Père-Lachaise: Cemetery to the World

Each year, nearly three million people from around the world visit Père-Lachaise Cemetery located on the east side of Paris. Though a historic landmark, the cemetery continues to hold around 10,000 funerals and memorial services annually, which is remarkable given that only about 100 plots become available each year (many citizens are unaware that there are openings at all). The largest green space within the city limits, the graveyard also serves as a park with kilometres of roads and pathways. All these facts indicate how this site is important to the people of Paris, but why is the Père-Lachaise Cemetery a popular tourist attraction? Among the hundreds of thousands interred there are famous figures, not just from French history, but figures who belong to the world.

Location
16, Rue du Repos, Paris
20th Arrondissement

The land was purchased to be Paris’s first municipal (and nondenominational) cemetery under the rule of Napoleon. In 1803, the Neoclassical architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart patterned the cemetery after an English garden, also making it the city’s first garden cemetery. For the first time, middle-class families of Paris could acquire permanent burial plots marking their graves. When it opened in 1804, however, Parisians were sceptical. Unlike today, people did not flock to the cemetery, neither to visit nor to bury their dead. Some convincing would be needed.

Long before it housed a cemetery, the land held the country estate of Father François de La Chaise, confessor to Louis XIV. When Père-Lachaise opened, it was called simply the East Cemetery (Cimetière de l’Est). The name change, in honour of Father de La Chaise, didn’t occur until 1894 and was likely an attempt to draw reticent Roman Catholics to the cemetery. It was not the first marketing ploy used, and by this time the burial site had gained in popularity.

When the new cemetery initially failed to draw patrons, its governors devised a marketing strategy based on the assumption that Parisians would want to bury their loved ones next to the tombs of famous people. Thus in 1817, they moved the remains of renowned playwright Molière and fabulist Jean de La Fontaine to the new gravesite. And later that year, the remains of Heloise and Abelard, often billed as the French Romeo and Juliet, joined them. The tale of the 12th-century lovers is a tutor-pupil romance complete with scandalous liaisons, pregnancy, a secret marriage, and of course tragedy leading to a permanent separation as the two retired to cloistered lives in the Roman Catholic Church.

While some contemporaries doubt that the actual remains of these celebrities reside in their Père-Lachaise tombs (they had all been previously relocated, sometimes more than once), the strategy seemed to pay off. Not only did they help boost cemetery bookings, but Heloise and Abelard also became one of the many tombs with a tradition or superstition. After their separation and a dozen years of silence, the two began a letter correspondence that lasted until Abelard’s death. Today, lovers and those seeking love often leave letters at the tomb in either tribute to the pair or in hopes of a blessing on their romantic endeavours.

Many of the approximately 70,000 plots house the remains of everyday Parisian citizenry, but it’s the graves of the cemetery’s famous inhabitants that draw visitors from around the world. Buried among the tombstones are such French legends as chanteuse Edith Piaf, stage star Sarah Bernhardt and mime Marcel Marceau. You can download official itineraries that focus on different themes, including famous women, gastronomic personalities, literary figures and musicians.

One graves map on offer is for the most-sought-after graves. Leading the list of popular stops are several expatriates, including Polish composer Frédéric Chopin and Irish author Oscar Wilde, but the most visited grave is arguably that of American rock star Jim Morrison. The grave for the Doors’ front man has garnered attention from rock enthusiasts, and not all of it positive. Grave markers have been stolen and vandalized multiple times, so officials have blocked the grave off. The current plate bears an inscription that can be translated as “True to his own spirit”. Visitors still leave flowers and various mementos, including chewed gum, which is stuck to a nearby tree in the spirit of “sticking it to the man”.

Music-loving visitors to Chopin’s tomb tend to show their respects more reverently or at least traditionally, with colourful flowers. The tomb, which bears a bust of the Romantic composer in relief, is noted for the beautiful statuary atop it. The Greek Muse of music, Euterpe, sits weeping over a broken instrument.

The tombstone of Oscar Wilde, like the man himself, proved controversial. Jacob Epstein’s Egyptian-themed sculpture of a winged messenger was judged too well-endowed for public display in 1914, and numerous attempts were made to cover up the privates until they went missing altogether in 1961. In the 1990s, visitors took to paying homage to the witty playwright by leaving lipstick kisses on the tomb. But the kissing and cleaning of makeup began to damage the stone’s finish. A plexiglass barrier (paid for by Ireland’s Office of Public Works) now surrounds the monument, but you’ll still likely find lipstick prints thereabouts.

Like Oscar Wilde’s monument, the statue on Victor Noir’s tomb inspires both kisses and eyebrow raises. As an intermediary in his editor’s duel proceedings, journalist Noir was shot at the age of 21 by Prince Pierre Bonaparte. The young unknown quickly became a symbol of revolution. In tribute, Jules Dalou sculpted a life-size bronze for Noir’s grave, showing him as if just fallen after being shot. Dalou endowed the statue with a noticeable bulge in his trousers, and Victor Noir became a posthumous sex symbol. Several superstitions arose, the chief among which stating that kissing the statue on the lips and rubbing it below the belt will bring a woman fertility and/or satisfaction. The attention the statue gets is evident by the areas that remain copper toned while the rest has oxidized green.

Visitors also love to touch the back of the neck on Allan Kardec’s bust while making a wish. The abundant flowers adorning the Father of Spiritism’s grave are said to be left by people whose wishes have come true.

While obviously a place dedicated to death, Père-Lachaise is also a verdant space teeming with life. The English-garden layout contains both French-style garden beds as well as wild plant species that have thrived since caretakers abandoned phytosanitary treatments in 2015. The 106-acre park is home to over 4,000 trees with representatives from 80 different species. Some trees date back over a century. Maples, cedars, boxwoods, limes and ashes make up the most common varieties. Among the more remarkable specimens are two Ginko biloba, also known as the 40 crowns tree for the vibrant golden colour its leaves turn in autumn.

The gingkoes are not the only splashes of colour amidst the foliage. Violets dot the ground, and bittersweet nightshade produces both purple flowers and crimson berries. Other wild herbs and flowers add pink, yellow and white to the mix. The garden has two separate flowering seasons, one in spring and one in summer.

And amid this generous flora, animals of almost 140 different species make their homes. During the daytime, the most visible are the 62 species of birds that nest among the many trees. You can spot woodpeckers, blackbirds, thrushes and Eurasian jays, to name but a few. You may also see one of approximately 20 stray cats, some friendly and others feral, skulking about keeping all those avian residents in check.

Many of the other creatures making their home here are mainly nocturnal, such as owls, the common pipistrelles (a microbat), weasels, hedgehogs and most famously foxes. The foxes of Père-Lachaise came to notoriety during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to the cemetery’s curator, Benoît Gallot, who chronicled their return on his Instagram account. Gallot, who lives at Père-Lachaise with his wife and children, has also written a book, La Vie Secrète d’un Cimetière (The Secret Life of a Cemetery).

In a 2021 interview with Mon Petit 20e, he shared, “The most incredible moment was meeting a fox cub during the first lockdown, when I was wandering around to check on a grave. We were in the middle of a lockdown and, unfortunately, funeral activity was very high in an overall climate of anxiety. Seeing that foxes were living and breeding in the middle of Paris was a great relief at a complicated time, because for the first time in weeks, we were no longer talking about the dead of COVID, but about life in the cemetery.”

As you think about visiting Père-Lachaise, an important thing to keep in mind is that the site is more than just a historical landmark; it’s a functioning cemetery where people come to worship, grieve and reflect. Be courteous and respectful. Those with limited mobility should be aware that some areas of the cemetery can be difficult to access, such as old cobblestone or dirt pathways.

• How much does it cost to visit Père-Lachaise Cemetery? Admission to Père-Lachaise is free. No tickets are needed.
• What are the cemetery opening times? The memorial park is open seven days a week, including holidays. Opening hours typically run from 8 a.m. (9 a.m. on Sunday) to 6 p.m., but the gates close at 5:30 p.m. from November to March so make sure to double-check the hours before you go.
• How do I book a Père-Lachaise Cemetery tour? The cemetery does not provide tours itself, and there are no official or endorsed tour vendors. You can find third-party tour coordinators on sites such as Get Your Guide. Francophones can use Balades Paris Durable, a free app that provides a walking tour of the cemetery on foot; it’s available in the App store and Google Play, but only in French.
• Where can I stay nearby? You can easily find affordable hotel accommodations at the Aparthotel Adagio Access Paris Philippe Auguste, a short walk from the west side of Père-Lachaise near Jim Morrison’s grave, or at the ibis Paris Père Lachaise, which is about a block from both the cemetery and metro.

As you explore the individual and family graves, make sure to include some of the memorials that reach beyond the borders of France, such as those dedicated to plane-crash victims, to victims of the Holocaust or to foreign soldiers who died fighting for France. But in this place of sorrow, remember to also enjoy the beauty of nature. As Mr. Gallot says, “There is more than death in the cemetery”.