Père Lachaise Cemetery

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Looking down the hill at Père Lachaise.

Père Lachaise Cemetery (French: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise; officially, cimetière de l'Est, "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France at (48 ha, 118.6 acres)^[1], though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.

Père Lachaise is one of the most famous cemeteries in the world. Located in the 20^th 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 three World War I memorials.

Père Lachaise is located on Boulevard de Ménilmontant. Métro station Philippe Auguste on line 2 is next to the main entrance, while the station called Père Lachaise, on line 3, is 500 metres away near a side entrance. Many tourists prefer the Gambetta station on line 3 as it allows them to enter near the tomb of Oscar Wilde and then walk downhill to visit the rest of the cemetery.

[edit] Origins

Composite image, including details (right), of tomb of Peter Abélard and Héloïse.

The cemetery takes its name from Père François de la Chaise (1624-1709), confessor to 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 columbarium holds cremated remains.

The monument honouring the French Brigadists.

The cemetery was established by Napoleon I 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 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 considered to be situated too far from the city and attracted few funerals. Consequently, 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) (see disputation).

This strategy achieved its desired effect when people began clamouring to be buried among the famous citizens. Records show that, within a few years, Père Lachaise went from containing 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 (Mur des Fédérés) is also located in the cemetery. This is the site where 147 Communards, the last defenders of the workers' district of Belleville, were shot on 28 May 1871 — the last day of the "Bloody Week" (Semaine Sanglante) in which the Paris Commune was crushed.

After that week, the cemetery gained a special importance to the political left in France, manifested in annual processions sometimes drawing tens or even hundreds of thousands of participants (some 600,000 in 1936) and led by the main leaders of the left parties and organizations. Various prominent left-wing leaders are buried in the vicinity, where a monument was also erected honouring the French Brigadists (volunteers in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War).

Adolphe Thiers, widely blamed for the massacres of "Bloody Week," is an ironic resident of the cemetery. His tomb has occasionally been subject to vandalism.

[edit] Burials at Père Lachaise

Among those interred here are:

Contents: Top - 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

[edit] A

Grave of Francois Arago

Peter Abelard — French philosopher
Edmond Francois Valentin About — French novelist and journalist
Marie d'Agoult — French author who wrote under the nom de plume of Daniel Stern
Jehan Alain — French composer and organist
Marietta Alboni — Italian opera singer
Jean-Charles Alphand — French civil engineer
Karel Appel — Dutch painter.
Guillaume Apollinaire — French poet and art critic
Francois Arago — French scientist and statesman
Armand-Pierre Arman — French painter
Miguel Ángel Asturias — Guatemalan diplomat and author, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1967
Daniel Auber — French composer
Hubertine Auclert — French feminist and activist for women's suffrage
Pierre Augereau — French military commander and Marshal of France
Jean-Pierre Aumont — French actor, father of Tina Aumont and husband of Maria Montez
Jane Avril — French dancer

[edit] B

Grave of Sarah Bernhardt

Salvador Bacarisse — Spanish composer
Honoré de Balzac — French novelist of the 19th century
Henri Barbusse — French novelist
Paul Barras — French statesman
Antoine-Louis Barye — French sculptor
Jean-Dominique Bauby — French journalist
Jean-Louis Baudelocque — French obstetrician
Gilbert Becaud — French singer
Pierre Augustin Beclard — French anatomist
Vincenzo Bellini — Italian composer; remains later transferred to Italy
Judah P. Benjamin — American lawyer who served in the governments of the United States of America and the Confederate States of America before fleeing to England after the end of the American Civil War, qualifying as a barrister and later Queen's Counsel, dying in Paris.
Pierre-Jean de Beranger — French lyricist
Claude Bernard — 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.
Bernardin de Saint Pierre — French writer
Sarah Bernhardt — French stage and film actress
Ramon Emeterio Betances — Puerto Rican nationalist
Marie Francois Xavier Bichat — French anatomist and physiologist
Fulgence Bienvenue — French civil engineer remembered as the Father of the Paris Metro
Samuel Bing — German art dealer
Georges Bizet — French composer and conductor
Louis Blanc — French historian and statesman
Sophie Blanchard — first professional female balloonist and the first woman to die in an aviation accident
Auguste Blanqui — French statesman
Rosa Bonheur — French painter
Ludwig Borne — German political writer and satirist
Pierre Bourdieu — French sociologist
Alexandrine-Caroline Branchu — French opera singer
Edouard Branly — French scientist
Pierre Brasseur — French comedian
Alexandre-Theodore Brongniart — French architect, best known for designing the layout of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery itself
Jean de Brunhoff — French author of Babar the Elephant

[edit] C

Grave of Jean-Francois Champollion

Joseph Caillaux — French statesman
Gustave Caillebotte — French Impressionist painter
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 Père Lachaise.
Jean-Jacques-Regis de Cambaceres — French lawyer and politician
Jean-Joseph Carriès — French sculptor, ceramist, and miniaturist
Pierre Cartellier — French sculptor
Virginia Oldoini, Countess di Castiglione — Italian courtesan and secret agent
Jean-François Champollion — French decipherer of the hieroglyphs and father of Egyptology
Claude Chappe — French pioneer of the telegraph
Ernest Chausson — French composer
Richard Chenevix — Irish chemist
Luigi Cherubini — Italian composer
Frédéric Chopin — Polish composer. His heart is entombed within a pillar at the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, Poland.
Jean-Baptiste Clément — French painter and activist
Auguste Clésinger - French painter and sculptor
Emile Cohl — French cartoonist
Colette — French litterateur
Count Alexandre Joseph Colonna-Walewski — French statesman, son of Napoleon I
Auguste Comte — French thinker; father of Positivism
Benjamin Constant — Swiss-born liberal philosopher
Bruno Coquatrix — French lyricist and music impresario
Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot — French painter
Jean-Pierre Cortot — French sculptor
Benoît Costaz — French bishop
Georges Courteline — French playwright
Thomas Couture — French painter
Nancy Cunard — English poet and activist
Henri Curiel — Egyptian politician

[edit] D

Cremated remains of Isadora Duncan in the Columbarium

Jarosław Dąbrowski — exiled Polish revolutionary Nationalist and last Commander-in-Chief of the Paris Commune of 1871
Pierre Dac — French humorist
Édouard Daladier — French Radical-Socialist politician of the 1930s, signatory of the Munich Agreement in 1938 and Prime Minister of France at the outbreak of the Second World War
Alexandre Darracq — French automobile manufacturer
Alphonse Daudet — Famous French author who is known for his literary works, such as, "Lettres de mon Moulin".
Honore Daumier — French caricaturist
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.
David d'Angers — French sculptor
Louis Nicolas Davout — Napoleon's "Iron Marshal"
Gerard Debreu — French economist, won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1983
Jean-Gaspard Deburau — Czech-born French actor and mime
Cino Del Duca — Italian-born French publishing magnate, film producer and philanthropist
Simone Del Duca — French businesswoman and philanthropist, wife of Cino Del Duca
Eugène Delacroix — French Romantic artist
Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre — French mathematician
Vivant Denon — French archaeologist
Pierre Desproges — French humorist
Gustave Doré — French artist and engraver
Michel Drach — French film director
Antonio Drove — French director
Marie Dubas — French singer
Jacques Duclos — French politician
Paul Dukas — French composer
Isadora Duncan — American dancer
Henri Duparc — French composer
Eleonore Duplay — Friend of French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre
Guillaume Dupuytren — French surgeon

[edit] E

Grave of Paul Eluard

Paul Éluard — French surrealist poet
George Enescu — Romanian composer, pianist, violinist and conductor
Camille Erlanger — French composer
Max Ernst — German painter

[edit] F

Alexandre Falguiere — French sculptor
Felix Faure — former President of France
Robert de Flers — French playwright and journalist
Suzanne Flon — actress
Jean de la Fontaine — French litterateur best known for fairy tales
Thierry Fortineau — actor
Joseph Fourier — French mathematician and physicist
Jean Francaix — French composer
Pierre Frank — French Trotskyist politician
William Temple Franklin — grandson of Benjamin Franklin
Loie Fuller — French dancer

[edit] G

Grave of Theodore Gericault

Antonio de la Gandara — French painter
Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pages — French statesman
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac — French chemist and physicist
Pierre Georges — French Resistance leader better known as Colonel Fabien
Théodore Gericault — French Romantic painter, whose major work The Raft of the Medusa is reproduced on his tomb by sculptor Antoine Étex.
Abdulrahman Ghassemlou — leader of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan
Andre Gill — French caricaturist
Manuel de Godoy — Spanish prime minister and court favorite
Yvan Goll — French-German poet
Laurent de Gouvion-Saint-Cyr — French military commander and Marshal of France
Zenobe Gramme — Inventor of the Direct Current (DC) Dynamo. There is a statue on the grave of Zenobe sitting and looking at a dynamo rotor.
Stéphane Grappelli — French jazz violinist and member of the Quintette du Hot Club de France
Andre Gretry — Belgian-born French composer
Jules Guesde — French statesman
Yvette Guilbert — French singer
Yılmaz Güney — Kurdish Turkish actor and film director
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin - proposed the guillotine as the official method of execution in France.

[edit] H

Samuel Hahnemann — German physician, formal founder of homeopathy.
Georges Haussmann — French civil engineer and town planner
Jeanne Hébuterne — French artist and common-law wife of the artist Amedeo Modigliani.
Sadegh Hedayat — Iran's foremost modern writer of prose fiction and short stories.
Heloise — French abbess and scholar, best known for her love affair with Peter Abelard
Ticky Holgado — French actor
Jean-Nicolas Huyot — French architect best known for his work on the Arc de Triomphe

[edit] I

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres — French painter
Jean-Baptiste Isabey — French painter

[edit] J

Claude Jade — French actress
Leon Jouhaux — French trade union leader, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1951

[edit] K

Grave of Francois Kellermann

Allan Kardec — Born Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail, he was the founder of Spiritism.
Ahmet Kaya — Kurdish Turkish singer and songwriter
François Christophe de Kellermann — French military commander and Marshal of France
Thomas Read Kemp — English property developer and statesman
Henri Krasucki — French trade unionist
Rodolphe Kreutzer — French violinist and composer

[edit] L

Jerome Lalande — French astronomer and writer
René Lalique — French glass designer
Theophanis Lamboukas — French actor and singer, husband of Edith Piaf
Dominique Jean Larrey — French military surgeon
Clarence John Laughlin — American Surrealist photographer from New Orleans, Louisiana. His most famous published work was "Ghosts Along the Mississippi".
Marie Laurencin — French painter
Charles-François Lebrun — French statesman
Alexandre Ledru-Rollin — French politician
Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély — French organist and composer
François Joseph Lefebvre — French military commander and Marshal of France
Leo VI Lusignian — last king of Cilician Armenia.
Ferdinand de Lesseps — French architect, designed the Suez Canal
Pierre Levegh — French racing driver killed in the 1955 Le Mans disaster.
Jean-Francois Lyotard — French philosopher

[edit] M

Grave of Joachim Murat

Jacques MacDonald — French military commander and Marshal of France
William Madocks — English landowner and statesman
Milosz Magin — Polish composer
Nestor Makhno — Ukrainian revolutionary
Jacques-Antoine Manuel — French lawyer and statesman
Auguste Maquet — French author
Marcel Marceau— French Mime Artist
Angelo Mariani — French chemist
Celestine Marie — French opera singer
André Masséna — French military commander and Marshal of France
Georges Méliès— French filmmaker; produced A Trip to the Moon
Emile-Justin Menier — French chocolatier
Henri Menier — French chocolatier
Antoine Brutus Menier — French chocolatier
Maurice Merleau-Ponty— French philosopher
Cleo de Merode — French dancer
Charles Messier — French astronomer, publisher of Messier's catalogue
Jules Michelet — French historian
Amedeo Modigliani — Italian painter and sculptor. Famous for his intense rivalry with Pablo Picasso.
Moliere — French playwright
Gustave de Molinari — Belgian-born economist associated with French laissez-faire liberal economists.
Silvia Monfort — French comedienne
Gaspard Monge — French mathematician; remains later moved to the Pantheon
Yves Montand — film actor
Jim Morrison — American singer and songwriter with The Doors, author, and poet. Permanent crowds and occasional vandalism surrounding this tomb have caused tensions with the families of other, less famous, interred individuals.^[2] 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.^{[citation needed]}
Jean Moulin — leader of the French Resistance during World War II who went missing after his arrest with several other Resistants at Caluire, Lyon in June 1943. Understood to have died on a train not far from Metz station in July that year, ashes 'presumed' to be his were interred at Pere Lachaise after the war and then transferred to the Panthéon in December 1964.
Marcel Mouloudji — French singer
Joachim Murat — French Napoleonic general.
Alfred de Musset — French poet, novelist, dramatist; love affair with George Sand is told from his point of view in his autobiographical novel, La Confession d'un Enfant du Siècle
Nestor Machno — Ukrainian anarchist and revolutionary leader

[edit] N

Grave of Michel Ney

Felix Nadar — a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist and balloonist
Gérard de Nerval — French poet
Michel Ney — marshal of the French army who fought in the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars
Anna de Noailles — French poetess
Charles Nodier — French writer
Victor Noir — journalist killed by Pierre Napoleon Bonaparte in a dispute over 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 appears to be at least partially sexually aroused, his large penis pushing his part-unbuttoned fly open. In consequence, the sculpture has become a fertility symbol. His lips are kissed, 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 the said area, as this was damaging the sculpture, but it has subsequently been removed.
Cyprian Norwid — Polish poet

[edit] O

Pascale Ogier — French actress
Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione — famous Italian courtesan
Max Ophuls — German film director
Andranik Toros Ozanian — Armenian military commander and statesman

[edit] P

The grave of Édith Piaf

Antoine Parmentier — French agronomist known for enunciating the dietary value of potatoes
Alexandre Ferdinand Parseval-Deschenes - French admiral
François-Auguste Parseval-Grandmaison - French poet, uncle of the above
Christine Pascal — French actress
Adelina Patti — Spanish-born opera singer
Robert Herbert, 12th Earl of Pembroke — English aristocrat
Casimir Perier — French statesman
Michel Petrucciani — French Jazz pianist
Édith Piaf — French singer
Christian Pineau — French statesman
Roland Piquepaille — French technology writer
Camille Pissarro — French Impressionist painter
Ignace Pleyel — pianist
Elvira Popescu — Romanian-born actress
Francis Poulenc — French composer
Antoine-Augustin Préault — French sculptor
Marcel Proust — French intellectual, novelist, essayist and critic
Pierre-Paul Prud'hon — French painter

[edit] R

Grave of Georges Rodenbach

Mademoiselle Rachel — French actress
François-Vincent Raspail — French scientist and statesman; remains later moved to the Pantheon
Henri de Regnier — French poet
Norbert Rillieux — American engineer, invented the multiple-effect evaporator
Étienne-Gaspard Robert — Belgian magician who performed under the stage name of Robertson
Georges Rodenbach — Belgian poet
Jules Romains — French writer
Gioacchino Rossini — Italian composer. In 1887, Rossini's remains were moved back to Florence, but the crypt that once housed them (now dedicated to his memory) still stands in Perè Lachaise.
Edmond James de Rothschild — Baron of the Rothschild family
Salomon James de Rothschild — son of James de Rothschild
Raymond Roussel — writer

[edit] S

Sara le Xuan; Iranian socialist novelist and playwright
Countess Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry — Salvadoran writer, wife of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire — French naturalist

Grave of Louis Suchet

Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon — French sociologist who founded the "Saint-Simonian" movement
Henri Salvador — French singer
Yuliya Samoylova — Russian aristocrat
Jean-Baptiste Say; French economist
Victor Schoelcher — French statesman known for the abolition of slavery
Georges-Pierre Seurat — French painter of Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, and father of neoimpressionism
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès — French clergyman, philosopher and statesman
Simone Signoret — Academy-award winning French actress.
William Sidney Smith — British admiral of whom Napoleon Bonaparte said, "That man made me miss my destiny".
Paul Signac — French painter
Serge Alexandre Stavisky — French financier
Gertrude Stein — American author
Elisabeta Alexandrovna Stroganova — Francophile Russian aristocrat
Louis Gabriel Suchet — French military commander and Marshal of France

[edit] T

Pierre Alexandre Tardieu - French engraver
Gerda Taro — German war photographer and the great love of Robert Capa, also one of the iconographers of the Spanish Civil War. The monument is by Alberto Giacometti.
Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata — Indian aviation pioneer and industrialist
Thomas Tellefsen — Norwegian pianist and composer
Ruben Ter Minasian — Armenian politician and a revolutionary, member of Armenian Revolutionary Federation ARF Tashnag
Adolphe Thiers — French historian and statesman
Maurice Thorez — French Communist politician
Isaac Titsingh — Dutch surgeon, scholar, VOC trader, ambassador to Qing China and Tokugawa Japan
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 Trintignant — French actress
Maurice Tourneur — French film director
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo — former dictator of the Dominican Republic
Ramfis Trujillo — statesman of the Dominican Republic, son of Gen. Trujillo

[edit] V

Paul Vaillant-Couturier — French political journalist
Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes — French painter
Jules Valles — French writer
Louis Verneuil — French playwright
Claude Victor-Perrin — French military commander and Marshal of France
Louis Visconti — French architect best known for designing the modern Louvre and Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides
Dominique Vivant, Baron de Denon — French artist, writer, diplomat and archaeologist. Located close to Frederick Chopin's grave.

[edit] W

Marie, Countess Walewski — Napoleon's mistress, credited for persuading Napoleon to take important pro-Polish decisions during the Napoleonic Wars. Only her heart is entombed here; her other remains were returned to her native Poland.
Sir Richard Wallace — English art collector and philanthropist
Eduard Wiiralt — Estonian artist
Oscar Wilde — Irish novelist, poet and playwright. By tradition, Wilde's admirers kiss the art-deco monument while wearing lipstick.
Jeanette Wohl — French literary editor, longtime friend and correspondent of Ludwig Börne
Richard Wright — African-American author, wrote Native Son and other American classics

[edit] Z

Achille Zavatta — French comedian
Felix Ziem — French painter

[edit] See also

Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery

[edit] Gallery

Main entrance of Père Lachaise Cemetery	A winding path through the cemetery	Père Lachaise Cemetery in spring	Père Lachaise, Chemin Errazu
Père Lachaise crematorium	Memorial to the dead	Jim Morrison's grave	Marcel Proust's grave
Georges Bizet's grave	Frédéric Chopin's grave	Dominique Vivant, Baron de Denon's grave	Eugène Delacroix's tomb
Honore de Balzac's bust and tomb	Tomb of Marie Trintignant	Tomb of Rossini	Tomb of Cino Del Duca
Symbolical tomb of Maria Callas	Tomb of Michel Petrucciani	Tomb of Colette	Tomb of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Tomb of Luigi Cherubini	Tomb of Georges Courteline	Tomb of Pierre Bourdieu	Tomb of Allan Kardec
Tomb of Sadeq Hedayat	Tomb of Gholam Hossein Saedi	Tomb of Oscar Wilde	Tomb of Henri Salvador and his wife Jacqueline Salvador
Tomb of Moliere	Tomb of Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac