Eliot’s line “Le prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie” which translates to “the prince of Aquitaine, his tower in ruins” is a direct reference to the identical line in Gerard de Nerval’s poem El Desdichado. The “tour abolie” or “tower in ruins” references back to the “falling towers” from earlier in the section, and, thus the “unreal city” referenced in “The Burial of the Dead” and in “A Game of Chess.” In these references, the city, which may seem at first glance to be bustling and full of life, is inverted upon further investigation. With “brown fog” and “tower in ruins,” the images that Eliot portrays of the urban environment is anything but inspiring. The “towers” that make up the city, falling or in ruins, are replicated in the structure of the poem, with the poem itself acting as an autonomous landscape, with the characters, Madame Sosostris, Tiresias, etc, going through the motions of life while surrounded by a world, or words, falling apart. Thus, at the end of The Waste Land, bringing this notion of “la tour abolie” to the forefront, the readers can end the poem, seeing the microcosm of references and urbanity crumbling beneath itself, with no hope of resurrection.
In his annotation on the same line, Richard Lu compares the “tour abolie” and “seule étoile” (in the following line of El Desdichado) to the tarot deck. He states that “in tarot decks, The Star directly follows The Tower card. The Tower is often called the most dreadfall card as it often implies a sudden disaster which instates a change in your world. This change is extreme. However, after the tower falls, the Star appears, the tarot card of hope. However, Eliot ends with this reference. The Star is dead, there may not be a hope after the destruction of The Tower.” Concluding “The Waste Land,” this line, among others, works to support the desolation laid out since the very first line. Though approached with a dead and barren landscape, throughout the poem one can find a glimmer of hope, an ounce of inspiration between the clever minds and many characters that prolong the narrative. This ending defies all of that. Eliot, through all five parts of the poem, sets up an ending where divinity and faith have no place. There is no hope for the The Star tarot card coming next, it is dead. There is no God, nothing matters. In the wake of destruction, among the “falling towers” in ruins, one finally becomes as desolate and depressing as their surroundings.