At once a Parisian monument, an immense 44-hectare park and an open-air museum, the Père-Lachaise cemetery is an inexhaustible source of pleasure for walkers, with over 3 million visitors every year. Here's a closer look at the must-sees in this unique place in Paris.
The most popular cemetery in Paris, Père-Lachaise is also the most coveted, and many personalities have the honor of spending eternity there. A stroll among the graves plunges visitors into a truly atypical exploration of French and international cultural heritage: Honoré de Balzac, Colette, Eugène Delacroix, Raymond Radiguet, Maria Callas, Sarah Bernhardt... the list of personalities resting here is long, with more than 40 singers, 40 composers, 75 painters... and many more!
In 1817, Héloïse and Abélard, the amants maudits, were the first celebrities to enter the cemetery, which was still new at the time. The adjoining remains of Molière and Jean de La Fontaine followed in the same year, although for various reasons, we're not sure it's really them under the stone... As for Frédéric Chopin, his body rests here... but not his heart (which is in Poland). The composer, afraid of being buried alive, had asked for this organ to be removed...
When you come across a few madeleines resting on a stone, it's because you've arrived at the grave of Marcel Proust, and if you see a willow tree just opening, it's because you've arrived at the grave of Alfred de Musset, who was particularly fond of this tree. The grave of Jim Morrison is one of the most popular, attracting crowds of admirers on the anniversary of his death, every July 3. Other witnesses to our history are the different walls dedicated to our fallen, such as the Mur des fédérés.
Far from the gloomy image of cemeteries, Père-Lachaise is also a place for romantic strolls, featuring amorous... and even erotic ornamentation!
A stone sphinx topped by gigantic wings announces the tomb of Irish writer Oscar Wilde, banished to his homeland for a homosexual kiss and exiled to France at the end of the 19th century. Over the years, the sphinx has naturally been covered with lipstick stickers and amorous graffiti...
Another recumbent does not rest easy! The grave of Victor Noir, a journalist killed during the Commune, is adorned with a mortuary statue carved just as the body of the deceased was found: lying on his back, with a peculiar prominence under his pants. This was followed by a number of popular beliefs about fertility, making this burial the most visited by female visitors, as evidenced by the very localized wear of the sculpture...
For a stroll among the cemetery's other rascals: Felix Faure, the former president who died in the midst of adultery, Guillaume Apollinaire**, who is only a few meters from his mistress Marie Laurencin, buried with their love letters on her heart, or Edith Piaf, whose husbands or lovers are buried nearby.
Finally, this immense garden, at once refined and wild, offers surprises for the eyes at every turn, so varied is the flora. More than 5,000 trees dot the cemetery, including a 12-metre-high, century-old maple tree, a horse chestnut with a circumference of 3.45 metres, also a century old, and numerous rarities such as a wig tree, a gutta-percha and two ginkgo biloba trees!
Admirable sculptures also contribute to the cemetery's aesthetic appeal, bearing witness to a true funerary art: a couple reunited for eternity, a grieving widow, a soldier in battle or a man holding his wife's head in his hands are just a few examples of the many architectural originality of Père-Lachaise's approximately 70,000 graves. In addition, the cemetery's vast size means that it can be explored in a whole new way, with vast, well-maintained alleys and unexplored nooks and crannies, particularly precious in summer.
From season to season, the Père-Lachaise cemetery presents an ever-changing face. Romantic in spring, mysterious under the winter snow or colorful in autumn, the cemetery undergoes a metamorphosis throughout the year, much to the delight of photo enthusiasts and strollers alike!
Would you like to discover all the mysteries of the personalities buried in Père-Lachaise? Call in a specialist. Great stories and little anecdotes will no longer hold any secrets for you.
