Pere Lachaise Cemetery

Opened in 1804 on a hillside then well outside the city, Pere Lachaise sold badly because Parisians thought it too far and unconsecrated, so in 1817 the administration transferred in the supposed remains of Abelard and Heloise and of Moliere and La Fontaine, and plot sales rose sharply. It now covers forty-four hectares of cobbled avenues under old chestnuts with around seventy thousand graves, among them Chopin, Wilde, Proust, Piaf, Delacroix, Modigliani and Jim Morrison, whose grave draws the largest and least reverent crowds. The Mur des Federes on the eastern wall marks where Commune fighters were shot in 1871.

History

The cemetery takes its name from Père François de la Chaise, confessor to Louis XIV, who lived in the Jesuit house rebuilt here in 1682; the city bought the hillside in 1804, and Napoleon established the cemetery that year, laid out by Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart in the style of an English garden, as one of the new cemeteries outside the city after the Holy Innocents closed in 1780. At first it was thought too far from the city and many Catholics refused unconsecrated ground, so in 1804 it held only 13 graves; in 1817 the administrators staged the transfer of the remains of La Fontaine and Molière and the supposed remains of Abélard and Héloïse, and burials soared, to more than 33,000 graves by 1830. It was enlarged five times between 1824 and 1850 and now covers 44 hectares, the largest cemetery in Paris, with more than 1 million people buried there (Wikipedia, Père Lachaise Cemetery).

What you'll find

• The famous graves - Chopin, Wilde, Proust, Piaf, Morrison and many more.
• Wilde's tomb - the Epstein sphinx, now glazed against lipstick kisses.
• The cobbled avenues - a hillside laid out as a landscape garden.
• The Mur des Federes - the wall where Commune fighters were executed in 1871.

When to go

April to October for the trees and light; autumn leaves suit the place. Free maps are available at the entrance, and finding specific graves without one is genuinely difficult.

Practical notes

The site is large, hilly and cobbled, hard on the feet and on wheels. Graves are poorly signposted and a map is essential. Morrison's grave is fenced and often crowded.

Nearby

Belleville lies northwest; Bastille is southwest.

Key facts