November 1, All Saint’s Day is a national holiday here in France and a trip to any of the cemeteries will show you why. It’s the day of the year when everyone (it seemed to us) visits the cemeteries: to look up long-lost friends or just to drop by the family plot and say bonjour. And of course it’s the day to put out flowers – not only on the individual graves but also throughout the cemeteries one finds large pots and urns, huge gardens with newly planted flowers for fall; mums mainly but also cyclamen to name just a couple. (photo: Chopin's grave in Pere Lachaise (div. 11.)
The morning promised to be gorgeous and the day didn’t disappoint. We awoke to a spectacular blue sky – filled with jet trails – and after a relaxing morning of coffee and chores around the house we headed off about noon.
We walked to the Saint Marcel metro and jumped on the no. 5 to the Republique stop where we switched to the no. 3 and got off at Pere Lachaise cemetery.
Already we could tell things were different. We no sooner walked inside the small side entrance than we were awash in crowds and flowers. We strolled through the early afternoon and Susan allowed me to be here guide – my first and probably only guided tour through Pere but we had a wonderful time. All the favorites were of course overwhelmed with both people and fresh flowers: Chopin (an arrangement even from the Polish Consul General), Jim Morrison, Alan Kardec the spiritualist and Oscar Wilde. (photo below: newly planted flowers in front of the chapel, Pere Lachaise.)
I showed Susan some of my favorites: Jacob Robles (hushing us with a finger to the lips), Frederick Arbelot (reclining and holding a woman’s face in his hands), Sophie Blanchard (the first woman aeronaut to die in a ballooning accident), Georges Rodenbach (breaking out of his tomb and offering the passerby a rose), noted lion tamer Jean Pezon (sitting astride Brutus, the lion that ate him) among others.
I wish you could have been here.
It was truly phenomenal to see the crowds, the interest shown, the attention given, the homage paid to the collective memory of this huge extended community that is Paris. No theme park atmosphere here but just a genuine, honest desire to visit the place of some of the great and even the not-so-great, but also friends and family of course. The strength of that continuity, that homage to their past, even a past that has had its dark moments to be sure, is what makes and keeps France great.
Why not take a moment out of your schedule to do the same? Stop by and see a grandparent, a parent, a cousin, a friend who is long gone now but who still in a very real way lives inside your memory.
From Pere Lachaise we took the metro to Anvers in the Montmartre area where we had lunch a favorite little café on rue des Abbesses. From there we walked to Sacre Coeur ostensibly to see the view. There was a long line waiting for the funiculaire so we walked (not for the weak of knee or short of breath) and at last reached the top. We skirted the huge church though and instead headed for the tiny church of St. Pierre just across the street, wedged between that 19th century creation and the tourist haunts of Place du Tertre. On this one day of the year the tiny church burial ground at St. Pierre is open to the public and the little burying ground was literally packed with people from all over the world (if the languages we heard were any indicator) paying their own respects as tourists do by snapping photos. And so did I of course.
We strolled from the cemetery to Sacre Coeur and realized just what is meant by the term mass – we were confronted by a mass of humanity not seen in Paris since the liberation. Well that’s probably a bit strong but the crowds were enormous! (photo above: Sacre Coeur.)
From Montremartre we hopped aboard the no. 2 line and got off at the Arc d’Triomph where we switched to the no. 6 and took it to the Trocadero. I had promised Susan to show her Passy cemetery, in the very shadow of the Eiffel tower and so I did.
Passy cemetery was also packed with both people and flower – there was even a group of four middle-aged ladies who had brought their crystal and champagne to toast and sit and chat about what I have no idea.
I showed Susan my favorites here: Eduard Manet, Claude Debussy, Gabriel Faure, were the big names but there was also the Volterra family and their fantastic shepherd and gardener statues, the aviators Costes and Bellonte, the cool corner in the far back filled with unique stained glass, and the statuary portraying people long gone but somehow still fresh and alive as if they were right here . . . And Maurice Gamelin who commanded the Franco-British forces from the fall of 1939 until May of 1940 (not an enviable thing to be remembered for to be sure).
And of course I had to show her Pearl White. Or rather where Pearl is buried. She was one of the most famous of silent screen stars, most often remembered in the “perils of Pauline” and for the fact that she did her own stunts. . . . and the 99-year-old man who died recently and whose grave site was literally awash with flowers (photo above). Now that’s homage.
Wish you were here,
Steve
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