Cimetière de Montmartre

Cimetière de Montmartre 

We visited a number of famous people today, some perhaps not as famous as wealthy… all of them quite dead.

While I wouldn’t think visiting a cemetery to be a way to spend a pleasant afternoon, the Cimetière de Montmartre possesses an undeniable charm. Most of the residents, or their families, were obviously unhappy with the idea of being interred under a simple headstone to mark their final resting place. They required architects, stonemasons, sculptors and structural engineers to create an edifice sufficient to their memory or station in life. Many included chapels for others to pray for their departed souls. A good portion of those interred were indeed worthy of such significant tributes.

Apparently no one wants any of the residents to escape either. The approximately 300 by 500 meter plot is surrounded by a four meter high stone wall with precisely one entrance that’s guarded better than a Florida gated community; except pedestrian traffic is allowed free, unfettered entry.

Cimetière de Montmartre has street signs and a master listing of its famous residents if your intent is to visit someone specific.

Despite all of this intention, the city has grown up around the site over the years including constructing a four lane bridge over one corner that denies quite a number of graves even a remote chance at seeing the sun. 

Since the Montmartre area is quite hilly, the cemetery is terraced in multiple levels requiring a number of stairways and retaining walls to maximize the real estate density.

Below are some of the famous and noteworthy tombs we found during our pleasant stroll. I’d like to thank the residents for being so accommodating, allowing the simple pleasure of marveling in the different ways one can be honored well past their last breath of
Parisian air.

The painter, Des Gas (grave on left) had the good fortune to be buried next to a Polish / Russian princess. I think both of their monuments are fitting to their position and style.

Actually, one of the most tragic in my mind, yet beautifully memorialized is the ballet dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky, depicted in one of his roles, Petruskia. Nijinsky battled severe mental illness most of his life yet was nearly universally acclaimed as the finest dancer of his century.

Hector Berlioz was an ikon of classical composing, having lived 1803 to 1869.

Jacques Offenbach, though a famous classical composer, was perhaps best known the world over for the what was popularized as the "Can Can" associated with the baudy days of the Moulin Rouge and cabarets in general.

No this is not Charlton Heston's grave. It is however the grave of one Daniel Ifla Osiris, of Moroccan descent, a Jewish banker who was decorated by Isabella the Catholic of Spain for his financing the Spanish railroads, and beloved among Parisians for building a Synagogue in Paris.

Pictured at the left is the grave of Alexandre Dumas, fils. He was the illegitimate son of Alexandre Dumas the writer of novels such as "The Three Musketeers". A writer as well, he is most famous for "The Lady of the Camellias", which become the basis for the libretto for the Giuseppe Verdi opera "La Traviata".

I'll leave you with one of the most beautiful and soulful sculptures in the entire cemetery. It was a tribute to Ludmilla Tchérina, a prima ballerina, actress, sculptor, painter and novelist of note in each of these disciplines who died in 2004.