chariots and drinking
familiarly at the zinc bar of a workman's wine-shop, side by side, it
may be, with the white blouses of masons and plasterers. The four
hundred _porteurs_ of the Pompes funebres still retain their ancient
familiar designation of _croque-morts_, concerning the derivation of
which there is much uncertainty. A number of the _Revue des traditions
populaires_ suggests that it may come from the mediaeval custom of biting
the little finger of the deceased at the moment of placing in the
coffin, in order to obtain a final assurance of death. At the masked
balls of the Opera, these personages are represented by the traditional
Pere Bazouge and the cheerful Clodoche,--shedding their decorum with
their official costumes.

By the decree of 1804, which forbade all inhumations within the walls of
the capital, it was provided that there should be established
cemeteries outside the city limits, and at a distance of not less than
thirty-five or forty metres. Four such enclosures were ordained: the
Cimetiere du Nord, or of Montmartre, on the north; that de l'Est, or of
Pere-Lachaise, on the east; that du Sud, or of Vaugirard, on the south,
and that of Sainte-Catherine. The first of these was already in
existence, having been established in 1798 by the municipal
administration, to replace that in the plain of Clichy, comparatively
new, which had replaced the old one of Saint-Roch. The Montmartre
cemetery occupied the site of an abandoned and very extensive plaster
quarry, whence it took its popular name of Cimetiere des
Grandes-Carrieres, and it was also known, more poetically, as the _Champ
de repos_, while the Montparnasse, later, was given that of _Champ
d'asile_. When the city limits were enlarged, in 1859, Montmartre, in
common with other communes of the suburbs, was brought within the
enclosure, and, after the creation of the new cemetery of Saint-Ouen,
called by the people Cayenne, the only interments in Montmartre were
those made in the vaults of certain private families.

Pere-Lachaise, the most important and most picturesque of these
enclosures in Paris, takes its name from the confessor of Louis XIV, to
whom it was presented by his royal penitent. The Cimetiere de l'Est was
inaugurated, in 1804, in a locality which originally bore the name of
Champ l'Eveque, because it had been the property of the Bishop of Paris.
The Jesuits purchased it, in 1626, under cover of a private individual,
and established the