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True open air museum, the mortuary city offers hospitality to many famous characters : painters, politicians, musicians, you just have to let go of yourself in the meanders of its alleys to meet them around the corner. Here the writer Oscar Wilde, the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and the ex-president Felix Faure sleep alongside Chopin and Jim Morisson, cult lead singer of The Doors. That some burials were fast forgotten is no surprise but that others would stay engrave in Parisian’s memory is, on the other hand, quite interesting. Indeed, that of Edith Piaf gathered some 40 000 people, a crows so big, it is hard to imagine how they all fit around the popular singer’s grave. Another song’s giant lies just next to the great lady, his name is Henri Salvador. And then, there are the graves that come close to mysticism like Victor Noir’s, a journalist murdered by Prince Pierre Bonaparte when he was only 22. The young man is represented lying, in a statue by artist J.Dalou who did not hesitate to let the supposed virility of the young man be visible. Since then, there has been a rumour that the grave could cure infertility to anyone who would touch it.

Nothing more natural in this historically-prolific place than to evoke the different paths taken by various famous characters met along the stroll and to tell the anecdotes of the past. Remember Stephane Grappelli’s gypsy violin, Apollinaire’s verses or sing out an air from Carmen, Georges Bizet’s famous opera. Smile in front of Pierre Desproges’ grave. Start the journey through time and travel according to artistic and cultural themes. Follow the thread of literature with Colette, Balzac, Eluard, de Musset, de Nerval and Proust among others. Revise your painting classics with Seurat, Pissaro, Modigliani, Caillebotte, Géricault and Delacroix not to miss. Dive into cinema with Yves Montand and actresses Simon Signoret and Marie Trintignant.

Whatever we say, unknown, nobles and famous people, not all are egal before death. If certain occupants are at the core of pilgrimages, others do not escape the fatal passing of time and fall into a perpetual state of oblivion. Nevertheless, great names must mix with little people. Besides, they are in great numbers in this ground, 70 000 concessions, to be precise, border the paved alleys. And that is without counting that concessions can hold up to 60 people. Thus, great families are reunited and generations finally rejoined in this common place. But not everyone is this lucky, and some have to face eternal loneliness. Such is the fate of Felix de Beaujour who lays alone in the highest monument of all Parisian cemeteries. In fact, this relatively unknown character built a 21m high tower for himself with a crypt, sadly left empty but for his body.


This homage represents one of the many forms of the funerary art which expresses itself in many more ways in the Père-Lachaise. Take Balzac’s grave, it is equipped with the author’s bust executed by David d’Angers. At the contrary, certain graves do not aspire to the same originality like those that were based on models proposed in the very catalogue of the cemetery. Eugène Delacroix’s grave falls into that category as it was based on Scipion l’Africain’s grave and has the only unique aspect on being built with volcanic material. But it’s an isolated case as some of the greatest French sculptors of the XIXth century have succeeded at the Père-Lachaise with Bosio who realized the graves of Géricault and Raspail, Clésinger that of Chopin, Préault that of the family Roblès and Barre that of Musset.

The cemetery also contains 12 listed historical monuments including the portail et Chapelle de Godde, the monument aux morts de Bartholomé, the Mur des Fédérés, Héloïse and Abélard’s graves, Delille’s graves, de Cartellier’s grave and the chapel George Guët.


By Alice Cannet
Published : April 29, 2010

Photo credit : © APPL