The tapers which surrounded the coffins threw a red and gloomy
light over the innumerable multitude which thronged the floor; their
receding rays faintly illuminated the farther recesses, or strained to
pierce the obscure gloom in which the summits of the pillars were lost;
while the sacred music pealed through the distant aisles, and deepened
the effect of the thousands of voices which joined in the strains of
repentant prayer.

Among the exhibitions of art to which a stranger is conducted
immediately after his arrival in the French metropolis, there is none
which is more characteristic of the disposition of the people than the
_Musee des Monumens Francois_, situated in the Rue des Petits Angustins.
This is a collection of all the finest sepulchral monuments from
different parts of France, particularly from the Cathedral of St Denis,
where the cemetery of the royal family had, from time immemorial, been
placed. It is said by the French, that the collection of these monuments
into one museum was the only means of preserving them from the fury of
the people during the revolution; and certainly nothing but absolute
necessity could have justified the barbarous idea of bringing them from
the graves they were intended to adorn, to one spot, where all
associations connected with them are destroyed. It is not the mere
survey of the monuments of the dead that is interesting,--not the
examination of the specimens of art by which they may be adorned;--it is
the remembrance of the deeds which they are intended to record,--of the
virtues they are destined to perpetuate,--- of the pious gratitude of
which they are now the only testimony--above all, of the dust they
actually cover. They remind us of the great men who formerly filled the
theatre of the world,--they carry us back to an age which, by a very
natural illusion, we conceive to have been both wiser and happier than
our own, and present the record of human greatness in that pleasing
distance when the great features of character alone are remembered, when
time has drawn its veil over the weaknesses of mortality, and its
virtues are sanctified by the hand of death. It is a feeling fitted to
elevate the soul; to mingle the thoughts of death with the recollection
of the virtues by which life had been