Oscar Wilde, Honoré de Balzac, Fryderyk Chopin, Amedeo Modigliani, František Kupka and the Communards

I'd like to share an experience with you. As I sometimes write, I like Oscar Wilde. I decided to visit his grave on a visit. Yes, I have visited many cemeteries, but this one was really large not only in area but also in its "cast". There are a number of personalities here that have influenced both my life and my thinking. Apart from the writer Oscar Wilde, there is also the singer Edit Piaf, the singer Gilbert Bécaud, the classical painter Honoré de Balzac, the composer Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, our painter František Kupka, the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, the frontman of the band "The Doors" Jim Morrison, and also the painter Camille Pissarro and many others. I tend to avoid cemeteries, but sometimes, when I visit a cemetery, I get a kind of perspective for a while, and I also get some priorities in life straightened out. If only the time hadn't escaped so much.

The Père Lachaise Cemetery (literally meaning "father (páter) Lachaise") is the largest cemetery in Paris (43.93 hectares), located in the eastern part of the city in the 20th arrondissement, and one of the most famous cemeteries in the world. The name of the cemetery comes from the name of Father François d'Aix de Lachaise, from whose garden the cemetery was created. The cemetery was declared a national monument on 26 June 1993. There are about 70 000 graves and about 5300 trees.

The land on the outskirts of Paris was purchased by the Jesuits in 1626. Between 1674 and 1709, François d'Aix de Lachaise, a Jesuit priest and confessor to King Louis XIV of France, had a house with a large garden on the site. When the Jesuits were expelled from France in 1763, the land became the property of the state. The cemetery was founded by General Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804 and the first burial took place here on 21 May 1804. Nicolas Frochot, the prefect, was entrusted with the administration of the cemetery and was instrumental in making it the final resting place of the upper classes. He had monuments, statues and tombstones erected in the then empty cemetery, which had been confiscated from the nobility and the Church during the Great French Revolution. In the first year, 13 graves were established here, a year later (1805) there were 44, in 1806 49, in 1807 62 and in 1812 already 833.

Good investments and famous names

In 1806, Prefect Frochot had the coffin containing the remains of Queen Marie Louise, wife of Henry III, discovered during the demolition of the old convent near Place Vendôme, transferred to the cemetery. In 1817, he managed to obtain for the cemetery the remains of the philosopher Abélard and his mistress Heloise and the alleged remains of Molière and La Fontaine. Although the remains of the two writers turned out not to be genuine a few years later, the cemetery had gained notoriety in the meantime. Thus, in the 19th century, it became fashionable for the upper classes to acquire a tomb in this cemetery. Napoleon, too, expressed his wish to be buried at Père Lachaise during his exile on the Isle of St Helena. However, Napoleon is buried in the Invalides in Paris. In 1830, the cemetery already had some 33,000 graves. During the first half of the 19th century, the cemetery was expanded in five stages (1824, 1829, 1832, 1842 and 1850) to its present 43.93 hectares and divided into 97 wards.

French Cadets and Communards

As the cemetery is located on a strategically elevated hill, two battles were fought here in the 19th century. In 1814, the cemetery was the site of a battle between Russian troops and cadets from French military schools. The French were defeated and the Russians set up a military camp here. Another battle took place here in 1871. The Communards fortified themselves in the cemetery and resisted the government troops for four days. After the fall of the Paris Commune, 147 surviving prisoners were shot at the wall at the northeast corner of the cemetery on May 28, 1871. The wall is located in Ward 97 and there are also a number of memorials to victims of Nazi concentration camps in the vicinity.

This sacred place is a place to contemplate personal or social events, but it can also be a place to rest. Indeed, given the abundance of beautiful sculptures under the canopy of tall trees over a large area, it is a place that is literally mystical. And when you investigate a little time in Paris, definitely visit it.

Jan Vojtěch