Père-Lachaise Cemetery, the largest and most famous cemetery in Paris was founded in 1804 in the gardens adjacent to Villa Mont-Louis, donated by Louis XIX her confessor, Père Lachaise (Father Lachaise). Hence the name of the cemetery.
In a warm afternoon we went (by metro) to the cemetery. Each of us had a need to visit the grave of their idol or a famous person. It took us a few hours to do so, until a representative of the guards had to drive us out, because at 18:00 the cemetery closes down.
A tittle-tattle: A young journalist Victor Noir was shot down for political reasons in 1870.
Noir became a legend and a symbol of repression against the opposition. In 1891 the authorities of the Third Republic ordered the transfer of the corps to the cemetery Père- Lachaisey (originally he was buried in another cemetery), where his tombstone (a figure of a lying shot dead journalist; life-size, bronze) has quickly become one of the major attractions of the cemetery.
To this day there is a legend that touching the sculpture below the belt (in a place that indicates a generous endowment by nature) and leaving flowers brings women to happiness in love and desired pregnancy.
No wonder that some fragments of the sculpture shine like gold ...
At Jim Morrisson’s grave there always is a group of his fans and at Chopin’s the Polish…
Edith Piaf died as the wife of a Greek in his twenties, who was known as a singer, nicknamed Sarapo. He was killed in a car accident. Who remembers that?
The tomb of Oscar Wilde’s is protected by a glass enclosure because it was vandalized by both by the admirers and the opponents of this great personality.
