Cemeteries of Paris (part 1)

What to say about cemeteries other than they are peaceful on first glance, but below the surface lie the remnants of those who long before we existed built worlds, set them afire, and built them up again. This makes the hallowed grounds ideal for contemplation, reflection, a sense of historical perspective, and, occasionally, album cover art.

Paris lays claim to several of the most magnificent cemeteries in the western world and here are the results of a somber jaunt through the great cemetery of Montparnasse.


The entrance to the Cimetière du Montparnasse.


The shared grave of Jean-Paul Sartre, key figurehead of existentialism, and Simone de Beauvoir, feminist and social theorist.


Railway tickets are a popular token to leave behind on French gravesites. I wonder if it symbolizes the journey into death or are just readily available. A cruel trick, I feel, to slip the dead an expired ticket.




The resting place of Charles Baudelaire, an early Symbolist poet most famous for Les Fleurs du mal ("The Flowers of Evil"). As I paid my respects a gentleman sat nearby, silently reading poetry, presumably Baudelaire's but it could've been Edward Lear's for all I knew.




Serge Gainsbourg, popular French singer-songwriter and worldly lech.






Samuel Beckett, Irish avant-garde novelist and playwright. His best-known work is probably the absurdist play Waiting for Godot.


Two visitors prepared for an extended stay.


Theatre of the Absurd playwright Eugene Ionesco, author of Rhinoceros and The Bald Soprano.


Man Ray, American surrealist photographer and painter.


Jean Seberg, actress from À bout de souffle and Bonjour tristesse. Hers was a tragic life.






Lt Colonel Alfred Dreyfus, unfairly charged with treason in 1894. The Dreyfus Affair sharply divided French society of the time. The writer Émile Zola rose to his defense in an open letter called "J'accuse" in which he denounced the French government for anti-Semitism.




This must be the entrance to the pet cemetery.