Home > Cimetière de Montmartre

Cemeteries had been banned from Paris since the shutting down of the Cimetière des Innocents in 1786 on the fringe of Les Halles food market, on the grounds that it presented a health hazard. Several new cemeteries replaced all the Parisian ones, outside the precincts of the capital, in the early 19th century: Montmartre in the north, Le Cimetière du Père Lachaise in the east, Cimetière de Passy in the west and Cimetière du Montparnasse in the south.

Located west of the Butte, near the beginning of Rue Caulaincourt in Place Clichy, the cemetery in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris is built below street level in the hollow of an old quarry with its entrance on Avenue Rachel under Rue Caulaincourt. The cemetery epitomizes the artsy, quixotic, gentle, almost whimsical Paris that every romantic visitor secretly cherishes.

A popular tourist destination, it is the final resting place for many famous artists who lived and worked in the Montmartre area. A few of the famous buried in the Montmartre Cemetery are:

• André-Marie Ampère - physicist (electrical unit ampere named for him)
• Hector Berlioz - composer
• Václav Brožík - painter
• Fanny Cerrito - Italian ballerina
• Dalida - singer/actress
• Edgar DegasEdgar Degas ( July 19, 1834 September 27, 1917) was a French painter and sculptor. Born Edgar Hilaire Germain de Gas in Paris, France, he was the oldest of five children. Madame de Gas belonged to a French family that settled in America. Degas was fond of - painter, sculptor
• Leo DelibesLeo Delibes ( 1836 1891) was a French composer of classical music. He was born in St. Germain-du-Val, France. After training at the Paris Conservatiore, he first came to popular attention with his ballet Coppelia (1870), its title referring to a doll, dep - composer
• Maria DeraismesMaria Deraismes born August 17, 1828 February 6, 1894, was a French author and major pioneering force for women's rights. Born in Paris, Maria Deraismes grew up in Pontoise in the city's northwest outskirts. From a prosperous middle class family, she was - social reformer, feminist
• Alexandre Dumas, filsAlexandre Dumas, fils ( July 27, 1824 November 27, 1895) was the son of Alexandre Dumas, pere, who followed in his father's footsteps becoming a celebrated author and playwright. Alexandre Dumas fils was born in Paris, France, the illegitimate child of Ma - novelist, playwright
• Georges FeydeauGeorges Feydeau (born December 8, 1862, in Paris, France, and died there on June 5, 1921), was a playwright of La Belle Epoque''. His full name was Georges Leon Jules Marie Feydeau . Feydeau's bedroom farces, telling of the high life of the low life in Pa - playwright
• Léon FoucaultJean Bernard Leon Foucault ( September 18, 1819— February 11, 1868) was a French physicist best known for the invention of the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the effect of the Earth's rotation. He also made an early measurement of the speed of - scientist
• Carole Fredericks - African-American singer
• Pauline Garcia-ViardotPauline Garcia-Viardot ( July 18, 1821 May 18, 1910) was a 19th century French Mezzo-soprano and composer. Pauline Garcia was born in Paris to a Spanish family of singers. As a young woman, she was professionally trained as a pianist. Her father, Manuel G - opera singer, composer
• Theophile Gautier - poet, novelist
• Edmond de Goncourt - author/publisher (patron of the Prix Goncourt)
• La Goulue - Cancan dancer
• Jean-Baptiste Greuze - painter
• Sacha Guitry - actor/director
• Heinrich Heine - poet
• Louis Jouvet - actor
• Marie Pierre Koenig - Free French Field-Marshal
• Eugène Labiche - writer
• Frédérick Lemaître - actor
• Mary Marquet - actress
• Auguste de Montferrand - architect
• Gustave Moreau - painter
• Vaslav Nijinsky - dancer
• Jacques Offenbach - composer
• Francisque Poulbot - painter
• Adolphe Sax - musical instrument maker
• Stendhal - writer
• François Truffaut - film-maker
• Horace Vernet - painter
• Alfred de Vigny - poet, playwright, novelist
• Émile Zola - author (for six years, moved to the Panthéon in 1908)

See also: List of other famous cemeteries