3-021-459 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Crimea Revisited: the French Cemetery, 1869. The cemetery '...has been inclosed by a wall of about 7 ft. or 8 ft. high. All round this wall is a series of low tomb-like buildings, each with a black painted door facing the centre of the square. These buildings were appointed to receive the dead of particular regiments and corps; one may here read the names of such and such regiments of infantry, cavalry, or artillery...The whole of the square is tastefully laid out as a garden, with walks, trees, and flowers; and in the centre stands a building combining the character of the head-quarters' burial-place, with the additional purpose of a monument to the memory of all who fell. On its front is a slab, with the following inscription: A la memoire des Militaires de l'Armee Francaise qui ont succombé devant Sebastopol, 1854, 1855, 1856. Etat Major General, Corps d'Etat Major, Intendance, Aumoniers.'...The whole square thus contains seventeen tombs, or eighteen, including the great central one. On each sepulchre are slabs of marble, upon which the names of all the officers are cut, with the regiment or corps they belonged to...The French cemetery is all new and in good order, like a garden, or a Grande Place in a French town'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.