On a beautiful fall day, a walk through one of the three big cemetaries it is one of the best strolls in Paris. Baudelaire, Dreyfus, Man Ray and the man of Statue of Liberty fame, Frédéric Bartholdi are all buried here. But, one tomb stands out over the many, that of Charles Pigeon. The French inventor who started out working at the Bon Marché before he opened his own shop on rue du Cherche-Midi selling lamps. During the late 19th century, lamps would easily catch on fire and he set out to fix that. Inventing the gas lamp, that wouldn’t explode in 1884 brought him fame and fortune. In 1909 his wife would die, and six years later in 1915, Charles himself would pass. Having purchased the plot in 1905, they were interred together following his death. Before he died he commissioned French sculptor Caveau to create a bronze monument to grace the top. His wife on her deathbed is clutching a flower, while Charles props himself up on the bed with pen and paper in hand. Is he coming up with a new invention, writing her last words or pledging his love to her one last time, we will never know. Above their head is an angel watching over them holding up one of the famous Pigeon lamps. Their eternal love is rather sweet, captured in bronze and tells us a story of a man we would most likely never know or even look into if it wasn’t for the monument he left behind. Located in the Petit cemetery, in division 22.
Charles Baudelaire, the French author had an opinion on everything and everyone back in his day. Quite the dandy around town, he was known in just about every group of Paris. In 1857 he wrote Les Fleurs de Mal, a collection of short essays many with racy themes, so of course it became one of his best known pieces. Baudelaire also lived in just about every neighborhood in Paris, relying at times on the help of friends. He died on August 31. 1867 at 46 years old. He was laid to rest in the tomb of his parents, but one grave wasn’t good enough. Later his fans didn’t think his grave was fit for the great writer and had another monument created. The L shaped grave is topped with a bust of a thinking man as he looks out and over the mummified body below. The family grave is in division 5 and the cenotaph is on the back wall of division 26 and 27, both in the Grand cemetery. (the Petit also has divisions 26 & 27 to make it more confusing)
Other graves not to miss include Jean Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir, together for eternity. Jules Dumont d’Urville, the man that discovered the Venus de Milo. One of my favorite artists, Henri Fantin-Latour who deserves a beautiful bronze bouquet of flowers and Charles Garnier, the architect behind the Palais Garnier.
Montmartre
After the Cimetière des Innocents was closed in 1780 and the remains mostly used to fill the Catacombs, the Parisians were looking for a new place to bury their loved ones. The next few weeks in honor of spooky Halloween, I will share with you some of my favorites from the big three cemeteries of Paris. A few of the famous residents and a few you may not even know.
On January 1, 1825 the Cimetière des Grandes Carrières also known as the Cimetière du Nord officially opened. During the Revolution the old gypsum quarry was a mass grave at the base of Montmartre. Spreading out over 28 acres the Cimetière Montmartre is as much a part of the neighborhood as the historic Moulin Rouge.
One of the biggest names in the cemetery is of course Dalida. The Italian-Egyptian singer moved to Paris and became an international star. Sadly her life was filled with tragedy including her very own ending. On May 2, 1987 she overdosed on barbiturates, washing it down with whiskey leaving behind a note saying, “life is unbearable to me, excuse me”. She was just 54 years old. Her tomb is hard to miss and fitting for the Egyptian beauty. Created by Alain Aslan who also did the bust of her in Montmartre at Place Dalida. The full size statue stands in front of a marble wall with a golden sun behind her head. For more Dalida check out our podcast episode about her. You can’t miss her in division 18.
Edgar Degas, the great Impressionist painter, but didn’t like to be called one lays near the eastern wall in division 4. The first thing you notice is the name. The family plot is marked with his birth name, De Gas. The artists known for his paintings of the ballet dancers, lived most of his life in Montmartre taking artists under his wings including Suzanne Valadon and Mary Cassatt.
You will also come across a large tomb dedicated to Émile Zola in division 19. Topped with a bust of the writer with some pretty fantastic hair, he looks over his family that lay at rest in the red marble tomb. Zola himself was moved to the Pantheon in 1908. A friend and supporter of Manet, but best known for his involvement in the Dreyfus affair causing him to flee France for a time. Zola died on September 29, 1902 from carbon monoxide poisoning. Thought to be an accident, later a roofer confessed in the final moments of his life that he shoved linens into his chimney for his political views.
Pere Lachaise isn't any cemetery, it is the final resting place of some of the most notable people in French history. Père-Lachaise gets its name from the confessor of Louis XIV Père François de La Chaise, who lived in a house near the chapel built in this spot in 1682 until his death in 1709. On May 21, 1804 the land was reopened as a cemetery at the time far outside of Paris and called Cimitiere de l'Est. Rather unpopular due to the distance, few wanted to hold funerals or burials there.
The very first burial on June 4 was of 5 year old girl Adelaide Paillard de Villeneuve. In 1805 somebody had an idea to move some famous names to Père-Lachaise. Two of the first of these famous people to find their way there were two of France's masters of words. The playwright Molière and fabulist Jean de La Fontaine. Two large gravesites were erected side by side, although none of their remains are actually here, which is common amongst the more than one million people interred within the walls of Père-Lachaise. It isn't just famous people, anyone can be buried at Père-Lachaise which was also a first when it opened. With Moliere and Fontaine along, people clamored to spend eternity there. Colette, Pissarro, Ingres, Balzac, Delacroix, Géricault, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf and Victor Noir are just a handful of the names you can visit. I always have an ever running list of tombs to search out.
You can almost hear the beautiful notes of one of his Nocturne’s floating in the air as you get close to his tomb. Frédéric Chopin, the Polish virtuoso made Paris his home and staked his claim to the Romantic Movement of the 19th C. Arriving in September 1831 after his plans to move to Italy was thwarted by the Revolution through the country. Having a hard time getting a visa to France from Poland, he reached out to the French and was able to get a visa that stated he was “passing through on his way to London”. He never arrived in London staying in Paris the rest of his life and became a citizen in 1835. His life was filled with friends like Delacroix and Liszt and lover George Sand, but it was his music that still fills the air today. Between 1830 and 1832 he would write three of his most famous pieces, Nocturne Op 9. The twinkley and graceful notes were written when he was just 20 years old. No 2 is one of the most recognized pieces of music in the world and is what I play many times in the background as I sit and write.
Like the many great artists Chopin would die at a very early age. Rarely performing publicly and falling ill over the last few years of his life at 36 he would die of tuberculosis.
Before he died Chopin planned out his funeral down to the last detail. He wanted it to be held in the Eglise de la Madeleine and Mozart's Requiem to be performed and this is where it all came screeching to a halt. At the time women were not allowed to perform in the church and it took almost two weeks for the church to give in and allow Jeanne-Anais Castellan and Pauline Viardot to perform, although they had to hide behind a black curtain.
Delacroix served as a pallbearer for his friend and would remember him in a painting that he had painted of him before he died that is now in the Louvre. Buried in Pere Lachaise in a grand tomb by Jean-Baptiste Clèsinger, son-in-law of his former lover George Sand. A marble Euterpe, the muse of music cries over a broken lyre. As he was lowered into the ground his very own funeral march, sonata no 2 was played. While his body lies in Père Lachaise in division 11, his wish was to have his heart buried in Poland.
Louis Visconti came from a long line of archaeologists and art lovers and enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and began to study under Charles Percier, a man that would also leave his mark on one of my favorite buildings in Paris. During his teaching Percier was also walking over the newly built Pont des Arts to the Louvre where he was working under Napoleon Bonaparte breathing new life into the former palace of the kings. Visconti was taking it all in and when he finished school he began working for the city of Paris as architect of the 3rd and 8th arrondissement and their monuments. While his old teacher worked under Napoleon it was Visconti who was tasked with the job in 1840 to transform the city for the arrival of the former emperor's ashes as they returned to their final resting place. Visconti was also asked to create the sarcophagus that lies under the dome of Les Invalides holding Napoleon. One of my favorites, the Fountain of the Four Bishops in front of Saint-Sulpice with their angry lions guarding the parve was also from the mind of Visconti.
In 1851 Napoleon III asked Visconti to complete the design of the Palais du Tuileries and join the building to the Louvre. Immortalized in the painting by Jean Baptiste Tissier, Visconti is presenting his design to the Emperor and his wife Eugénie where you can see his plan of joining the two palaces creating a royal residence and offices for the second empire. It was the perfect job of Visconti in a place he loved. As a child his father was named the curator of antiquities and paintings of the Musée Napoleon, later known as the Louvre. Visconti would grow up inside the Louvre and it would be the final project he never finished. Dying in 1853 of a heart attack he would never see his vision of the Louvre come to life.
His tomb with a marble reclined image of Visconti over a bas relief of the “New Louvre” was designed by Victor Leharivel who also worked alongside Visconti on the Louvre and can be found in division 4
Listen to the full episode today with even more history of the inhabitants of these historic cemeteries.