Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

Figure 26 The tomb of Abelard and Heloise at the cemetery of Père Lachaise
Lenoir was quite explicit in his catalogue about what he had done with the various
elements of the tomb, while encouraging that sensibility Whittington found so ridiculous by
telling visitors what they might expect to hear in the imagination as they stood beside the lovers’
grave. ‘Des soupirs de tendresse et d’amour; l’air est frappé de leurs doux accens, et le plaintif
Echo répète de tous côtés: Héloïse! Abélard.’ [Sighs of tenderness and love; the air resounds to
their gentle tones, and the plaintive echo repeats on all sides: Heloise! Abelard.] 41 He had given
it a suitably picturesque setting, ‘embosomed in a thicket of large cypresses’ as Turner put it. He
and his party, knowing that this combination of objects and setting dated back little more than a
decade, nevertheless cut sprigs of greenery ‘for presents to our friends at home’. 42
The experience was slightly spoiled, however, as Turner noted by the presence beside
the tomb of ‘a young French officer’ who was ‘humming a tune & cutting capers’. 43 This was
not the right figure for this particular landscape which required a Werther to complete it. Indeed,
as Turner wrote: ‘Had we been but a week or two sooner, we might have seen some sentimental
German sighing or even weeping on the spot.’ 44 There is no question that the engagement with
the past most visitors enjoyed at the Musée des Monumens Français was as much dramatic,
narrative and subjective as it was educational, informative and objective. The Musée itself did
41 Lenoir, Musée Impérial des Monumens Français, p.185.
42 Turner, ‘Journal of a Tour to France, 1814’, f175.
43 Turner, ‘Journal of a Tour to France, 1814’, f176.
44 Turner, ‘Journal of a Tour to France, 1814’, f176.
114