Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris (44 hectares or 110 acres), though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs. Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement and is notable for being the first garden cemetery, as well as the first municipal cemetery. It is also the site of three World War I memorials.The cemetery is on Boulevard de Ménilmontant .
The cemetery takes its name from the confessor to Louis XIV, Père François de la Chaise (1624–1709), who lived in the Jesuit house rebuilt in 1682 on the site of the chapel. The property, was bought by the city in 1804. Established by Napoleon in this year, the cemetery was laid out by Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, and later extended. Napoleon, who had been proclaimed Emperor by the Senate three days earlier, had declared during the Consulate that “Every citizen has the right to be buried regardless of race or religion”.
At the time of its opening, the cemetery was considered to be situated too far from the city and attracted few funerals. Moreover, many Roman Catholics refused to have their graves in a place that had not been blessed by the Church. In 1804, the Père Lachaise had contained only 13 graves. Consequently, the administrators devised a marketing strategy and in 1804, with great fanfare, organised the transfer of the remains of Jean de La Fontaine and Molière. The following year there were 44 burials, with 49 in 1806, 62 in 1807 and 833 in 1812. Then, in another great spectacle in 1817, the purported remains of Pierre Abélard and Héloïse d’Argenteuil were also transferred to the cemetery with their monument's canopy made from fragments of the abbey of Nogent-sur-Seine (by tradition, lovers or lovelorn singles leave letters at the crypt in tribute to the couple or in hope of finding true love).
This strategy achieved its desired effect: people began clamouring to be buried among the famous citizens. Records show that, within a few years, Père Lachaise went from containing a few dozen permanent residents to more than 33,000 in 1830. Today there are over 1 million bodies buried there, and many more in the columbarium, which holds the remains of those who had requested cremation. A funerary chapel was erected in 1823 by Étienne-Hippolyte Godde at the exact place of the ancient Jesuit house. This same Neoclassical architect created the monumental entrance a few years later. A columbarium and a crematorium of a Neo-Byzantine style were designed in 1894 by Jean Camille Formigé.
Though most of the people buried here had some connection with Paris, visitors will recognize some names that are decidedly not French.You'll find the graves of literary figures such as Honoré de Balzac, Victor Noir, Charles Nodier, Americans Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and Irish author Oscar Wilde. Musicians buried here include Bizet, Chopin, Poulenc, Rossini, and Dukas, as well as opera singers Maria Callas and Edith Piaf, dancer Isadora Duncan, and American rock and roll star Jim Morrison. Artists are among the largest group buried here in Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. They include Pissarro, Modigliani, glass sculptor Lalique, Max Ernst, Delacroix, and sculptor Cartellier. If you're an old movie fan, you'll want to locate the gravesites of Sarah Bernhardt, Yves Montand, and Simone Signoret.
Text Source : wikipedia
