Qualla: Père Lachaise Cemetery

Père Lachaise Cemetery: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Uticencis, CC BY-SA 4.0. Nobody wanted to be buried here at first. When Père Lachaise opened in 1804 on a windswept hill in what was then far-eastern Paris, Parisians considered it too remote and too unfashionable. In desperation, the city's prefect arranged for the remains of Molière and La Fontaine to be transferred here, followed by the supposed remains of the medieval lovers Héloïse and Abélard. The marketing worked. Within a few years, Père Lachaise had become the most desirable resting place in the city, and within decades, the most famous cemetery in the world. Today, more than 3.5 million visitors walk its cobbled lanes each year -- more than many of Paris's living neighborhoods attract.

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Image: Uticencis | CC BY-SA 4.0

Père Lachaise Cemetery: The King's Confessor and Napoleon's Decree

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simon Billouet, CC0. The cemetery takes its name from Père François de la Chaise, confessor to Louis XIV, who lived in the Jesuit house on this hillside from the 1680s. The property had a longer history: Louis XIV himself watched skirmishing between rival armies during the civil wars of the Fronde fr...

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Image: Simon Billouet | CC0

Père Lachaise Cemetery: A City in Miniature

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jaykaum, CC BY-SA 4.0. Walking Père Lachaise feels less like visiting a graveyard than like wandering a hillside village whose residents happen to be dead. The 44 hectares contain over 70,000 burial plots, many of them elaborate stone houses, Gothic chapels, and classical temples in miniature. Cobblest...

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Image: Jaykaum | CC BY-SA 4.0

Père Lachaise Cemetery: The Roll Call

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Val-Lacinq, CC0. The list of those buried here reads like an encyclopedia of Western culture. Frédéric Chopin lies beneath a weeping muse, his grave perpetually covered with fresh flowers. Oscar Wilde's tomb, a massive winged sphinx by sculptor Jacob Epstein, was for years smothered in lipstick k...

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Image: Val-Lacinq | CC0

Père Lachaise Cemetery: Blood on the Hill

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nicolas Sanchez, CC BY-SA 2.5. Père Lachaise holds darker history as well. On May 28, 1871, the last defenders of the Paris Commune made their final stand among the tombstones. Government troops cornered 147 surviving Communards against the cemetery's eastern wall and executed them on the spot. Their bodies we...

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Image: Nicolas Sanchez | CC BY-SA 2.5

Père Lachaise Cemetery: The Living Garden

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mark Jaroski, CC BY-SA 3.0. For all its famous residents, Père Lachaise is also a functioning urban ecosystem. The cemetery supports one of the richest concentrations of biodiversity in Paris -- over 250 plant species, along with populations of foxes, hedgehogs, and dozens of bird species that thrive in the...

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Image: Mark Jaroski | CC BY-SA 3.0