Père-Lachaise Cemetery is the largest and best-known cemetery in Paris. The list of those buried there reads like a Who's Who, from the 12th century to the present day.
Here is a sampling of the famous people buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery:
—Abelard and Heloise,
theolgian and nun, star-crossed 12th century
lovers
—Cubist/surrealist poet Guillaume Apollinaire
—Actress Sarah Berhhardt
—Composer Georges Bizet
—Opera singer Maria Callas (Her
ashes were in a niche in the Père-Lachaise
Columbarium, but were later scattered over
the Aegean. The niche still bears her name.)
—Pianist and composer Frédéric
Chopin
—Félix Faure,
President of the French Republic 1895-99
—Jean de la Fontaine,
17th century author of fables
—Stéphane Grappelli,
jazz violinist
—Joseph-Ignace Guillotin,
credited with introducing a painless and dignified
form of capital punishment to France
—Georges Haussmann,
engineer and city planner, rebuilder of much
of the city of Paris in the 1800s
—World-famous French mime Marcel
Marceau
—Amédéo Modigliani,
Italian painter and sculptor
—Molière, 17th
century playwright and actor
—Singer and actor Yves Montand (with
Simone Signoret)
—Jim Morrison, American
singer (the Doors); his tomb is one of the
most visited
—Édith Piaf,
French singer and cultural icon
—Impressionist painter Camille
Pissarro
—Writer Marcel Proust,
best known for À la Recherche du
Temps Perdu (Remembrance of Things
Past)
—Banking baron Edmond James de
Rothschild
—American author Gertrude Stein (with Alice
B. Toklas)
—Irish novelist, poet, and playwright Oscar
Wilde
That's just the beginning! Here are more famous people you might want to look up during your visit to Père Lachaise.
Métro: Gambetta (recommended) or Père-Lachaise
Père-Lachaise Cemetery website
