Over the years I’ve learned a lot about history and seen any number of unusual sights while wandering in cemeteries as I travel—and that’s been nowhere more true than in Paris, where I’ve visited most of the major necropolises, each with its own character.
There are the vast expanses of Pere Lachaise, the mysterious aura and hidden corners of Montmartre, the closeness of surrounding neighborhoods in Montparnasse, and the pomp of the Pantheon. This time, my visit was to the Passy Cemetery, in the 16th Arrondissement, not that far from the Champs-Elysees, and just across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
Passy’s imposing entrance, above. Its status as a cemetery popular with the fashionable and aristocratic is reflected in a distinction: it’s the only Paris cemetery with a heated waiting room!
Passy is not one of the large cemeteries Paris created in the early 19th century to replace small churchyards and local cemeteries, but because of its location near wealthier neighborhoods, it became popular with the wealthy and aristocratic, and still draws ‘customers’ from that class.
An American in Paris: the star of numerous episodes of the early serial ‘The Perils of Pauline,’ she was noted for doing her own stunts
But, as I wrote in an essay on Montparnasse Cemetery, “Many large cemeteries, and the three major ones in Paris offer a quirky sort of beauty and peace, and also a reminder that no matter how grand our circumstances may seem in life, no one’s footprint in life, even in an elaborate tomb, is that big.”
The last emperor of Vietnam, a daughter of the last Shah of Iran and her grandmother, and Marcel Dassault, France’s biggest airplane manufacturer
And Passy has some big names, especially including exiled royals as well as quite a few well-known ‘upper-crest’ French figures. And, as is always the case, there are some elaborate memorials to people whose fame has not survived their own time.
One of the most elaborate monuments in Passy is that of Marie Bashkirtseff, whose brief life (1858-1884) started with her birth into a wealthy family in Ukraine, continued with their move to Paris where she became an artist, wrote for feminist newspapers, dazzled her fellow intellectuals and died at 25 of tuberculosis. She is best-known today for her posthumously-published diary. Her tomb is a full-sized artist’s studio that has been designated a historic monument.
Like most Paris cemeteries, it’s also a sculpture gallery…
Of course, some of it gets more protection than others…
Some of the memorials have interesting stories to tell and raise interesting questions to ask. What must be the story of this family, with its titles and its family members born in Russia, France, Massachusetts and England.
Sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether you are looking at the ravages of time, poor maintenance, or a suggestion of the mortality of our species and its dreams…
While sculpture is still everywhere in profusion, photography has become a much bigger part of gravesites, and Passy has quite a number; it appears that modern technology has made it more possible.
And yes, that’s the Concorde on the last one; it’s the grave of a heroic flight attendant who didn’t survive the Concorde’s crash in Paris in 2000.
More famous names: the Manet family tomb, home to the painters Edouard Manet and Berthe Morisot as well as Edgar Manet, Morisot’s husband. Below them, the family tombs of the composer and organist Gabriel Faure and of the family of Louis Pasteur, who is himself buried at the Pasteur Institute.
Small mausoleums like the Faure and Pasteur tombs are very much the most popular style at Passy, but with many variations of style… and condition.
Some sites show a good deal of recent attention, with plants and flowers. And some have significant collections of objects laid by family or visitors
The one below served as our One-Clue Mystery this week…
And a few more worth viewing…
And last, a reminder that even mortality, or its commemoration, may not last forever: as in many of the Paris cemeteries, only graves marked like this are guaranteed to stay. A large percentage are leased for a term of years, most often 30. If the family does not renew the lease, the remains can be removed and the plot re-used.
