Created at the height of the revolutionary turmoil, Picpus cemetery is the only private necropolis in Paris still in operation. It consists of an enclosure closed to the public and a small adjoining cemetery, visible through the gate that separates it from the cemetery. The enclosure contains two mass graves where the bodies of the 1,306 people guillotined on Place de la Nation (formerly Place du Trône, then renamed Place du Trône renversé) between 14 June and 27 July 1794 were piled. The cemetery is reserved solely for members of the victims' families, who purchased the property by subscription in June 1802. Leased since 1804 to the nuns of the Congrégation des Sacré-cœurs de Jésus et de Marie et de l'Adoration Perpétuelle, the land still belongs to the heirs of the original subscribers. In the six weeks it was in operation at La Nation, the guillotine claimed more victims - 1,306 compared with 1,120 - than in the previous thirteen months, when it had been installed on the Place de la Révolution (now the Place de la Concorde). The fall of Robespierre on 29 July 1794 put an end to the executions. Among the 80 people guillotined on the days of 14 and 16 June 1794 were General Alexandre de Beauharnais, Josephine's first husband, the sixteen Carmelite nuns of Compiègne (who inspired Bernanos to write his ‘Dialogue des Carmélites’), the poet André Chénier and the farmer-general Jean-Joseph de Laborde, who had helped finance the American War of Independence. The names, coats of arms and mottos of many French aristocratic families can be found on the graves. Among these is the tomb of La Fayette, over which the American flag flies permanently. It was at Picpus cemetery on 4 July 1917, Independence Day, that Colonel Stanton, in the presence of Marshal Joffre, pronounced ‘La Fayette, nous voici’.
