Montmartre Cemetery

Montmartre Cemetery
The Cemetery of Montmartre is a cemetery in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, France, that dates to the early 19th century. Officially known as the Cimetière du Nord, it is the third largest necropolis in Paris, after the Père Lachaise Cemetery and the Montparnasse Cemetery.
History
In the mid-18th century, overcrowding in the cemeteries of Paris had created numerous problems, from impossibly high funeral costs to unsanitary living conditions in the surrounding neighborhoods. In the 1780s, the Cimetière des Innocents was officially closed and citizens were banned from burying corpses within the city limits of Paris. During the early 19th century, new cemeteries were constructed outside the precincts of the capital: Montmartre in the north, Père Lachaise Cemetery in the east, Passy Cemetery in the west and Montparnasse Cemetery in the south.
The Montmartre Cemetery was opened on 1 January 1825. It was initially known as le Cimetière des Grandes Carrières (Cemetery of the Large Quarries). The name referenced the cemetery's unique location, in an abandoned gypsum quarry. The quarry had previously been used during the French Revolution as a mass grave. It was built below street level, in the hollow of an abandoned gypsum quarry located west of the Butte near the beginning of Rue Caulaincourt in Place de Clichy. As is still the case today, its sole entrance was constructed on Avenue Rachel under Rue Caulaincourt.
A popular tourist destination, Montmartre Cemetery is the final resting place of many famous artists who lived and worked in the Montmartre area. See the full list of notable interments below.
A
Adolphe Adam (1803–1856), composer
Yvette Alde (1911–1967), painter
Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813–1888), composer
André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836), physicist (namesake of electrical unit ampere)
Édouard André (1840–1911), landscape architect
Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga (1806–1826), composer
Alfred-Arthur Brunel de Neuville (1852–1941), painter
B
Benjamin Ball (physician) (1833–1893), psychiatrist
Michel Berger (1947–1992), composer, singer
Hector Berlioz (1803–1869), composer (originally buried in a less prominent plot in the same cemetery)
Léon Boëllmann (1862–1897), composer and organist
Alexandre Boëly (1785–1858), composer and organist
Mélanie "Mel" Bonis (1858–1937), composer
François Claude Amour, marquis de Bouillé (1739–1800), royalist general named in the French National Anthem,
Lili Boulanger (1893–1918), composer
Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979), composer
Georges Hilaire Bousquet (1846–1937), jurist, legal scholar
Marcel Boussac (1889–1980), entrepreneur
Giuseppina Bozzacchi, (1853–1870), ballerina
Victor Brauner (1903–1966), painter
Václav Brožík (1851–1901), Czech painter
Alfred-Arthur Brunel de Neuville (1852–1941), painter
Myles Byrne (1780–1862), Irish revolutionary soldier
C
Moïse de Camondo (1860–1935), banker
Nissim de Camondo (1892–1917), banker, World War I pilot
Aimée Campton (1882–1930), actress
Pierre Cardin (1922–2020), Fashion Designer
Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833), famed inventor of classical cuisine
Louis-Eugène Cavaignac (1802–1857), politician
Fanny Cerrito (1817–1909), Italian ballerina
Philippe (Zdar) Cerboneschi (1967–2019), music producer, dj (Cassius_(band))
Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893), neurologist
Jacques Charon (1920–1975), actor
Théodore Chassériau (1819–1856), painter
Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907–1977), director and screenwriter
Véra Clouzot (1913–1960), actress
D
Henri-Bernard Dabadie (1797–1853), operatic baritone
Louise-Zulmé Dabadie (1795–1877), operatic soprano
Dalida (1933–1987), Egyptian-born Italo-French singer and actress, singing diva.
Louis Antoine Debrauz de Saldapenna (1811–1871), Austrian writer and diplomat
Edgar Degas (1834–1917), Impressionist painter, sculptor
Léo Delibes (1836–1891), composer of Romantic music
Maria Deraismes (1828–1894), social reformer, feminist
Narcisse Virgilio Díaz (1808–1876), painter
William Didier-Pouget (1864–1959), artist painter
Maxime Du Camp (1822–1894), author
Norbert Dufourcq (1904–1990), organist, musicologist, writer
Alexandre Dumas, fils (1824–1895), novelist, playwright
Marie Duplessis (1824–1847), courtesan, The Lady of the Camellias
François Duprat (1941–1978), assassinated political radical
F
Renée Jeanne Falconetti (1892–1946), actress, notable for La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc.
Georges Feydeau (1862–1921), playwright of La Belle Époque
Léon Foucault (1819–1868), scientist
Charles Fourier (1772–1837), utopian socialist
Christopher Fratin (1801–1864), animalier sculptor
Carole Fredericks (1952–2001), African-American singer
G
France Gall (1947–2018), singer
Theophile Gautier (1811–1872), poet, novelist
Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904), painter
Eugène Gigout (1844–1925), composer and organist
José Melchor Gomis (1791–1836), Spanish Romantic composer
Edmond de Goncourt (1822–1896), author/publisher, brother of Jules (patron of the Prix Goncourt)
Jules de Goncourt (1830–1870), author/publisher, brother of Edmond and buried in the same grave. Also patron of the Prix Goncourt
Amédée Gordini (1899–1979), Gordini sports car manufacturer
La Goulue (Louise Weber) (1866–1929), Can-can dancer (she was originally buried in the Cimetière de Pantin)
Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), artist
Béla Grünwald (1839–1891), Hungarian historian and politician
Jules Guérin (1860–1910), nationalist political radical
Lucien Guitry (1860–1925), actor
Sacha Guitry (1885–1957), actor/director
Charles Gumery (1827–1871), sculptor
H
Fromental Halévy (1799–1862), composer
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), German poet
Fanny Heldy (1888–1973), Belgian soprano
Jacques Ignace Hittorff (1792–1867), architect
I
François-André Isambert (1792–1857), lawyer, historian, and politician
Daniel Iffla (1825–1907), Jewish philanthropist and financier
J
Maurice Jaubert (1900–1940), composer, conductor
André Jolivet (1905–1974), composer
Marcel Jouhandeau (1888–1979), author
Louis Jouvet (1887–1951), actor
Anna Judic (1850–1911), actress, chanteuse
Antoine-Henri Jomini (1779–1869), general, military author
K
Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1784–1849), pianist, composer
Miecislas Kamieński, a Polish soldier who was a volunteer in the French Army and was killed in the Battle of Magenta, mentioned because the statue by Jules Franceschi on his grave is well known
Julian Klemczyński, (1807 or 1810–1851?), pianist, composer
Marie-Pierre Kœnig (1898–1970), Free French Field Marshal
Bernard-Marie Koltès (1948–1989), playwright, director
Joseph Kosma (1905–1969), composer
Slavko Kopač (1913–1995), Croatian-French painter, sculptor and poet
L
Eugène Labiche (1815–1888), dramatist
Dominique Laffin (1952–1985), actress
Charles Lamoureux (1834–1899), violinist
Jean Lannes (1769–1809), Marshal of France (heart-burial only, the body is in the Pantheon)
Jules Joseph Lefebvre (1836–1911), painter
Margaret Kelly Leibovici (1910–2004), "Miss Bluebell", Irish dancer
Frédérick Lemaître (1800–1876), actor
Pauline Leroux (1809–1891), dancer
Élisabeth Leseur (1866–1914), mystic
José Yves Limantour (1854–1935) Mexican Secretary of Finance
Emma Livry (1842–1863), ballet dancer
Édouard Lucas (1842–1891), mathematician
M
Aimé Maillart (1817–1871), composer
Henri Meilhac (1830–1897), dramatist
Mary Marquet (1895–1979), actress
Victor Massé (1822–1884), composer
Joseph Porter Michaels (1838–1912), American dentist, professor at the Dental School of Paris, he collaborated with Professor Péan for the creation of the first shoulder prosthesis
Auguste de Montferrand (1786–1858), architect
José María Luis Mora (1794–1850), Mexican politician
Gustave Moreau (1826–1898), symbolist painter
Jeanne Moreau (1928–2017), actress
Aimé Morot (1850–1913), academic art painter
Henri Murger (1822–1861), novelist
Musidora (1889–1957), (Jeanne Roques) actress/director/writer
N
Vaslav Nijinsky (1890–1950), ballet dancer
Adolphe Nourrit (1802–1839), tenor
Eugène Nyon (1812–1870), playwright and novelist
Alphonse de Neuville (1836–1885), painter whose funerary monument was realized by Francis de Saint-Vidal
O
Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880), French composer of German descent
Georges Ohnet (1848–1919), writer
Harriet Osborne O'Hagan (1830–1921), Irish portrait artist
P
Théophile-Jules Pelouze (1807–1867), chemist
Isaac Péreire (1806–1880), financier
Jacob Rodrigues Péreire (1715–1780), educator
Francis Picabia (1879–1953), painter
Alphonsine Plessis (1824–1847), La Dame aux Camélias
Patrick Pons (1952–1980), motorcycle racer
Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail (1829–1871), novelist
Jean Le Poulain (1924–1988), actor
Francisque Poulbot (1879–1946), painter, illustrator
Olga Preobrajenska (1871–1962), ballet dancer (according to other sources, she is buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery)
R
Juliette Récamier (1777–1849), socialite and woman of letters
Salomon Reinach (1858–1932), archaeologist
Ernest Renan (1823–1892), writer (buried in the Ary Scheffer grave)
Jacques Rigaut (1898–1929), poet
Jacques Rivette (1928–2016), film director and film critic
Henri Rivière (1827–1883), naval officer, writer
Jean Rédélé (1922–2007), automotive pioneer, pilot and founder of the French automotive brand Alpine.
Julie Rodde (1818–1900), French writer, poet and journalist.
Hilda Roosevelt (1881–1965), opera singer, daughter of Cornelius Roosevelt (1847–1902)
Endre Rozsda (1913–1999), surrealist painter
S
Joseph Isidore Samson (1793–1871), actor and playwright
Henri Sauguet (1901–1989), composer
Adolphe Sax (1814–1894), musical instrument artisan (inventor of saxophone)
Ary Scheffer (1795–1858), painter
Cornélia Scheffer (1830–1899), sculptor and designer
Helen G. Scott (1915–1987), Truffaut / Hitchcock
Philippe Paul de Ségur, Count of Ségur (1780–1873), historian
Claude Simon (1913–2005), novelist
Juliusz Słowacki (1809–1849), Polish romantic poet
Harriet Smithson (1808–1854), Anglo-Irish actress, the first wife of Hector Berlioz, and the inspiration for his Symphonie fantastique
Fernando Sor (1778–1839), guitarist
Alexandre Soumet (1788–1845), poet
Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) (1783–1842), writer
Charles Henri Sanson (1739–1806), executioner of Louis XVI
T
Marie Taglioni (1804–1884), ballerina
Ludmilla Tchérina (1924–2004), dancer, actress and painter
Ambroise Thomas (1811–1896), opera composer
Armand Toussaint (1806–1862), sculptor
Jean-Pierre Travot (1767–1836), general
Constant Troyon (1810–1865), painter
François Truffaut (1932–1984), French New Wave filmmaker and director
V
Horace Vernet (1789–1863), painter
Auguste Vestris (1760–1842), dancer
Gaétan Vestris (1729–1808), dancer
Pauline Viardot (1821–1910), opera singer, composer
Alfred de Vigny (1797–1863), poet, playwright, novelist
Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (1798–1875), luthier
W
René Waldeck-Rousseau (1846–1904), politician
Walenty Wańkowicz (1799–1842), painter
Georges-Fernand Widal (1862–1929), bacteriologist
Z
Émile Zola (1840–1902), author (original site, moved to the Panthéon in 1908). The Zola family grave is still there, with Émile's name on it.
See also
Saint-Vincent Cemetery in Montmartre
List of burial places of classical musicians
References
External links
Official website
Cimetiere de Montmartre (in French)
Links and Images Collection of resources
Google Maps
Written in Stone – Burial locations of literary figures.
Montmartre cemetery information In English
Photos of Montmartre Documenting funerary statuary in Paris cemeteries; on pariscemeteries.com
Cemeteries in Paris
Montmartre
Buildings and structures in the 18th arrondissement of Paris
Cemeteries established in the 1820s