CAMILLE FLAMMARION WAS BURIED IN HIS GARDEN

When people visited Camille Flammarion at his observatory in Juvisy, the astronomer never failed to take a walk with you through his grounds. He was proud of his trees and would mention those planted by the Emperor of Brazil and the Queen of Romania; for this scholar had had kings and queens as gardeners. And suddenly, he would stop at the end of a path, in front of a flowery space bathed in silence, and say without trembling:
"Here is my tomb; it is ready; I will come down one evening from my study to take my place. One evening, after a good day's work."
And this visionary, connected with unknown forces, was right. Everything happened as he had said. Without suffering, as if pursuing a beautiful dream, he descended into the garden that awaited him. He died like a poet, like a lover of the sky. On Wednesday, after a day of labor, he opened his window to contemplate the calm immensity that had revealed its secrets to him, then he closed his eyes, struck one last time by the splendor of the night; it was over. He had the funeral he had dreamed of: around Madame Camille Flammarion, his collaborator, the confidant of his thoughts and visions, were gathered scholarly officials, whose master had initiated it. By an unexpected favor, the President of the Council was a scholar like himself, who spoke his language and shared his ideals. Mr. Paul Painlevé has never been so inspired, on any platform, as yesterday before these mortal remains and this grand park. Through the welcoming door, schoolchildren, workers, and peasants in work clothes entered, coming to pay their last respects to the man who had revealed to them the poetry of heaven.
Then Camille Flammarion was carried into his garden, and no friend wept because, for the deceased, death was still light.

Jean Vignaud.