Cemetery of the Father-Lachaise

The cemetery of the Father-Lachaise is largest Cimetière of Paris intramurally and one of the more famous in the world. Located in the 20 {{E}} district of the city, of many famous people is buried there.

History

One of the seven hills of Paris, called Field-the Bishop because it belonged to the Moyen-âge with the bishop of Paris, took at the 12th century the name of Mount-with-Vines, for the cultures that one realized there then. In 1430, a rich person trading of the name of Régnault de Wandonne bought the field in order to make there build a house cossue: a madness . It is the origin of the name of the current street of the Madness-Regnault in XIe.

Two centuries later, the Jésuites acquire the ground to make of it a place of rest and convalescence. The house accommodates even a few hours the young king Louis XIV come to attend on these heights engagements at the time of the Fronde. This event will give to the place the name Mount-Louis. But the most famous occupant was François of Aix of the Chair (1624 - 1709), known as the Father the Chair , confessor of the king de France Louis XIV, which exerted a moderating influence on this one in the fight against the Jansénisme. He will remain there of 1675 until his death in 1709.

The count of the Chair, brother of the father Jesuit, gave many festivals on the field, which contributed to its enlarging and its embellishment. But in 1762, the Society of Jesus was forced to yield the ground because of a debt of the Père of Jacy. With the passing of years, the gardens were left with the abandonment and the owners followed one another, to return, the 9 Ventôse An XI with the prefect of the Seine, Nicolas Frochot, against the sum of 180 000 francs.

With closing on December 1st, 1780 of the Cemetery of Innocent the, in late application of the law of 1765 prohibiting the cemeteries downtown, Paris started to miss places of burials. Napoleon Bonaparte, then consul, issued that “each citizen has the right to be buried whatever his race or his religion ”, regulating the case of the non-believers, excommunicated, the actors and the poor. At the beginning of the 19th century several new cemeteries out of the limits of the capital were thus created: the Cemetery of Montmartre in north, the cemetery of the East, the Cemetery of Montparnasse in the south and, in the west of the city, the Cemetery of Passy.

The prefect of Paris issued the transformation of the 17 hectares Mount-Louis into cemetery of the East. The design of the cemetery was entrusted to the neo-classic Architecte Alexandre Theodore Brongniart in 1803. As an general inspector as a chief of the second section of public works of the department of the Seine and town of Paris, Brongniart will draw the main roads in the form, for the first time, of an immense garden to English, with the broken alleys, equipped with trees and plants for the gasolines various and bordered of carved burials. It will project monuments of which finally none will be carried out, except for the burial of the Greffuhle family, with the purified neo-gothic style.

The May 21st 1804 (1st Meadow Year XII), the cemetery was officially opened by a first burial: that of a five year old little girl, Adelaide Paillard of Villeneuve, girl of a carry-bell of the Suburb Saint-Anthony. It in the beginning was intended for Parisian of the one of the four districts of the Right Bank (the 5 {{E}}, 6 {{E}}, 7 {{E}} and 8 {{E}} of the time), in Common grave or perpetual Concession. But the cemetery did not have the favor of the Parisian ones, which balked to be made bury on heights, moreover out of Paris, and in a district considered popular and poor. In 1804, the Father-Lachaise counted only 13 tombs. The following year, there were only 44 of them, then 49 into 1806,62 in 1807 and 833 in 1812. In 1817, to regild the image of the cemetery the town hall of Paris organizes the transfer of the skins of Héloïse and Abélard, as well as Molière and the Fountain. One did not have any more: in 1830, one deducted: 33000 tombs. The Father-Lachaise knew five enlargings at that time: in 1824,1829,1832,1842 and 1850. Those enabled him to pass from 17 Hectare S 58 Are S (: 17580 m ²) with 43 hectares 93 ares (: 43930 m ²) for: 70000 tombs: 5300 trees, a hundred cats, a birdcage of birds and two million visits.

Famous sculptors and architects will make of this place a true museum as of the 19th century: among them, Guimard, Garnier, Visconti, Ribald or Barris. The vault as well as the principal gate of then (Boulevard of Ménilmontant) were designed by the neo-classic architect Etienne-Hippolyte Godde in 1823 and 1825. David of Angers created the majority of the monuments of the “ District of the Marshals of Empire ”. It is only at the end of the century, in 1894, which work began from the Columbarium and the Crématorium, in a style Néo-Byzantine adapted by Jean Camille Formigé.

At the time of the Common of Paris, in May 1871, the Father-Lachaise was the theater of a true civil war, because of its strategic localization on the hill. The Fédérés installed their artillery in full heart of the cemetery, but were quickly encircled by the Versaillais of Thiers on a side and the German S of the other. The 147 survivors were shot the May 28th 1871 front the wall which took then the name of Mur of Federate the, in the south of the cemetery.

Buried celebrities

See also: List of famous people buried with the cemetery of the Father-Lachaise

Monuments

In addition to the tombs, the cemetery shelters monuments dedicated to a personality or a group of people.

Imre Nagy, First secretary of the Hungarian Communist party in 1956. Monument set up by the Hungarian League of the Human rights in 1988, at the time of the 40e birthday of its execution.
municipal Personnels of the Town of Paris
enormous a Mausolée, in which Adolphe Thiers rests, was carried out beside the vault.

See too

Internal bonds

List of famous people buried with the cemetery of the Father-Lachaise
List of the famous cemeteries
Wall of Federate the
Cemetery and environment
Cemetery Saint-Véran with Avignon.

External bonds

virtual Visit of the cemetery
Cemetery of the Father-Lachaise (site of the Town of Paris)
Plane of the cemetery of the Father-Lachaise (site of the Town of Paris)
Cemetery of the Father-Lachaise
Site on the Father-Lachaise
the Father-Lachaise of 1984 to our days
Guided visits by Bertrand Beyern
romantic Walk with the Father-Lachaise
Sensuality carved of the Father-Lachaise
Association of the Friends and Impassioned of the Father-Lachaise

the Father-Lachaise on Google Maps
Photographs of famous tombs

Random links:

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