Cemetery of Picpus

The cemetery of Picpus is the only private cemetery of the town of Paris (France). It was created on a ground yielded by the convent of Chanoinesses of Saint-Augustin during the French revolution.

History

The cemetery is located at a few minutes of the place of the Nation where the Guillotine was set up during the Terreur in 1794. This place, in the past called place of the Throne had been renamed “place of the reversed Throne”. Between on June 13rd and on July 28th, 55 people per day were carried out there. A pit was dug at the end of the garden and the bodies decapitated there were thrown, noble, mixed nuns, merchants, soldiers, workmen and landlords. A second pit was dug when the first was full. Names of more: 1300 people who were buried there are written on the walls of the vault. Among: 1109 men appear 108 noble, 108 ecclesiastics, 136 monks (legal profession), 178 soldiers and 579 commoners. Among the 197 women, there were 51 noble, 23 nuns and 123 commoners. Slaughter ceased when Robespierre itself was decapitated. The garden and its pits were then surrounded by a wall.

Among the women, sixteen Carmelite nuns, old from 29 to 78 years, were led together to the singing scaffold of the anthems. They were béatifiées in 1906.

In 1797, the garden was sold in secrecy with the princess Amélie Zéphyrine de Salm-Kyrburg (wife of Aloys Antoine de Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen), whose brother Frederic II of Salm-Kirburg had been buried there. In 1803, families whose members had been carried out bought the remainder of the ground in order to establish there a second cemetery close to the common graves. Many of these noble families still use the cemetery like place of burial. One also finds there commemorative plaques in memory of the members of these families which were off-set and died in the camps during the Second world war.

The marquis of Fayette, died of natural death, is buried there, an American flag floating above his tomb. Every July 4th, the embassy of the United States comes to pay homage to him. It is buried beside his wife, whose sisters and mother appear among those which were decapitated and thrown in the common graves.

The entry of the cemetery is located 35 rue de Picpus, in the 12 {{E}} district. In the very simple vault, held by the sisters of the Sacred Heart, one can see a small sculpture of the 15th century, full with smoothness, which with the reputation to have cured Louis XIV of a grave disease.

Famous tombs

Fayette
Andre Chénier, guillotine on Thermidor 7 Year II in the pits with Picpus
1306 victims of the Terror between the June 14th and the July 27th 1794
the Carmelite nuns of Compiegne, guillotinées and buried in one of the two common graves
Jean-Antoine Roucher (1745-1794), poet, receiver of gabelles, guillotine on Thermidor 7 Year II (see engraving the last cart )
Alexandre de Beauharnais, guillotine on Thermidor 5 year II (July 23rd 1794)
Frederic II of Salm-Kirburg, German prince, colonel of the German troops, ordering battalion of the Fountain-Grenelle, brother-in-law of the prince Aloys Antoine de Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and brother of Amélie Zéphyrine de Salm-Kirburg, guillotine 6 messidor Year II (July 23rd 1794).

See too

the Conspiracy of the prisons

External bonds

History of the cemetery
Page of the site of the embassy of the United States in connection with the tomb of the general of Fayette

References

Random links: