Père Lachaise Cemetery

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Looking down the hill at Père Lachaise.
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Looking down the hill at Père Lachaise.

Père Lachaise Cemetery (French: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise) (officially, cimetière de l'Est “eastern cemetery”) (48°51′43″N, 2°23′39″E) is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris at 118 acres[1] (48 ha), though there are larger cemeteries in Paris suburbs.

Père Lachaise is one of the most famous in the world. Located in the 20e arrondissement, it is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the graves of those who have enhanced French life over the past 200 years. It is also the site of five Great War memorials.

Père Lachaise is located on Boulevard de Ménilmontant. For tourists, the best Paris Métro stop is the "Philippe Auguste" on line 2 which is convenient for the main entrance. The stop called "Père Lachaise", on lines 2 or 3, is a back entrance.

Contents

[edit] Origins

The cemetery takes its name from Père François de la Chaise (1624-1709), the confessor of Louis XIV, who lived in the Jesuit house rebuilt in 1682 on the site of the chapel. The property, situated on the hillside (from which the king, during the Fronde, watched skirmishing between the Condé and Turenne) was bought by the city in 1804, laid out by Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, and later extended.

The cemetery was established by Napoleon in 1804. Cemeteries had been banned inside Paris in 1786, after the closure of the Cimetière des Innocents on the fringe of Les Halles food market, on the grounds that it presented a health hazard. (This same health hazard also led to the creation of the famous Parisian catacombs in the south of the city). Several new cemeteries replaced all the Parisian ones, outside the precincts of the capital, Montmartre Cemetery in the north, Père Lachaise in the east, and Montparnasse Cemetery in the south. At the heart of the city, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, is Passy Cemetery.

At the time of its opening, the cemetery was seen as too far from the city and attracted few funerals. So the administrators devised a marketing strategy and with great fanfare organised the transfer of the remains of La Fontaine and Molière, in 1804. Then, in another great spectacle in 1817, the purported remains of Pierre Abélard and Héloïse were also transferred to the cemetery with their monument's canopy made from fragments of the abbey of Nogent-sur-Seine (by tradition, lovers or lovelorn singles leave letters at the crypt in tribute to the couple or in hope of finding true love). This strategy had the desired effect when people began clamouring to be buried among the famous citizens. Records show that, within a few years, Père Lachaise went from a few dozen permanent residents to more than 33,000. Today there are over 300,000 bodies buried there, and many more in the columbarium, which holds the remains of those who had requested cremation.

The Communards' Wall (French Mur des Fédérés) is also located in the cemetery. This is the wall against which 147 Communards, the last defenders of the workers' district Belleville, were shot on Sunday, 28 May 1871—the last day of the "Bloody Week" (Semaine Sanglante) ending the Paris Commune.

[edit] Burials at Père Lachaise

See also: Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
  • Countess Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry — The Salvadoran writer who was married to Comte Antoine de Saint Exupéry who is the author of The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince in French). She was born in El Salvador on April 10, 1901.
  • Maria Callas — The opera singer's ashes were originally buried in the cemetery. After being stolen and later recovered, they were scattered into the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Greece. The empty urn remains in the Père Lachaise.
  • Claude Bernard — Famous french physiologist, known for several advances in medicine, as the introduction of the scientific method to the study of medicine, and the study of the sympathetic nervous system.
  • Frédéric Chopin — The composer's heart is entombed in a pillar in the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw.
  • Jacques-Louis David — Napoleon's court painter was exiled as a revolutionary after the Bourbons returned to the throne of France. His body was not allowed into the country even in death, so the tomb contains only his heart.
  • Eugene Delacroix — the great Romantic artist.
  • George Enescu — Romanian composer, pianist, violinist and conductor, buried in 1955.
  • Theodore Gericault — the Romantic painter, whose major work The Raft of the Medusa is reproduced on his tomb.
  • Sadegh Hedayat — was Iran's foremost modern writer of prose fiction and short stories.
  • Allan Kardec — Born Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail, he was the founder of Spiritism. His grave is often "protected" by followers who try to keep tourists from photographing it.
  • Charles Messier — French astronomer, publisher of Messier's catalogue.
  • Jim Morrison — Was an American singer, songwriter, writer and poet. Permanent crowds and occasional vandalism surrounding this tomb have caused tensions with the families of other, less famous, deceased. The cemetery has been forced to hire a full-time security guard for the grave. Many other parts of the cemetery have been defaced with arrows purporting to indicate the direction toward "Jim", though even these defacements have in many cases been defaced themselves, resulting in arrows that point in two directions.
  • Michel Ney — marshal of the French army who fought in the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars.
  • Victor Noir — a journalist who was killed by Pierre Napoleon Bonaparte as he tried to arrange a duel with Paschal Grousset. The tomb, designed by Jules Dalou is notable for the realistic portrayal of the dead Noir, and for the fact that he still appears to be sexually aroused, his penis pushing his fly open. In consequence, the sculpture has become a fertility symbol: the genital area is rubbed and flowers are left in his hat. In 2005 a fence was erected around his tomb to prevent people rubbing said area, as this was damaging the sculpture, but it has subsequently been removed.
  • Edith Piaf — one of the greatest singers France has ever produced.
  • Camille Pissarro — The French Impressionist painter is buried here.
  • Marcel Proust — a French intellectual, novelist, essayist and critic.
  • Gioacchino Rossini — In 1887, the Italian composer's remains were moved back to Florence, but the crypt that once housed them (now dedicated to his memory) is still in Perè Lachaise.
  • Alice B. Toklas — American author, partner of Gertrude Stein, Toklas's name and information is etched on the other side of Stein's gravestone in the same sparse style and font. As they were inseparable in life, so too are they in death.
  • Marie, Countess Walewski — Napoleon's mistress, only her heart is entombed here; her other remains were returned to her native Poland.
  • Oscar Wilde — Irish novelist, poet and playwright. By tradition, Wilde's admirers kiss the monument while wearing lipstick.
  • Jean-Joseph Carriès — sculptor, ceramist, and miniaturist.
  • Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione — a famous Italian courtesan
  • Richard Wright — African-American author, wrote Native Son and other american classics.
  • Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon Famous sociologist who founded the "Saint-Simonian" movement

[edit] Gallery

Memorial to the dead.

Père Lachaise in spring.

Jim Morrison's grave.

Marcel Proust's grave.

[edit] References

  1. ^ NY Times article

[edit] External links



Popular visitor attractions in Paris Image:Paris-metropolitan-area-symbol.png
Arc de Triomphe • Cathedral of Notre Dame • Centre Georges Pompidou • Champs-Élysées • Conciergerie • Eiffel Tower • Grand Palais • Jardin du Luxembourg • Les Invalides • Louvre • Musée d'Orsay • Opéra Garnier • Père Lachaise Cemetery
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