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), 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 20th 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.
Origins
and Héloïse.]] The cemetery takes its name from the confessor to
Louis XIV, Père François de la Chaise (1624–1709), 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.
holds cremated remains.]]
The cemetery was established by Napoleon I in 1804. Cemeteries
had been banned inside Paris in 1786, after the closure of the
Saints Innocents Cemetery (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.
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
A
- Peter Abelard — French philosopher
- Edmond François 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
- François 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
B
- 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 Bécaud — French singer
- Pierre Augustin Béclard — French anatomist
- Vincenzo Bellini — Italian composer; remains later transferred
to Italy
- Judah P. Benjamin — American lawyer and statesman
- Pierre-Jean de Béranger — 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
- Alphonse Bertillon — French anthropologist and father of
anthropometry
- Ramón Emeterio Betances — Puerto Rican nationalist
- Marie François 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-Théodore Brongniart — French architect, best known
for designing the layout of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery
- Pierre Brossolette — French journalist, politician and
Résistance leader
- Jean de Brunhoff — French author of Babar the
Elephant
- Auguste-Laurent Burdeau — French politician and plaintiff in
the Drumont-Burdeau trial
C
- 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 Régis de Cambacérès — French lawyer and
politician
- Giulia Grisi de Candia — Italian opera singer, well known as
"Giulia Grisi", her grave is marked Giullia de Candia.
- 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.
- Alain Clément — French journalist and writer
- 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
D
- 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".
- R. L. Daus — French-American architect
- Honoré 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"
- Gérard 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
- 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
E
- Paul Éluard — French surrealist poet
- George Enescu — Romanian composer,
pianist, violinist and conductor
- Camille Erlanger — French composer
- Max Ernst — German artist
F
]]
- Alexandre Falguière — French sculptor
- Félix 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
- Joseph Fourier — French mathematician and physicist
- Jean Françaix — French composer
- Pierre Frank — French Trotskyist politician
- William Temple Franklin — grandson of Benjamin Franklin
- Loie Fuller — French dancer
G
- Antonio de la Gandara — French painter
- Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès — 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.
- Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou — leader of the Democratic Party of
Iranian Kurdistan
- André Gill — French caricaturist
- Manuel de Godoy — Spanish prime minister and court
favorite
- Yvan Goll — French-German poet and his wife Claire Goll
- Enrique Gómez Carrillo- Guatemalan novelist, journalist, war
correspondent, chronicler and diplomat (born 1873 in Guatemala/died
1927 in France), lived most of his life in Europe; he was the
correspondent to important newspapers in Spain and Argentina;
published 86 books between novels and chronicles of his journeys to
faraway places.
- Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr — French military commander and
Marshal of France
- Zénobe 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
- André Grétry — Belgian-born French composer
- Maurice Grimaud — French Prefecture of Police during May
1968
- Giulia Grisi — Italian opera singer (May 22, 1811–November 29,
1869), her grave is marked under her married name Giullia de
Candia.
- Félix Guattari — French militant, institutional psychotherapist
and philosopher
- 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.
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
I
- Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres — French painter
- Jean-Baptiste Isabey — French painter
J
- Claude Jade — French actress
- Léon Jouhaux — French trade union leader, won the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1951
K
- Allan Kardec — Born Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail, he was the
founder of Spiritism.
- Ahmet Kaya — Kurdish (from Turkey) 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
L
- Jerome Lalande — French astronomer and writer
- René Lalique — French glass designer
- Edouard Lalo — French composer
- 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
- Ferdinand de Lesseps — French architect, designed the Suez
Canal
- Pierre Levegh — French racing driver killed in the 1955 Le Mans
disaster.
- Jean-François Lyotard — French philosopher
M
- 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
- Célestine Marié — French opera singer
- André Masséna — French military commander and Marshal of
France
- Georges Méliès— French filmmaker; produced A Trip to the
Moon
- Émile-Justin Menier — French chocolatier
- Henri Menier — French chocolatier
- Antoine Brutus Menier — French chocolatier
- Maurice Merleau-Ponty— French philosopher
- Cléo de Mérode — French dancer
- Stuart Merrill — American symbolist poet
- 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.
-
Molière — 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 Panthéon
- 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. 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.[]
- 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 and Marshal of
France.
- 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
N
- Félix Nadar — a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist,
novelist and balloonist
- Gérard de Nerval — French poet
- Michel Ney — Marshal of France 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
O
- Pascale Ogier — French actress
- Virginia Oldoini, Countess di Castiglione — famous Italian
courtesan
- Max Ophüls — German film director
- Andranik Toros Ozanian — Armenian military commander and
statesman
P
- 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 novelist, essayist and critic
- Pierre-Paul Prud'hon — French painter
R
- Mademoiselle Rachel — French actress
- François-Vincent Raspail — French scientist and statesman;
remains later moved to the Panthéon
- Henri de Régnier — French poet
- Norbert Rillieux — American engineer, invented the
multiple-effect evaporator
- Étienne-Gaspard Robert — Belgian magician who performed under
the stage name of Robertson
- Jacob Roblès — Famous grave for the medallion Silence by
Auguste Préault
- Georges Rodenbach — Belgian poet
- Jules Romains — French writer
- Gioachino 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
S
- Gholam Hossein Saedi; Iranian socialist
novelist and playwright
- Countess Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry — Salvadoran
writer, wife of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire — French naturalist
- 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
T
- Eugenia Tadolini — Italian opera singer
- François Joseph Talma - French actor
- 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
- Tapa Tchermoeff - First Prime Minister of the Mountainous
Republic of the Northern Caucasus
- 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 — Lt. Gen. in the Dominican Republic, son of
dictator Gen. Trujillo
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.
W
- Marie, Countess Walewski — Napoleon's mistress, credited for
persing 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
Z
- Achille Zavatta — French comedian
- Felix Ziem — French painter
See also
Gallery
References
External
links