Montparnasse Cemetery is considered the cemetery of the writers and intellectuals of Paris. Is that because more intellectuals are buried here than in any other Parisian cemetery? In my opinion, the answer is no, since plenty of famous intellectuals are buried in other Paris cemeteries, like Père Lachaise, Montmartre, and of course the Panthéon (Oscar Wilde is buried in Père Lachaise, and Victor Hugo and Émile Zola are buried in the Panthéon, and the list goes on).
In my opinion, this cemetery is forever linked to intellectuals and bohemians not because of the dead, but because of the living. The reason is that Montparnasse Cemetery sits near the legendary cafés (Le Dôme, La Coupole, and others) where the bohemian crowd used to while away their hours. So when their time came, most of them surely preferred to be buried close to the cafés where they had spent so many pleasant hours.
Also, if you were a bohemian who chose to be buried in Montparnasse, you did your living friends a big favor too. If you’re buried there, they can head straight from the funeral to one of the cafés you loved and raise a glass to your memory. In short, a great location for the living and the dead alike!
So today we’ll visit Montparnasse Cemetery and meet quite a few of the writers, artists, and bohemians who rest there for good. We’ll hear the stories of some of the most famous people buried there, and along the way, we’ll discover some of the most beautiful gravestones you can find in Paris.
A Bit of Logistics Before We Start
Montparnasse Cemetery sits on something of a hill. True, the slope isn’t as steep as the one at Père Lachaise, and you can certainly do a tour that climbs from the bottom up. But since some readers would rather skip that workout in favor of a more relaxed walk, I decided to give you a route that goes downhill instead.
To do this, take metro line 13 to the Gaîté station. From there, continue to Rue Froidevaux, where you’ll find the cemetery’s entrance gate. But if you listen to me, I’d suggest waiting a bit and not going straight into the cemetery. Instead, I recommend heading to the nearby Rue Daguerre.
Rue Daguerre is a charming market street that reminds me of Rue Mouffetard or Rue Montorgueil, though it’s a bit less known among international visitors. Before you head to the cemetery, I highly recommend strolling there to soak up some joie de vivre, and maybe grab yourself a sandwich in case hunger strikes while you’re wandering among the graves.
After you finish exploring this charming street, head back to Rue Froidevaux and enter through the gate of the same name. Our tour starts there!
Opening Days and Hours
You’ll be glad to know the cemetery is open every day until 18:00. It usually opens at 08:00, but on Saturdays it opens at 08:30, and on Sundays it opens at 09:00. If you’d like more practical information about Montparnasse Cemetery, feel free to check out this link.
One More Small Tip Before We Start
Go to one of the flower shops scattered around the area and pick up a map of the cemetery. I wanted to give you a Google map with all the interesting graves, like I did in the article about Père Lachaise, but unfortunately, many of the graves on our route aren’t listed there, and it’s very hard for me to pin them precisely on a Google map.
With a paper map, though, you’ll easily find the various graves, and along the way you’ll spot other graves that didn’t make it into our route but might interest you too.
Montparnasse Cemetery: A Walking Route
Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
From the Porte Froidevaux, turn left and head downhill until you reach the grave of the famous poet Charles Baudelaire. Although the poet died more than 150 years ago, his grave is still a pilgrimage site for lovers of literature and poetry.
Baudelaire’s life is the archetype of a bohemian poet’s biography, complete with prostitutes, mistresses, gambling debts, and no shortage of self-destruction through drugs and alcohol. But alongside all that, it’s worth remembering that Baudelaire wrote stunning, revolutionary poetry that still stuns readers to this day, and that’s exactly why his grave is so popular.
Baudelaire died at 46 from a combination of a sexually transmitted disease and alcoholism, which together caused a stroke he never recovered from. He’s buried in a family grave along with his mother and his stepfather, General Jacques Aupick (1789–1857), whom he despised his whole life because the general kept trying to straighten him out and turn him into a “normal” person. Note that at the other end of Montparnasse Cemetery there’s a statue of Baudelaire that’s also worth a visit.
If you’d like to read more about Baudelaire, feel free to check out these articles:
- Duality in the Soul and Poetry of Charles Baudelaire : an excellent article by Dr. Orna Liberman on Baudelaire’s poetry.
- Hôtel de Lauzun: And Don’t Go Smoking Hashish There!: an article about Hôtel de Lauzun on Île Saint-Louis, where Baudelaire founded his hashish club.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) and Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986)
Jean-Paul Sartre and his partner Simone de Beauvoir lived in Paris for many years and became the most famous philosophers of the 20th century. So it’s no surprise that their shared grave is still a pilgrimage site today.
Sartre the existentialist coined the misanthrope’s rallying cry “Hell is other people” (from his play No Exit). That didn’t stop more than 50,000 people from accompanying him on his final journey in 1980.
Simone de Beauvoir was an important writer and philosopher in her own right. But she’s best known for her groundbreaking feminist books, like The Second Sex. Her reputation as a writer and philosopher only grew after her death, and her grave has become a pilgrimage site for feminists wanting to honor her memory.
If you’d like to read a bit more about Sartre and Beauvoir and get to know the Paris where they lived and worked, I highly recommend reading the article Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir: A Walk Through Paris in the Footsteps of Two Philosophers.
Constantin Brâncuși (1876–1957)
Constantin Brâncuși’s grave might look a bit plain, but it’s well worth paying your respects to this sculptor, who created one of the most remarkable gravestones in Montparnasse Cemetery: The Kiss. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a photo of the gravestone itself, so here’s a picture of an identical sculpture on display in a museum.
If you’d like to dig deeper into the story of this fascinating gravestone, you can read about it in Ronit Groman’s article Sealed with a Kiss: A Walking Tour in the Footsteps of Famous Kisses in Paris.
And if you’d like to see what Brâncuși’s own gravestone looks like, you’ll be disappointed to find it’s pretty standard…
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804–1869)
Sainte-Beuve was one of the most important literary critics of 19th-century France, and as such, he earned himself a fine grave. If that fact alone doesn’t make him particularly interesting, maybe this will: he had an affair with the wife of Victor Hugo. But before you get angry at the woman who cheated on her husband, go read the article about the letters Victor Hugo wrote to his mistress and discover that he wasn’t exactly an innocent lamb either…
In any case, I brought you here not just for the Victor Hugo stories, but for the bust sitting atop his grave. In my opinion, it’s one of the most beautiful and realistic sculptures I’ve seen in Paris’s cemeteries, and the stone “drape” covering the gravestone is simply gorgeous. Walk around the sculpture and you’ll understand what I mean.
Charles Pigeon (1838–1915)
Very few people have ever heard of Charles Pigeon, despite his contribution to science (he invented the Pigeon lamp), which made him a very wealthy man. (It was the first lamp that didn’t explode when you lit it, and that one feature made it hugely popular.)
When you reach his grave, you’ll conclude that Charles Pigeon invested the money he made right back into the monument for himself and his family. Pigeon commissioned the gravestone all the way back in 1905, and even then he asked the sculptor to depict him and his wife lying in bed. Yes, Charles Pigeon decided to invite the whole world to peek into his and his wife’s bedroom!
In my opinion, this is the most beautiful and impressive grave in Paris, and if you only see one gravestone in the whole City of Light, head to Division 22 of Montparnasse Cemetery. This is the one to visit.
By the way, not far from here, you’ll also find the grave of Auguste Bartholdi (1834–1904), the man who sculpted the Statue of Liberty.
Few people know that he also sculpted several other famous statues, and he’s even responsible for the gravestone of Gustave Jundt (1830–1884), who is also buried in Montparnasse Cemetery.
Alfred Dreyfus (1859–1935)
In Division 28, where Auguste Bartholdi’s grave is located, you’ll also find the grave of Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish officer who was falsely accused of treason and sent to Devil’s Island.
His trial and the fight for his innocence remain a fault line that still divides French society to this day, and soon a full article on the subject will appear on this site, where you can read about both his life and his trial.
Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
So far we’ve visited the graves of writers, philosophers, and sculptors. Now it’s time to visit the grave of one of the most brilliant playwrights of the 20th century: Samuel Beckett.
Beckett became known to the wider public for the Theater of the Absurd, which he created alongside other avant-garde writers like Eugène Ionesco (1909–1994), who is also buried here. His most famous play is Waiting for Godot, and quite a few fans visit his grave every year to pay their respects. Few of those fans know that back in the 1930s, Samuel Beckett was stabbed by a Parisian pimp while walking down the street. After he recovered, he went looking for that same pimp and simply fell for his sense of humor and his friendly personality. Beckett liked him so much that he decided not to file a police complaint against him.
Another unexpected result of that incident was his friendship with James Joyce (1882–1941), author of Ulysses. They became such close friends while Beckett recovered from the stabbing at home that James Joyce even paid Beckett’s medical bills. Joyce, who was fond of Beckett, introduced him to his daughter, which sowed the seeds of disaster that would eventually end their friendship. That happened several years after Samuel Beckett decided to break things off with her…
Serge Gainsbourg (1928–1991)
While Charles Baudelaire was the “bad, drugged-out boy” of the 19th century, Serge Gainsbourg undoubtedly played that same role in the 20th century, and with great talent.
And indeed, he had talent to spare. As a singer, actor, director, and important, original creator, he’s responsible for some of the biggest hits in French pop, like Je t’aime, moi non plus.
Although he took drugs and drank astonishing amounts of alcohol his whole life, Serge Gainsbourg managed, almost miraculously, to reach the age of 62. When he died, a huge number of French people turned out to accompany him on his final journey, causing massive traffic jams that brought Paris to a complete standstill. When you reach his grave, you’ll find bottles of alcohol, cigarette ash, and of course metro tickets left in memory of his immortal song Le poinçonneur des Lilas.
If you’d like to read more about Serge Gainsbourg, I recommend the following articles:
- The Love Story of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, by Gil Kisari
- Serge Gainsbourg: A Musical Journey and a Parisian Walk
A Couple’s Farewell
We’ve reached the last stop on our tour, but instead of a gravestone, I’ve brought you here to see a sculpture. And not just any sculpture, but one of the most moving ones you’ll ever see.
It all began when the sculptor Alix Marquet (1875–1939) was commissioned to create a statue for the Luxembourg Gardens. For some reason, Marquet decided to sculpt a widower weeping over his wife’s grave. The woman, who appears to already be on her way to the next world, sends one last kiss toward her husband, but he doesn’t even see her.
The management of the Luxembourg Gardens decided the sculpture was too tragic for a garden like that, so it was moved to Montparnasse Cemetery, where it has stood since 1911. There’s no doubt a sculpture this tragic makes a fitting way to end a cemetery tour, and I hope you enjoyed it and didn’t leave feeling too sad.
More Famous People Buried at Montparnasse Cemetery
Of course, one tour can’t cover every important grave. So for those who want to do their homework before visiting the cemetery, here are a few more historical figures buried in Montparnasse who have their own article on this site:
- Chaïm Soutine
- Mireille Darc
- Marguerite Duras
- François Rude, who created the reliefs and sculptures on the Arc de Triomphe.
- Jean Chirac
- Jean-Paul Belmondo
If you’d like the full list of all the “celebrities” buried at Montparnasse Cemetery, you can find it here.
Want to Visit More Cemeteries in Paris?
If this tour has whetted your appetite and you’d like to visit more cemeteries in Paris, feel free to read the article Paris Cemeteries If Only the Graves Could Talk…
More Articles About Montparnasse That Might Interest You
- If all the stories in this article weren’t enough for you, feel free to read Dr. Orna Liberman’s chilling article about the necrophile of Montparnasse.
- If you’re a bit tired of death and want to explore Montparnasse in the footsteps of the (formerly) living, I recommend the article Montparnasse: A Walking Tour in the Footsteps of Paris’s Bohemian Scene.
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