re a country house, surrounded by trees and
shrubbery, the site of which is indicated to-day very nearly by the
central rond-point of the cemetery. Popular report ascribed to this
pleasure-house a character in keeping with the hypocrisy and luxury of
the order as painted by its enemies; and young Louis XIV visited it, in
consequence of which it became known as Mont-Louis. Afterward, when in
the possession of the royal confessor,--who said, himself, of his
office: "_Bon Dieu! quel role!_"--it was still further enlarged, and the
grounds handsomely laid out around his little villa, two stories in
height, overlooking Paris. At his death, it came again into the
possession of the fathers of his order, and at their suppression, in
1763, it was sold to pay their creditors. The Prefet of the Seine
purchased it for its conversion into a municipal cemetery in 1804.

That of Vaugirard was situated near the ancient barriere and at the
entrance of what was then the village of Vaugirard; it had in nowise the
importance of the two just mentioned, and was much more the
burial-ground of the poor than of the rich. As early as 1810, its
insufficience was recognized, and in 1824 it was closed, and replaced by
that of Montparnasse. The Cimetiere Sainte-Catherine was in the quarter
Saint-Marcel, by the side of the old cemetery of Clamart, which was full
of bodies and closed in 1793; Sainte-Catherine was also replaced by
Montparnasse in 1824. The latter, the necropolis of the left bank of the
Seine, is the least interesting and least visited of any of the Parisian
cemeteries. The ground is quite level, and the enclosure so crowded with
tombs that there is very little space left for verdure or shade. The
number of distinguished dead who rest here is also less than in either
Pere-Lachaise or Montmartre. Previous to 1824, it received only the
human debris from the hospitals and the bodies of criminals from the
neighboring scaffold. Vaugirard and Sainte-Catherine have since been
completely removed, and the sites devoted to other uses; and the number
of ancient urban cemeteries that have thus disappeared is very
considerable. That of the old church of Saint-Roch is now traversed by
the narrow streets which enclose the church; that of Saint-Gervais is
buried under the caserne Lobau, back of the Hotel de Ville;
Sainte-Marguerite-Saint-Antoine, in which were placed the remains of the
young dauphin, is now a waste land; Saint-Joseph, and the little
Cim