Père Lachaise Cemetery (French: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise [simtjɛʁ dy pɛʁ laʃɛːz], formerly Cimetière de l'Est, lit. 'Cemetery of the East') is the largest cemetery in Paris, France, at 44 hectares (110 acres). The Père Lachaise is located in the 20th arrondissement and was the first garden cemetery, as well as the first municipal cemetery in Paris. It is also the site of three World War I memorials. The cemetery is located on the Boulevard de Ménilmontant. The Paris Métro station Philippe Auguste on Line 2 is next to the main entrance, while the station Père Lachaise, on both Line 2 and Line 3, is 500 m (1,640 ft) away near a side entrance.
History and description
Origin
The cemetery of Père Lachaise opened in 1804 and takes its name from the confessor to Louis XIV, Père François de la Chaise (1624–1709), who lived in the Jesuit house rebuilt during 1682 on the site of the chapel. The property, situated on the hillside from which the king watched skirmishing between the armies of the Condé and Turenne during the Fronde, was bought by the city in 1804. Established as a cemetery by Napoleon during that year, plans were laid out by Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart; the property was later extended. Napoleon, who had been proclaimed Emperor by the Senate three days earlier, had declared during the Consulate: "Every citizen has the right to be buried regardless of race or religion." After the closing of the Holy Innocents' Cemetery on 1 December 1780 and as the city graveyards of Paris filled, several new, large cemeteries, outside the precincts of the capital, replaced them: Montmartre Cemetery in the north; Père Lachaise in the east; Montparnasse Cemetery in the south and Passy Cemetery in the west. In 1803, the French officials approved the transformation of 17 hectares (42 acres) of Mont-Louis into the Cemetery of the East, and the work was given to neoclassical architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart. He used English-style gardens as inspiration, designing the cemetery with uneven paths adorned with diverse trees and plants and lined with carved graves. He anticipated various funerary monuments but only one was finally built: the grave of the Greffulhe family, in a refined neo-Gothic style.
At the time of its opening, the cemetery was considered to be situated too far from the city and attracted few funerals. Moreover, many Roman Catholics refused to have their graves in a place that had not been blessed by the Church. In 1804, the Père Lachaise contained only 13 graves. The next year there were 44 burials, with 49 during 1806, 62 during 1807 and 833 during 1812. Consequently, the administrators devised a marketing strategy to improve the cemetery's stature: in 1817, with great fanfare, they organised the transfer of the remains of Jean de La Fontaine and Molière to the new resting place. Then, in another great spectacle, the purported remains of Pierre Abélard and Héloïse d'Argenteuil were also transferred to the cemetery along with their monument's canopy made from fragments of the abbey of Nogent-sur-Seine. By tradition, lovers or lovelorn singles leave letters at the crypt in tribute to the couple or in hope of finding true love. This strategy achieved its desired effect: people began clamouring to be buried among the famous citizens. Records show that the Père Lachaise contained more than 33,000 graves in 1830. Père Lachaise was expanded five times: in 1824, 1829, 1832, 1842, and 1850. At present, there are more than 1 million bodies buried there, and many more represented in the columbarium, which holds the remains of those who had requested cremation. The Communards' Wall (Mur des Fédérés), located within the cemetery, was the site where 147 Communards were executed by the French Army during the Semaine sanglante, "The Bloody Week", following the final battles between the Army and the Paris Commune. The Commune soldiers, who had been captured in earlier battles by the French Army, were taken to the prisons of Mazas and la Roquette, where they were quickly tried by military courts and sentenced to death. They were then taken to Père Lachaise, where they were lined up against the wall and shot, and buried in common graves. The site is a traditional rallying point for members of the French political Left. Adolphe Thiers, the second elected President of France, and the first President of the French Third Republic, who led the suppression of the Commune, is also interred in the cemetery.
Crematorium and columbarium A funerary chapel was erected in 1823 by Étienne-Hippolyte Godde at the exact place of the ancient Jesuit house. This same Neoclassical architect created the monumental entrance a few years later.
A columbarium and a crematorium of a Byzantine Revival architecture were designed in 1894 by Jean-Camille Formigé in one building. The roof consists of a large brick and sandstone dome, three small domes and two chimneys. In the 1920s, the main dome was decorated with stained glass windows by Carl Maumejean. The final columbarium is composed of four levels: two in the basement and two exterior levels, both can contain more than 40,800 cases. The crematorium was the first built in France. The first cremation took place on 30 January 1889, a little over a year after the law of 15 November 1887 proclaimed freedom of funerals and thus authorised cremations. Nonetheless, cremation remained uncommon until the end of the 20th century. With the work of anticlerical and free-thinkers (e.g. Charles-Ange Laisant, André Lorulot), the use of cremation became more popular after the overturning of the ban by the Catholic Church in 1963. From 49 cremations in 1889, there were about 5,000 cremations at the beginning of the 21st century. In 2012, cremation represented 45% of funerals in Paris. Inside the columbarium are the remains of numerous celebrities, including the director Max Ophüls and the comedian Pierre Dac. The box inscribed with Maria Callas' name is only a cenotaph.
Religion An 1804 law put in place by Napoleon addressed the question of cemetery organisation relating to religious beliefs. It was required that an entire cemetery be built, or at least a section of a large cemetery should be dedicated to a specific religion. The law of separation of church and state on 9 December 1905 had no impact on Père Lachaise because religious emblems were still allowed on private funeral monuments. The cemetery cross was removed in June 1883.
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