Who's Buried In Paris?

The simple answer to the question that is the title of this post is "a whole lot of people." The detailed answer for me is a whole lot more fun.

Paris is one of the great cities in the world to spend time roaming around cemeteries. Maybe that sounds like a strange vacation activity to some people but for me, there are people buried in Paris who I want to say hi to, even if they maybe can't really hear me (I'll leave it up to you to decide whether they can or not). There are people buried all over France's capital city but the best ones are in the graveyards. I mean sure they have amazing churches where you can get within sight of Victor Hugo's or Napoleon's tomb or actually touch the final resting place of Marie Curie, but the real fun is spent in two of the world's greatest burial grounds: Père Lachaise (founded in 1804) in Paris' 20th Arrondissement and Montparnasse (founded 20 years later) in the city's 14th.

If you decide to go looking for someone in each of these wonderful burial grounds, chances are they are located on the maps that these places make available to tourists. You can find Père Lachaise's online and you can borrow a laminated hard copy of Montparnasse's when you show up there (a copy is also available online here). Want to know where Jean-Paul Sartre, Oscar Wilde, Camille Saint-Saëns or Edith Piaf ended up? They are all on the maps along with 169 other folks. But once you get there, there's no guarantee they are easy to find. They aren't marked with big neon signs or even small non-neon signs. There's some fun to be had hunting among the rows of tombs to find whomever you are looking for. Just a warning, though: you may come away disappointed. Some of these graves are overgrown with moss or other plants and you may have to leave without spotting your favorite author or composer or artist. We looked for Guy de Maupassant in vain in Montparnasse and eventually just gave up.

Now I didn't go to Paris to see the graves of Sartre or Wilde or Saint-Saëns or Piaf. I wanted to visit some folks more famous than these four and some who were a whole lot more obscure. And we had to get some significant help to find two of them I wanted to find. Unfortunately, there was nobody right there to help with Maupassant. Below are my top ten. I hope you will make your own and find your own special meaning in these two amazing places.

10. André Citroën (1878-1935), Montparnasse

I wrote on this blog years ago that I'm not much of a cars guy. And it's true, I'm really not. But I'm sort of fascinated by these little cars that roam around Europe that you can't get in the United States. And Citroëns, the namesake automobile of the guy that we found buried along the main path on the east side of Montparnasse Cemetery (Montparnasse is split in two halves by rue Émile Richard), are little cars that are all over the streets of Paris.

Citroën, whose name means "lemon" in Dutch (yep that's just a random note) started his automobile company in 1919 after supplying armaments to the French forces during World War I. His main claim to fame as a pioneer was as the inventor of the double helical gears, which apparently were revolutionary and which I'm not even going to attempt to explain here because I can't really begin to understand this stuff. After all, I'm not a cars guy. If we'd have found Maupassant, Citroën would probably have gotten bumped off this list. We didn't, so he's on it.

9. Georges-Eugène Haussmann (1809-1891), Père Lachaise

If there's one man responsible for the character of much of the city of Paris today, it's Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the Emperor Napoleon III's hand picked guy to expand the city limits and redefine the nature of monuments and parks in the city. If you find yourself walking through a park in Paris or down some grand boulevard that connects one magnificent structure to another, odds are Haussmann is responsible for it in part or in whole.

Under his command, workers in Paris spent from 1854 to 1870 building parks, train stations, markets and civic monuments and creating wide streets to connect them all logically.  Of course, widening streets involved wholesale demolition of large sections of the city, displacing about a quarter of a million business people and residents alike without any sort of argument or appeal process. I can imagine Haussmann was not a guy to be trifled with and I'm not sure I would have liked him, but there's no doubt I enjoy what he did some 150 years or so later. He's buried in the Haussmann family crypt near the main entrance of Père Lachaise.

8. Charles Garnier (1825-1898), Montparnasse

One of the signature works of Haussmann's rebuild of Paris was the new Opéra in the city's 9th Arrondissement. Charles Garnier was the architect of that building and it was by far the piece de resistance of his career. In fact, if he hadn't designed that building, I wouldn't have looked for him this past September.

Now I'm an architect by profession so wouldn't it be natural to include Garnier a little higher up the list? Well, yes. But, no. Despite the fact that I love the Paris Opéra building and so desperately want to see a real opera there one day (note: I WILL be going back to Paris at some point), the design of the building itself, and probably Garnier himself, was pretty backward looking considering it was designed and constructed at the dawn of the industrial revolution. He could have done so much more with changing technology and industrial production techniques considering it was the most important commission in the city at that time in history. Because he didn't, he's at number eight on my list.

Garnier's grave is a little difficult to find. It's not on the edge of one of the sections of the cemetery and takes some hunting. We almost gave up here but ultimately obviously didn't need to since we snapped the pic above.

7. Stéphane Grapelli (1908-1997), Père Lachaise

6. Laurent Fignon (1960-2010), Père Lachaise

Stéphane Grapelli and Laurent Fignon are both in the columbarium of Père Lachaise and can be located by knowing the location number of the boxes that contain their ashes. Grapelli is number 417; Fignon is number 1445. They are placed here together on this list not because they are both in the columbarium but because I went to seek each of these guys out not for myself but because of my dad.

My dad has a few great loves in life. One of those is jazz and another is cycling. Grapelli covers the jazz side of things and Fignon takes care of the cycling. For this post anyway.

Stéphane Grapelli is notable as a jazz man not only because he played the violin which is typically not considered a jazz instrument but also because he founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt, who invented a uniquely French style of jazz called gyspy jazz or jazz manouche. Grapelli and Reinhardt played together from 1931 (before the Quintette) until 1939 at the outbreak of World War II and then again briefly after the War. Jazz manouche still exists in Paris; we tried to find it with little success. Maybe next time...

Laurent Fignon, who died all too soon at the age of 50, was a two time winner of the Tour de France bicycle race in 1983 and 1984, an annual contest which my dad spends three weeks each July watching pretty much daily. Fignon almost won a third in 1989, losing to Greg LeMond by just eight seconds, the closest Tour de France ever held. I have more interest in cycling than jazz; I used to go watch bike races with my dad in the late 1970s in England and I keep track of the Tour de France each year because of him but I just haven't gotten into jazz at home yet (although I can listen to it live). Because of this, Fignon finishes ahead of Grapelli.

5. Gustave Doré (1832-1883), Père Lachaise

By and large, I hated English class in high school. To me, this is a little bit odd because I like writing and I love reading when I find the time to do it today. Maybe it was the subject matter or the forced nature of learning stuff or having to appreciate everything on a deeper level with foreshadowing and symbolism and man vs. man/nature/himself and all sorts of stuff like that. Above all else in English class, I hated poetry because I just didn't (and still don't) get it.

But there were things we were forced to read in high school that I liked and one of them surprisingly enough was a poem: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I liked this work so much that my mom bought me an illustrated version of it for Christmas or my birthday (as I recall it) one year. The illustrator of that book was Gustave Doré and ever since I received that book from my mom, I've loved his work.

Doré illustrated a number of famous works of literature in a variety of styles. His works for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner are dark and cold and creepy and filled with eerie symbolism. They are perfect to look at while reading along and they reinforce the loneliness and desperation that the mariner is feeling while searching for his salvation. Since the day I cracked that book my mom gave me, I've held Gustave Doré in high esteem.

Doré's resting place proved incredibly difficult to find. We spent a good 15 minutes or so going back and forth along the rows of graves in the section of Père Lachaise where the map showed Doré buried. While we searched there was a guy obviously watching us which was honestly a little concerning until he asked us who we were looking for and took us right to Doré's grave. I suppose he was just there to help us although we didn't know it. Good Samaritan I guess. Sometimes you need people like that when you are traveling.

4. Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), Père Lachaise

If I'm not much of a jazz fan (and I'm not), I'm only probably slightly more into classical music. But whereas I couldn't express a preference for jazz beyond a particular style (partial to dixieland and blues, if you allow me to call blues jazz), when it comes to classical music, I definitely have composers I love. Ludwig van Beethoven is definitely my number one guy. Second is probably Gioachino Rossini. Both composed instantly recognizable works which are loud and forceful. They hit you over the head so to speak, which I sometimes need.

If you claim you don't know any of Rossini's work, you are probably wrong. Think the Lone Ranger theme (Rossini's William Tell overture) or the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry gets that horrendous haircut (Rossini's Barber of Seville is the basis for that episode and the music playing is from that opera). Rossini's overtures have appeared in Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry cartoons and his Thieving Magpie plays in the background of one scene in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. You might not be able to name the work, but you know Rossini. Trust me.

Rossini was Italian and spent his early years rising to fame writing in that country. But in 1824 he moved to Paris and spent the rest of his life (44 years) living in France. When he died he was buried in Père Lachaise just two spots up the hill from Georges-Eugène Haussmann. His tomb (shown above with the name partially obscured by the trees) still stands in Père Lachaise but his remains are no longer there. They were moved to the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence nine years after his death.

3. Jim Morrison (1943-1971), Père Lachaise

I first visited Père Lachaise in mid-December 1994 on the first trip of my life to Paris. It was cold and there's not a whole lot of daylight there at that time of the year and the cemetery seemed completely empty that day. I remember seeing not a single soul within the graveyard walls that day until I got to Jim Morrison's grave. Where I found about eight people milling about just looking at the grave. I have to believe Morrison's grave is the most popular grave in Père Lachaise.

Jim Morrison, of course, was the lead singer of The Doors. He's buried in Père Lachaise because he died in Paris from what was documented as heart failure at the age of 27. Morrison had taken a leave of absence from The Doors after the release of what would end up being their last studio album, L.A. Woman. You won't be able to really miss Morrison's grave. It's one of the only ones (or perhaps THE only one) in the whole cemetery which is fenced off. By the orderly way stuff is arranged on top of the headstone, it doesn't look like the fence is effective in keeping all of the people away from the grave. It wasn't this way in 1994 and it's too bad they have to do this.

I like The Doors a lot. I have all their albums and I think Morrision Hotel is one of the best albums ever made. But Morrison lands at number three on my list because there are two others that I would visit before Morrison in these two cemeteries.

2. Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904), Montparnasse 

I've written a couple of times in this blog about my love for the Statue of Liberty. Bartholdi is the man responsible for taking Lady Liberty from an idea to a reality. And yes, I realize the photograph of Bartholdi's grave is the worst one on this post. His grave is the floating shadowed angel in the center of the photograph.

While Bartholdi was an accomplished sculptor who executed a number of commissions throughout his life, nothing comes close to the fame afforded to him by the two decades plus he spent working on Liberty Enlightening the World. If he hadn't been involved with the Statue of Liberty, I would have had no idea who he was and wouldn't have sought out his grave. I love pretty much everything about the Statue. It's one of my favorite works of anything in the world and I love that I was able to stand near what used to be Bartholdi.

1. Auguste Perret (1874-1954), Montparnasse

Everyone I have written about so far in this post I was able to find either by looking at the official cemetery maps or by searching on the internet. I could not, however, find Auguste Perret. So I went to Paris with just a hope that someone, somewhere would be able to point me in the direction of his grave. Lucky for me, there's an office at the main entrance of Montparnasse which can help.

Auguste Perret is one of my favorite architects of all time. His most famous works were produced during the time between the start of the industrial revolution and the blossoming of full blown Modernism with a capital M. It is my favorite period of architectural history because the struggle these architects were having coming to grips with new materials and methods of manufacturing produced amazing works of architecture. Perret pushed the envelope on concrete construction, one of those processes that the Romans seemed to have mastered but which we as people totally forgot after the collapse of the Roman Empire. If I had a Mount Rushmore of architects, Perret would be one of my first choices along with the Dutch architect H.P. Berlage and two others, one of whom would likely be Frank Lloyd Wright although I'd have to put more thought into that one than I have writing this blog post.

My search for Perret's final resting place the day we visited Montparnasse started with a "Nous cherchons Auguste Perret." The rejoinder as I remember it was "Is he famous?" and yes, it was in English. After a "yes" and an "I've never heard of him" the search was on. By the time my conversation with the man in the cemetery office was over, I had a map to Perret's grave and a promise that he would always remember Perret from that point forward. In case anyone else out there is ever looking for Perret, I'm posting the map at the bottom of this post.

The map got me to approximately the right spot and it took less than five minutes to find the grave, which turned out to be the family grave of Perret's wife, although I noted Perret got top billing. This find meant something to me. I've always been someone who has had heroes and Perret is one of the very few architects that fall into that category. I paused standing at his tomb and let him know that he was one of my favorites and a source of inspiration. He was one of the only two graves I talked to in Paris (along with Bartholdi). Hopefully that doesn't make me too weird. 

Notwithstanding our failed attempt to find Maupassant, roaming around these two cemeteries was one of the best things we did in Paris. There are some people buried here who have changed my life in some small way and so finding where they ended up meant something to me. The other great thing about doing this? It's free. Even if you just want to walk around and look for a few minutes rather than seek out someone specific, I'd highly recommend some time in one or more of these two spots. You might find someone with a personal connection to you. I never imagined I'd find as many as I did.

The map to Auguste Perret's grave. Area 27. 12 graves from the south edge; 14 graves from the west.

City Of Light

Paris is often referred to as the City of Light, a reference possibly to its role in the Age of Enlightenment or more probably because it was one of the first cities in the world to adopt the use of gas lighting city-wide, thus making it literally lighted. The first patent for a gas lamp was issued in 1799 and by 1820 Paris had made the decision to install gas street lighting throughout the city, phasing it in over the next few decades. This technology transformed the city at night by the mid-nineteenth century.

We made plans to do a number of different things at night on our recent trip to Paris, including eating out, going to the symphony at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées and spending a couple of nights in some jazz clubs throughout the city. On our nights without plans, we made a point to pay tribute to Paris' name as the City of Light and make our way to a monument in the city, see how it was illuminated at night and snap a quick picture before heading home and to bed. This post is a result of those nightly sojourns. All photographs were snapped with my iPhone and I think some turned out pretty well.

Eiffel Tower

The famous french writer Guy de Maupassant used to say that he liked to eat at the restaurant in the Eiffel Tower because it was the only spot in the city where he couldn't see the Tower. We took a cue from Maupassant on this trip and deliberately did not visit the city's most famous monument. But we couldn't resist taking a Metro ride to the Trocadéro station to get a glimpse of the Tower at night.

The best place to see the Eiffel Tower is across the Seine to the north right between the two wings of the Palais de Chaillot. Take a quick walk from the Metro; dodge between the street vendors selling miniature lighted Eiffel Towers and other things you don't need; and you'll find yourself (likely with a hundred or so other people there to see the same thing) gazing right down the Champs de Mars where the 1889 Exposition Universelle was held. The last remaining survivor from that fair 127 years ago is the almost 1,000 foot high tower designed by Gustave Eiffel which is directly in front of you. The Tower is spectacular at night but getting a great picture with a simple camera is somewhat difficult given the distance and the absolute contrast between the lighted structure and the dark sky behind.

Paris Opéra

If I were to ever have a bucket list (and I won't ever), seeing an opera in the what is now called the Palais Garnier (but which I will forever refer to as simply the Paris Opera) would be on it. And not just any performance; something by Puccini or Rossini would have to do it for me. On this trip, I struck out. But I did stop by the building at night to see what it looked like in the lights of Paris.

The architect Charles Garnier was awarded the commission for the Opéra in 1861 after a seven month long public competition process. The building, which Garnier dubbed Second Empire style, took more than 13 years to design and build and opened on December 12, 1874. To me, it is THE classic opera house in the world and served as the setting for Gaston Leroux's novel (and I guess Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical) The Phantom of the Opera.

Of the five spots we went to snap some nighttime pics, the Opéra was probably the least impressive from a photography standpoint. Sure the building is lit, but it's not spectacular. But the main issue with getting a great picture at night is that to get far enough away to get the entire front face of the building in the frame requires shooting it across a minimum of about three lanes of traffic. That might be overcome if the dome of the building, which is one of its more impressive features, were illuminated but it's not. Ultimately, for a theatrical performance house, it's not lit very theatrically.

Musée du Louvre

When Louis XIV moved the royal residence of the king of France from Paris to Versailles, the former residence, the Louvre Palace, became a place to display the French royalty's art collection. Turns out that function stuck. Today the Musée du Louvre is the world's second most visited museum in the world (after the Palace Museum in China). Just like the Eiffel Tower, we tried to stay away from the Louvre but the lure of cutting the line with our Paris Museum Pass and fighting our way through the crowds to see the Mona Lisa was just too much. And yes, that's all we did here. The art for me is from the wrong period; give me 20th Century all the way!

The main entrance to the museum is through the 1989 mostly underground addition to the Museum designed by world famous architect I.M. Pei and the 68 foot high glass pyramid that forms the centerpiece of that design now serves as a magnificent front door. The pyramid caused a lot of folks a good deal of consternation when it was proposed. I visited the Louvre for the first time in 1994 and instantly fell in love. The placement of this object in the open sided court of the former Palace seems so delicate and light compared to the rest of the building.

We found the pyramid to be lit in a gorgeous purple color at night and we could get close enough to photograph it quite impressively. It probably helped that it wasn't quite fully dark when we arrived; you can see the cloudy almost night sky in the background behind the pyramid. I tried taking photographs both frontally and at an angle but found the straight ahead shot of the pyramid focused on the main entrance facade to work the best; I love how the dome of the old Palace building fits into the top of the pyramid perfectly.

Notre-Dame de Paris

You can blame this entire post on this one photograph. We didn't plan on making nightly trips out to monuments in the city before we arrived in Paris. In fact, we didn't even consider it when we got there. It was only after we decided to take a walk one night over to the Île de la Cité to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame and stuck around long enough to see the lights turned on that we first got this idea.

Of the five buildings we visited at night, Notre-Dame de Paris is clearly the oldest. In fact, with its construction starting in 1163 (!!!), it's older than the other four buildings in this post combined. This is the first time in three visits to Paris that I didn't set foot inside the Cathedral and yes, just like the Louvre (which we didn't resist enough) and the Eiffel Tower, that was intentional. This trip was about exploring Paris a little bit off the beaten path. A little bit, not a lot.

The picture of Notre-Dame de Paris is probably the best photograph I took while in Paris. We spent about an hour or so looking at the west facade of the church while the sun sunk behind us and the lights came on, illuminating the main elevation of the building slowly at first while the lights warmed up and then ultimately in a warm glow after about 20 to 30 minutes. The setting sun got us a bright light blue sky to offset the bright yellow Cathedral wall while a number of people like us stood watching the night descend in the unlit plaza.

Sacré-Coeur

On our first full day in Paris, we climbed as far up the dome of Sacré-Coeur, the late 19th/early 20th century Catholic Church, as they would allow us to go. On our last full day in Paris, we returned to the highest point in the city of Paris where the church sits to see what the place looks like at night. The result is above. 

Sacré-Coeur looks old but it's not. Not by Paris standards, anyway. It was erected from 1875 to 1914 to commemorate the French defeat at the hands of the Prussians (read: Germans) during the Franco-Prussian War. Does it seem odd to build a massive church to commemorate a lost war? It did to me too but apparently the Church thought it appropriate to blame the loss to the Prussians on the moral decline of the French in the approximately 100 years since the French Revolution. The church, I guess, was to remind the Parisians that God was watching. The Germans, of course, would be back twice in the next 70 years.

The stairs leading up to the front doors of Sacré-Coeur are apparently a popular place to sit and watch the sun set. Unfortunately for us, we arrived just about the time when night fell after an excellent meal of duck confit at the nearby Au Soleil de Montmartre restaurant. As a result, it looks like there's some sketchy mob waiting to storm the church. Other than the crowd (and the tree at the left of the frame, I guess) I like this picture. You can see the detail in the church's facade and I like the splash of muted color in the copper statues and the red banners. It's no picture of Notre-Dame de Paris, but I like it all the same. It was a good spot to spend some time on our last night before heading home. 

These nightly sojourns were a fun way to get out and see things in an almost totally spontaneous way. It was such a good idea, I'll probably make a list next time before I go. :)