Picpus Cemetery

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The Picpus Cemetery (Fr: Cimetière de Picpus) is the only private cemetery in the city of Paris, France. It was created from land seized from the convent of the Chanoinesses de St-Augustin, during the Revolution.

The cemetery is only five minutes from Place de la Nation, where the guillotine was set up under the Terror in 1794, on the Place du Trone, then called the Place du Trône Renversé. Between June 13 and July 28 as many as 55 people a day were executed. A pit was dug at the end of the garden where the decapitated bodies were thrown in together, noblemen and nuns, grocers and soldiers, laborers and innkeepers. A second pit was dug when the first filled up. The names of those buried in the two common pits, over 1300 men and women, are inscribed on the walls of the chapel. Of the 1109 men, there were 108 nobles, 108 churchmen, 136 monastics (gens du robe) 178 military, and 579 commoners. 197 women were buried there, 51 from the nobility, 23 nuns and 123 commoners. The bloodshed stopped when Robespierre himself was beheaded,and the garden was closed off.

Among the women, sixteen Carmelite nuns ranging in age from 29 to 78, were brought to the guillotine together, singing hymns as they were led to the scaffold. They were beatified in 1906.

In 1797, in secret, the land was acquired by Princess Amelie de Salm de Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, whose brother was buried in one of the common graves. In 1803, a group of family members bought up the rest of the land, and built a second cemetery next to the common graves. Many of these noble families still use the cemetery as their private burial ground. There are also plaques commemorating those descendants who were deported and died in the camps during World War II.

The marquis de La Fayette, who died a natural death, is buried here and an American Flag flies over his grave. He is buried next to his wife, whose sister and mother were among those beheaded and thrown into the common pit.

The entrance to the cemetery is at 35 rue de Picpus, in the 12th arrondissement. The simple chapel, run by the sisters of the Sacred Heart, holds a small, fine 15th century sculpture of the Vierge de la Paix, reputed to have cured Louis XIV of a serious illness.