[Overview of Montparnasse Cemetery. Photo is mine]

I unfolded my laminated map of Paris and scanned the green spaces. In three minutes I found what I wanted.

Paris has three large and notable cemeteries within the city boundaries. They are:

~~Pere Lachaise. Perhaps the most famous. This the final resting place of many notable French artists, poets, musicians and others. I won’t even attempt to provide a list of who lies in these hallowed grounds. Collette, (the woman novelist), Jim Morrison (yes, the Doors front man), Marcel Marceau (it’s very quiet there) and more than I can recall. Thus far, this is my favorite cemetery. It has a certain decaying melancholy, with scattered dead and dried leaves blowing over the cobblestones that appeals to my dark Irish side. You walk the streets and you are in a true Necropolis. One with cafes just outside the main entrance. I never tire of the place.

~~Montmartre Cemetery. This is located just down the street and around the corner from the Moulin Rouge. I know about the place with the famous windmill. I don’t know anything about this cemetery. I only glanced at it from a hotel window half a dozen years ago. Enough said.

~~Montparnasse Cemetery. What I have to say about this takes up the remainder of this post.

Today, May 30, 2023 was spectacular. Low humidity. Cool breezes and very few crowds. It was a day for wandering a cemetery. And it was only a short Uber ride from our hotel. We had never visited this place and since our Paris-time was running out, we harbored no second thoughts.

[A dusty lane between the altar tombs and above ground graves. Photo is mine]

Montparnasse is laid out in a sort of grid pattern (like most of Manhattan). Streets and lanes have names. The Sections are well marked. When you enter through one of the main gates, there are laminated maps with all the notable burials clearly marked (we had trouble locating only a few). At the end of your walking tour you are expected to return the map to its hook. I’m sure 99.9% are returned…after all, they really wouldn’t be very framable and wouldn’t go with most peoples’ dens or living room (or even in the Video Game Room).

We returned ours. We have enough stuff on our walls.

A Few Famous Interments

On the reverse side of our handy laminated map was a list of the more famous burials in the cemetery. Remember, we were in Paris, France so the majority of the names meant nothing to us. One would have to be well-versed in French history to know the 80+ names listed. But we found a few. Here is a slide show of the ones we knew:

~~Susan Sontag. She was an American novelist and essayist.

~~Man Ray. He was a modern artist quite famous in America. 

~~Guy De Maupassant. A novelist and short-story writer. A quote: “…A strange art–music–The most poetic and precise of all the arts. Vague and a dream and precise as algebra.”

~~Charles Baudelaire.   “I can hardly conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no Melancholy.”   Les Fleurs de Mal (The Flowers of Evil)

~~Jean Paul Sartre & Simone De Beauvoir.  The Most Famous Existentialists. They never married. They had a “open relationship” which they considered one of “essential love”. They had separate “contingent love” affairs with others.

A Few Random Photos:

[The grave of Paul Oster in a plexiglass mausoleum. He died 21 January 1895. Interior filled with cobwebs. Photo is mine]

[Neglected moss covered grave of unknown individual. Photo is mine]

[The deep sorrow of a woman’s loss. Note the fallen flowers. Photo is mine]

[Another woman’s grief. Photo is mine]

[Rust covered hands clutching a cross hoping for salvation?? Photo is mine]

[Cattails (?) covering a raised tomb. Photo is mine]

Bonus Photo.

[I photographed this at the end of our walk. The vertical green bar is hooked at the base. When it is swung it etches the stonework. I have no knowledge of its true purpose. Photo is mine]

Yes, it was a glorious day in a Parisian cemetery. Is there any better way to celebrate the day before ones birthday.

I sincerely hope you have enjoyed our stroll through Montparnasse Cemetery. I find these places ideal for memories and reflections of lives once lived, loves experienced and the tranquility of death…

[NOTE: All photos are mine]