CIMÉTIÈRE DU PÈRE LACHAISE
Père Lachaise |
In its early years Père Lachaise" was a poor district,
with many outlaws, winding streets and shady avenues. It is located
on the hill of Champ 'Evêque", where a wealthy merchant
first built his home in 1430. In the 17th century the Jésuits,
acquired the home and converted it into a hospice for members of
their order. Father François de La Chaise d'Aix - known as
'Le Père La Chaise' was Louis XIV's confessor. Louis XIV’s
had visited the area in 1652, and it was thereafter called Mont-Louis.
By the time Le Père La Chaise died in 1709, the property
had been considerably expanded due to royal gifts. Count La Chaise,
head of the king's bodyguard, also had a place on Mont-Louis, which
was known for its opulent parties with guests who wanted to get
to know the king's confessor better; in order to meet the king.
In 1763 the Jesuits were evicted and the property was purchased
by the Baron family in 1771. The property was destroyed in the Revolution
and the Empire which followed. The 17 acres became the property
of the Ville de Paris. The city was looking for new cemetery locations
and Brongniart the architect got the Pére-Lachaise job, which
was ready for its opening on 21. May. The Paris government had decided
to clear out the cemeteries located near churches in the city and
Pere Lachaise was chosen for those formerly buried in the 5th, 7th
and 8th arrondissements. New cemeteries were needed as an alternative
to the horrendous burial conditions in the city. The fear of disease-causing
"miasmas" from rotting corpses lead to designating new
cemeteries on the outskirts of Paris, in the fashion of the Greeks
and Romans. These included Pere Lachaise . The fear of the stench
from the mass graves of Saints Innocents in Paris lead to the removal
of all human remains and was performed on winter nights over a two
year period, from 1785-1787. The removed bones were placed in the
Catacombs, named after the Roman catacombs. The Paris Catacombs
were abandoned quarries once populated by thieves and the homeless.
The skeletal remains were sorted and stacked neatly by type, modelled
after the example set by Rome. The transfer of other urban cemeteries
to the Catacombs continued until the late 1870s. The Catacombs is
the resting-place for the remains of over six million Parisians.
Père Lachaise |
The Catacombs became a popular novelty for the old nobility who
held dinner parties and picnics underground in the Paris Catacombs.
Pere Lachaise opened as a Cemetery in 1804 and became a very successful
piece of land speculation. Nicolas Frochot, the urban planner who
developed the cemetery, persuaded the civil authorities to rebury
Molière, La Fontaine, Abélard and Héloïse
in his new cemetery. Quickly Père-Lachaise became the ultimate
symbol for the rich and famous as well as an affirmation of the
role of government. Frochot, even sold a plot to the original owner
for considerably more money than the price he had paid for the entire
site. Even today, the fees are extremely high. Some of the most
celebrated dead have unremarkable tombs while those whose fame died
with them have the most expressive monuments. Of the twenty cemeteries
in Paris, Père-Lachaise is the most famous, it now has over
70,000 plots and receives some two million visitors a year from
all over the world. With 44 hectares and 5,300 trees, Père-Lachaise
is also the largest park in Paris. Beyond its primary function,
this famous Romantic-inspired necropolis, designed by Brongniart,
has become an open-air museum and pantheon garden. At first, the
new cemetery was named Cemetery de l'Est. The former owner of the
property, James Baron, was buried in it in 1822 as well as the architect
of it, Brongniart. The cemetery was enlarged five times until 1850.
From the beginning the cemetery has been multi-denominational. Students
from polytechnical schools built the walls to transform the cemetery
into a fortress during the battles of 1814. However, the Russians
captured it on the third assault. During the battles of the Commune
in 1871, fallen 'Federals' were buried here; including those executed
in the cemetery itself and in the battles in the Rue de la Roquette
and the Place Voltaire. A total of 1,018 were killed in the repression.
The oldest identifiable bones in the cemetery belong to Abailard,
who died in 1141 and Héloise who died 23 years later in 1164,
also at the age of 63.
Famous people buried here include authors Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde
and Honore de Balzac, and singers Edith Piaf, Chopin and Jim Morrison
(whose grave is one of the most visited).
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