Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris

Père-Lachaise is a working cemetery spread across 44 hectares, and it is Paris’s largest burial ground. Its winding garden setting began in 1804, when Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart planned the layout with uneven paths, varied trees and plants, and sculpted tombs. The cemetery opened with only 13 graves, but a bold attempt to attract attention transformed its fortunes: in 1817, the remains associated with Molière, Jean de La Fontaine, Abélard and Héloïse were transferred here in public ceremonies.

By 1830, the grounds held 33,000 tombs, and the cemetery was enlarged five times. François d’Aix de La Chaise, the Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV, gives Père-Lachaise its name; he lived on this estate from 1675 until his death in 1709. Look at the monumental entrance: Étienne-Hippolyte Godde designed its semicircular gate with paired pylons, winged hourglasses, torches and floral garlands, completed in 1825.

Inside, the cemetery contains the crematorium built in 1894, the earliest facility of its kind in France, as well as a columbarium. It also preserves the Communards’ Wall, where 147 members of the Paris Commune were executed in 1871. This is both a place of burial and a landscape shaped by memory, ceremony and public history.