The photos below were taken on the morning and early afternoon of July 8, 2008 in Cimetière du Père-Lachaise (Père Lachaise Cemetery), the largest cemetery in Paris, the most visited cemetery in the world and the 'terminal station' for many Parisiens as well as a host of notable others. The list of interned French luminaries is truly impressive, including, among many others, Honoré de Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Doré, Stéphane Grappelli, Edith Piaf, Marcel Marceau, Molière, and Marcel Proust.

But there are more than just French dead in this cemetery. Most of the remains of the "more Polish than Poland" Frédéric Chopin—who feared being buried alive, so specified that after death his heart was to be removed—are here, though his ticker was carried to Warsaw where it is sealed in a crystal urn in what appears to be cognac within a pillar in the Church of the Holy Cross.

The empty urn of the great Greek-American soprano Maria Callas is also here. Though her ashes were stolen, recovered, and then scattered in the Aegean Sea, the urn was returned to Père Lachaise. The tombs of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Jim Morrison, Isadora Duncan, and Oscar Wilde can also be found at Père Lachaise. A detail from Wilde's tomb, smacked with lipsticked kisses, is featured in the banner image above.

Not all of those who 'settled' here were the quintessence of the human spirit. Ramfis Trujillo, the psychotically cruel and criminal 'son' of the more psychotically cruel and murderous Dominican tyrant Rafael Trujillo, also has a place with those who did their best to be their best, which proves that even in death we get to share historical places—along with interminable historical space—with the dregs who, unfortunately, also remain.
Page uploaded on September 29, 2009
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