The arrangement of the unearthed skeletons is what makes the special
interest of the cemetery. The arched and vaulted walls of the burial
recesses are supported by massive pillars and pilasters made of
thigh-bones and skulls; the whole material of the structure appears
to be of a similar kind; and the knobs and embossed ornaments of this
strange architecture are represented by the joints of the spine, and
the more delicate tracery by the Smaller bones of the human frame. The
summits of the arches are adorned with entire skeletons, looking as if
they were wrought most skilfully in bas-relief. There is no possibility
of describing how ugly and grotesque is the effect, combined with a
certain artistic merit, nor how much perverted ingenuity has been shown
in this queer way, nor what a multitude of dead monks, through how many
hundred years, must have contributed their bony framework to build
up these great arches of mortality. On some of the skulls there are
inscriptions, purporting that such a monk, who formerly made use of
that particular headpiece, died on such a day and year; but vastly the
greater number are piled up indistinguishably into the architectural
design, like the many deaths that make up the one glory of a victory.
In the side walls of the vaults are niches where skeleton monks sit or
stand, clad in the brown habits that they wore in life, and labelled
with their names and the dates of their decease. Their skulls (some
quite bare, and others still covered with yellow skin, and hair that
has known the earth-damps) look out from beneath their hoods, grinning
hideously repulsive. One reverend father has his mouth wide open, as if
he had died in the midst of a howl of terror and remorse, which perhaps
is even now screeching through eternity. As a general thing, however,
these frocked and hooded skeletons seem to take a more cheerful view of
their position, and try with ghastly smiles to turn it into a jest. But
the cemetery of the Capuchins is no place to nourish celestial hopes:
the soul sinks forlorn and wretched under all this burden of dusty
death; the holy earth from Jerusalem, so imbued is it with mortality,
has grown as barren of the flowers of Paradise as it is of earthly weeds
and grass. Thank Heaven for its blue sky; it needs a long, upward gaze
to give us back our faith. Not here can we feel ourselves immortal,
where the very altars in these chapels of horrible consecration are
heaps of human bones.
Yet let us give the cemetery the praise that it deserves. There is no
disagreeable scent, such as might have been expected from the decay of
so many holy persons, in whatever odor of sanctity they may have taken
their departure. The same number of living monks would not smell half so
unexceptionably.