The Twentieth Arronsissement - The Pere Lachaise, Where the Journey Ends

Bourgeois Paris may well have shuddered at the mention of Belleville. Even today when
inner cities are being upgraded many still perceive Belleville as unappetising and
remote. Not so the dead: From the start, those very proper Parisians, who when still
alive had taken up residence on the opposite side of the city and would have never set
foot in these accursed parts, were ready to pay astronomical prices for a share in the
most prestigious cemetery in Paris, le Père Lachaise, a spectacular necropolis, opened
in 1804, basically constituting the only museum the 20th arrondissement has to show
for itself. Here the last two centuries of the history of France and Paris are on display
and the ghosts of Tout-Paris enjoy the setting of the largest garden in the capital - 44
hectares - rising above the world of the living to the west, on a lofty hill and that much
closer to heaven... Like all the new cemeteries that were to follow in future years, it was
built, by law, outside the tolls walls which marked the city's boundaries at the time. In
this section, the wall corresponded to the present Boulevard Ménilmontant.

In order to make a commercial success of the venture, the 19th-century bourgeoisie had
to be persuaded to allow their remains to be transferred to the eastern edge of Paris -
not yet the place of evil reputation it would become later but certainly remote. The Prefect
of the Seine Frochot resorted to an astute promotional campaign which, by playing on
human vanity, naturally worked: by putting up for sale in perpetuity land grant property, he
was sure to arouse interest among self-engrossed Parisians, and by setting prices so
high that only the upper crust could afford them, he made the new cemetery both
desirable and fashionable. And when Frochot further transferred to this site the remains
of glorious past celebrities - notably those of the medieval lovers Peter Abélard and
Héloise and those mistaken for La Fontaine and Molière's - everyone was taken in by it,
including Frochot himself, who rests in division no. 19, Brogniart, the architect of the new
cemetery and of the Paris stock exchange, and Godde who built the cemetery gate.
Jacques Baron, the previous owner of the grounds, paid a very high price to rest here:
After having been squeezed out of his grounds for a pittance by the hard-bitten Frochot,
the poor man was made to pay 300 times the amount for his own little plot of 5 square
yards! Balzac, who had buried here several of his characters, was brought here in his
turn, despite his biting account of the place and its clients:

"This is a disgusting comedy! this is once again Tout-Paris with its streets, its
signs, its industries, its townhouses, but seen through the wrong end of the spyglass, a
microscopic Paris, reduced to the small dimensions of shadows, of larva, of the dead, a
human race that has nothing great left but its vanity."

He must have had in mind the extravagant monuments erected for the dead in a
delirium of self-aggrandisement. The best artists of the day, the very same who were
commissioned to embellish Paris - Percier and Fontaine, Viollet-le-Duc, Garnier,
Visconti and Davioud - were now recruited to inflate the egos of the deceased and build
for them bombastic mausoleums.

The cemetery has been extended several times since it was first acquired by Frochot in
1804 on behalf of the City of Paris. Part of the grounds belonged to a wealthy spice
merchant, Régnault de Wandonne in the 15th century, who himself had bought it from
the Bishop of Paris. The estate came to be known as La Folie-Régnault because the
proprietor had built there a folie (countrified residence). When the Jesuits bought it in the
17th century as a country retreat from their city dwelling on the busy rue Saint-Antoine,
they renamed it Mont-Louis, in homage to the Sun King who had given the Jesuits his
full support. The King had chosen his own confessor from among their ranks, the
Reverend Père François d'Aix de la Chaize - hence the name Père-Lachaise given to the
estate later. The Jesuits did not sustain their influence over Louis XV and were expelled
from France in 1763, following which the Mont Louis was bought up by private people
and fell eventually into the hands of the Baron family and the above mentioned Jacques.

But the Père-Lachaise also houses more heroic monuments, such as the memorials to
the deportees and Resistance members of World War II. in spring 1871, it became the
battlefield of the last episode of the Commune, the civil war between the Paris working-
classes, known as the Fédérés or Communards, and the bourgeois Versaillais who
had set up their government in Versailles, from where they stormed the city. To the
execution, by the Communards, of 52 hostages, on the nearby rue Haxo, the Versaillais
responded with unspeakable violence. Retreating from central Paris to the Père-
Lachaise, the Fédérés stood their ground heroically, taking shelter in some of the vaults
, from where they were dislodged tomb by tomb till finally they had their backs against
the eastern wall of the cemetery which also marked the eastern boundary of Paris. 147
men, women and children were lined up and shot in front of the cemetery wall. They
were given no sepulchre; instead they were thrown into a common pit, together with 871
fellow Communards who had been shot in the vicinity. This was cherry time, and the
fighters' sweethearts picked some for their lovers to wear behind their ears, bright red
like the Commune. It was in their honour that Le Temps des Cerises, the still very
popular love song written three years earlier by Jean-Baptiste Clément in Montmartre,
became the hymn of the Commune. The last barricade fell on 12 June on the corner of
rues Ramponneau and Tourtille. Only one National Guard had been left to defend it. Le
Mur des Fédérés remains one of the most poignant sights in the cemetery and is still
home to emblematic commemorations.

It would be impossible to list the celebrities who rest here ó Frédéric Chopin, Edith Piaf,
Yves Montand are some of the favourites, as well as Jim Morrison. Not to mention the
graveside of the journalist Victor Noir, who was shot dead in 1870 by Pierre Bonaparte,
a cousin of Napoléon III. This was during a heated political argument over the
capitulation to Prussia. For some unfathomable reason, his bronze effigy became the
object of a fetishistic cult, induced by the belief that caressing it would cure women of
sterility. The shiny patch you may notice around its protruding phallic region is the result
of years of tactile devotion. But perhaps the most publicised tomb is that of Allan Kardec,
real name Denizard-Hyppolyte Rivail, whose Book of Spirits is carried in the bookshop
at 10 Avenue de Père-Lachaise and was dictated, according to its author, by the spirits
of Socrates, John the Evangelist, Fénélon, Benjamin Franklin, Hahnemann (the inventor
of homeopathy), Swedenborg and Napoleon. Kardec started out as a rational science
teacher, before getting involved in spiritism. He used up all his savings to self-publish
the book, but recovered his expenses in no time, made a nice profit, and was
furthermore showered with glory.
The Anglo-Saxon community pays its respects to Oscar Wilde, some visit Isadora
Duncan's grave, few Sir Richard Wallace's, unaware that he is the man behind the
numerous iconic green fountains that grace the city and are known as 'fontaines
Wallace (pronounce Valace)'. Distinguished representatives of the fine arts and science,
music and dance, literature, architecture, the stage and the screen, the armed forces
and politicians are gathered here under the shade of 12,000 trees, alongside more
ordinary Parisians. As befitting the orderly French, they have chosen to complete their
earthly journey in the 20th arrondissement, at the end of the snail-shell-like layout of
Paris, l'escargot de Paris. The streams of daily visitors (this is the sixth most visited site
in the capital) enjoy recognising the original bearers of so many of the street names
down below by stopping at their graves, thus perpetuating their memory and piecing
together fragments of the history of Paris.