Death in the afternoon

The main entrance to Pere Lachaise

An afternoon in Pere Lachaise cemetery – I was last there almost 20 years ago.  So much was the same, but there were differences,  At the north-east end there are now modern memorials to infamous plane crashes that involved French citizens, as well as individual ones to the victims of almost all of the Nazi concentration camps.  Some of them are truly beautiful, and all of them are moving.

We have our war memorials commemorating our dead, but it is different in France.  In Paris there are plenty of elderly people who recall seeing German troops occupying their city, and that makes their experience very different from that of the British.  At the Arc de Triomphe there is a ceremony every evening where, at 18:30, French military veterans stoke up the flame at the tomb of an unknown French soldier.  This ceremony has continued uninterrupted for many, many years, and even took place on 14 June 1942 when the Nazis occupied Paris. 

Apparently the German troops at the arch were amazed to see two elderly French gentlemen, in full military dress, solemnly march towards them.  One of them, carrying the title of The Guardian of the Eternal Flame, saluted, and the Germans, always keen to respect authority, instinctively sprang to attention.  Somewhat disconcerted, they saluted too, and the ceremony continued unabated throughout the occupation.

Back, however, to Pere Lachaise.  Oscar Wilde’s tomb is a must-see.  The last time I was there a young Irish woman with a suitcase – either arriving in, or about to depart from, Paris, stood there weeping copiously.  She then kissed the tomb, dried her eyes, blew a kiss, and left.  Wilde’s tomb is very different now, having been replaced since I last saw it with a grand edifice including a sculpture by Jacob Epstein.  The figure apparently used to have – how shall I put this – a significant appendage that made it abundantly clear that it was male!  Now it has a sad, broken stump, courtesy of an outraged visitor who took a brick to it!  Allegedly the missing member is now used as a paperweight by the Director of Pere Lachaise!

The tomb is covered in lipstick kisses and graffiti, but somehow that doesn’t shock.  Vandalism it may be but it’s stuff that meant something to those who kissed and wrote, not just wanton destruction.  In a way it’s artistic and it doesn’t offend – or at any rate it didn’t offend me.

None of the lipstick was mine

Jim Morrison’s grave is still the biggest draw for young Brits and Americans, many of whom were not even a twinkle in their parents’ eyes when the lead singer of the Doors died in Paris in 1971 at the age of 28.  His grave is protected by crush barriers but that hasn’t stopped admirers laying flowers on it. 

Morrison's grave

My other favourite is the grave of Edith Piaf, the great chanteuse buried with her young lover.  Fresh flowers have been brought to the grave by admirers every day since her demise: the French have a very special way of doing death.

Je ne regrette rien

I somehow missed the grave of Jean Pezon, a French lion tamer (or not) whose tomb is marked by a statue of him riding the lion that ate him. Next time.

Jean Pezon astride Brutus. for whom he became a tasty lunch