Adele Heudlet division 16 Montmartre

Renaud division 14 Montmartre

Henri Riviere division 13 Montmartre

"mort au tonkin"

Cecille Firman division 13 Montmartre

Edouard Nadaud division 13 Montmartre

Isambert division 10 Montmartre

Mario Pollina division 9 Montmartre

Pouviere division 26 Montmartre

Vatislav Nijinsky division 22

Cave division 25 Montmartre

Laver-Frantz division 21 Montmartre

Louise Thouret division 5 Montmartre

Herbillon division 5 Montmartre

Miecislas Kamienski division 5 Montmartre

Brauner division 3 Montmartre

Daniel Ifla Osiris division 3 Montmartre

Henry Meilhac division 21 Montmartre

Albert Lejoint division 1 Montmartre

Robert Didsbury division 21 Montmartre

Jean Foucault division 7 Montmartre

"Dalida" division 18 Montmartre

Laurecisque division 1 Montmartre

Australian artist Thomas Roy Opie

Anyone have any information on the whereabouts of the burial site of Australian artist Thomas Roy Opie? He died in an automobile accident in Paris on 9 September 1968 and was reportedly buried in the western side of the city, in the vicinity of Bois de Boulogne.

Contact me or Col Fullagar. Thanks!

Australian artist Francis Brookes Spong

Anyone have any information on the whereabouts of the burial site of Australian artist Francis Brookes Spong? He died in Nice on 2 March 1929 and was presumably buried there.

Contact me or Col Fullagar. Thanks!

Pere Lachaise 81-97

Pere Lachaise divisions 81-97:

Pere Lachaise 41-80

Pere Lachaise divisions 41-80:

Victimes des révolutions (Mur des Fédérés)

In my last post I put up a photo of the "Mur des Fédérés" in division 76 of Pere Lachaise cemetery. That particular part of the cemetery is dotted with monuments to the tens of thousands of deported Jews, heroes of the French resistance during World War Two and to the many of France's most famous leaders of the Left.

One of the more interesting pieces commemorating those who died during revolutions is not inside the cemetery, but in a small, largely ignored park just outside the cemetery walls, running along Avenue Gambetta.

This incredible piece of sculpture by Paul Moreau-Vauthier, who, by the way, is buried in Division 14 of Pere Lachaise.

As you exit the Pere Lachaise metro, you'll see the cemetery walls bear to the left as you cross the street and walk up Avenue Gambetta for about 100m or so and you'll see the entrance to the little "jardin" on your right; just walk in and follow the cemetery wall for about another 50m or so and you'll see this incredible bit of sculpture.

Mur des Fédérés division 76

This is the "Mur des Fédérés," the memorial to the communards who were killed or executed during the final days of the commune of Paris in 1871. This is located in division 76 of Pere Lachaise cemetery, across from division 97, known for its many monuments and memorials to heroes of the resistance, the tens of thousands of deported French Jews and well-known leaders of the French leftist parties.

In fact, this is the area where the bodies of dozens of communards, many of whom were shot down in cold blood, were buried in mass graves. Many of France's leftist heroes are also buried in the vicinity: Karl Marx's daughter Laura and her husband Paul Lafargue (they committed suicide together in 1911), Maurice Thorez, the French Communist Party leader, Paul Eluard and many others.

Pere Lachaise 1-40

Pere Lachaise divisions 1 to 40:

Montparnasse petit

OK so you've seen the biggest portion of Montparnasse, but there's still plenty of cool things to see in the small, or "petit" sid eof the cemetery, that portion on the other side of Rue emile Richard:

Pere Lachaise in less than 5 minutes

Montparnasse Grande

Some of my favorite images from the larger portion of Montparnasse cemetery (Montparnasse grande):

The Cats of Montmartre

Of all the major cemeteries in Paris, for some odd reason Montmartre is home to a significantly large population of cats.

You can find these skittish felines in Pere Lachaise of course, and I have seen one or two in Montparnasse, but it is at Montmartre that they seem to congregate in large numbers. Perhaps Montmartre has always been lenient and understanding towards the marginalized elements of society. After all that's what gave the neighborhood it's cachet early on, the saloons, dives and dance halls that peppered the hillside among the abandoned windmills, and to some extent remains one of its most endearing features.

Montmartre cemetery

Located at the end of tiny Rue Rachel Montmartre cemetery is a place of refuge not only for the dead but also for the living: the folks seeking a moment or two of solitude in their lives. Go on, find out for yourself. . .

Belleville cemetery, 20th arrondissement

This is a very lightly retouched/manipulated photo of the Laurent family grave in Belleville cemetery, Paris. The central object is so compelling that I couldn't bring myself to modify anything other than the tonal values.

The cemetery is located near the spot where Claude Chappe set up his first practical semaphore telegraph signaling system in 1792. Chappe himself is buried in division 29 of Pere Lachaise.

Calvaire cemetery in Montmartre

I took this photo at Calvaire cemetery, near Sacre Coeur in Montmartre, Paris, on November 1, 2006. The cemetery is only open this one day out of the year, All-Saints' Day, and there was a line of people wending their way through the tiny burial ground trying to connect with the distant past, trying to fathom these Parisians long-dead for several centuries. In fact Calvaire is one of the two remaining church burial grounds left inside historic Paris, that is, inside the 20 arrondissements. (The other is Charonne in the 20th arr.) Shortly before the revolution in 1789 the king ordered all the church burial grounds closed (for health reasons) and the remains removed to what is now the famous catacombs in Montparnasse, in the southern section of the city.

For some reason, only Calvaire and Charonne were left undisturbed, more or less.

Anyway, following the closure of the old church burial grounds the city began creating cemeteries to the east (Pere Lachaise), south (Montparnasse) and north (Montmartre) to provide a more tidy and elegant repository for the remains of Paris' "departed."

Philippe Landru's new website

Over the years Philippe Landru and Marie have written and shared a series of informative articles on many of Paris's cemeteries and some of the more unique people interred in the city's burial grounds. Their work is exhaustively researched and meticulously details. Most of these Philippe put online at his website.

Marie has just informed me that Philippe has completely overhauled his website, which now covers not just the cemeteries of Paris and France but also some of the more notable burial spots in Europe, the UK and in the USA. Moreover, you can still access the numerous articles formerly available on his old site but the new site has a much more user-friendly navigation system and is spiffier look to boot.

It is in French only.

Just click here to check it out -- or cut and paste the following link:

http://www.landrucimetieres.fr/spip/

Montmartre

If you walk slowly enough and look hard enough, there hidden treasures everywhere in Montmartre cemetery. OK so I also tweaked this in Photoshop, that's true -- but all I did was copy the original image to a new layer, flip it horizontally, then using a layer mask and the gradient tool I made a mirror copy, merged the two layers together to form a new, more harmonious image.

City of the Dead - Pere Lachaise

If this street were a bit wider one might almost mistake it for the Appian Way, or what I like to think the Appian Way once looked like. Anyway, this is a fairly typical example of what sees by simply strolling this incredible open space. Here you can explore the strata of the last two hundred years of French history laid out for you in the form of a compact French village. Amazing.

Laurent in Belleville

Belleville cemetery sits on the spot where Claude Chappe set up his first semaphore station. One of the most evocative pieces of funerary statuary in Paris is without a doubt the remains of a bust that sits over the graves of the Laurent family.

A corner in Calvaire

One of the last two ancient church burying grounds left inside historic Paris, Calvaire cemetery is located on the heights of Montmartre, just a stone's throw from Sacre Coeur.

The cemetery is open only one day a year, however, 1 November, All-Soul's Day.

The other old church burying ground? Charonne in the 20th arr. near Pere Lachaise.

This image is taken from a tiny corner in this very tiny cemetery.

Better later than never - Fresnel is found!

That's right Marie B. has found Fresnel's grave in Division 14 of Pere Lachaise. I recall looking for him probably a dozen times -- and eventually involving Marie and, I think even Philippe in the search for his grave.

Who is Fresnel and why should we care? For an answer to the first half of that question, check out what Wikipedia says.

As for the second half, well I suppose it's because of his work in developing the lens used in virtually every lighthouse in the world!