www.descubriparis.com

Pere Lachaise cemetery

The Père-Lachaise cemetery is located in the 20th arrondissement. It was opened the 21st of May of 1804. It is well-known around the world for its size (one of the biggest of Paris) and history.
Its name derives from a tribute to François d’Aix de la Chaise (1624-1709), also known as Père la Chaise. This man was Louis XIV confessor and influenced him during the war against Jansenism.
Due to the prohibition of cemeteries in the centre of the city, other cemeteries were constructed outside Paris during the XIX century. Nowadays the Montmartre cemetery, the Pere-Lachaise, the Montparnasse and the Passy cemetery are the most important of Paris.

The construction of this cemetery was responsibility of the neo-classical architect Alexander Théodore Brongniart. The chapel and the principal entry, however, were assignee to the neo-classical architect Étienne-Hippolyte Godde.
By the time of the opening the cemetery had 17 hectare and 58 areas. With the pass of the years it become bigger and bigger (1824, 1829, 1832, 1842 y 1850). Nowadays it has 43 hectare and 93 areas. Within the cemetery you will find 70.000 tombs, more than 5.000 trees and thousands of birds that live visit the park. The Pere Lachaise cemetery is visited by more than 2 million persons per year.

Some of the celebrities are buried in this cemetery:

Pedro Abelardo, Guillaume Apollinaire, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Honoré de Balzac, Georges Bizet, Pierre Bourdieu, Jacques-Louis David, Eugène Delacroix, Jules Michelet, Molière, Alfred de Musset, Maria Callas, Marcel Camus, Jacques-Joseph Champollion, Jean-François Champollion, Luigi Cherubini, Frédéric Chopin, Colette, Auguste Comte, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Alphonse Daudet, Honoré Daumier, Yves Montand, Georges Perec, Édith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Gioacchino Rossini, Simone Signoret, Gertrude Stein, Amedeo Modigliani, Jim Morrison, Nadar, Gérard de Nerval, Michel Ney, Sully Prudhomme, Gerda Taro, Adolphe Thiers, Oscar Wilde, Richard Wright, Isadora Duncan, Enrique Gómez Carrillo.

Metro: Pere Lachaise - Gambetta