I prefer a pleasant vice to an annoying virtue.

Title from Molière who had some clever things to say (and is buried at Père Lachaise hence the title tie-in)

I know it’s odd to love a cemetery, but Père Lachaise is honestly one of my favourite places in Paris.

It’s so quiet and oddly beautiful and there’s so much history there. It was also just up the hill from where we were staying so early on Sunday morning we went for a wander.

I had fun mucking around with my camera and ended up with some shots that hopefully capture – to a degree – the eerie and intriguing beauty of Père Lachaise.

A bit of history

Of the twenty cemeteries in Paris, Père-Lachaise is the most famous, it now has over 70,000 plots and receives some two million visitors a year from all over the world. With 44 hectares and 5,300 trees, Père-Lachaise is also the largest park in Paris. It was established by Napoleon I in 1804

More than 300,000 people are buried at "the grandest address in Paris," including many famous artists and writers.

The most famous religious figures buried in Père-Lachaise are the unlucky lovers Héloïse and Abélard. Peter Abélard (1079-1142) was a brilliant and controversial philosopher and theologian who, at the age of 39, was hired as a private tutor to Héloïse, niece of Canon Fulbert of Paris.

The two fell in love, secretly had a son, and married. When Héloïse's uncle discovered this, he had the unfortunate Abélard castrated and sent Héloïse to a convent. The two rarely saw one another for the remainder of their lives, but exchanged soulful love letters that have become famous. Héloïse became an abbess and Abelard continued to write and stir up theological controversy.

Abelard spent the last two years of his life as a monk at the Abbey of Cluny. Upon his death in 1142, he was buried at Héloïse's convent at her request, and she was buried next to him upon her death two years later. Six hundred years later, Josephine Bonaparte, so moved by their story, ordered that the remains of Abelard and Heloise be entombed together at Père-Lachaise where they lie next to each other in elaborate tombs.

How romantic ... and tragic.


Hope you like the photos!

xxx