Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
TOP SIGHT
CIMETIÈRE DU MONTPARNASSE
Opened in 1824, Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris' second-largest after
Père Lachaise
,
sprawls over 19 hectares shaded by 1200 trees including maples, ash, limes and con-
ifers. Although it doesn't have the sheer scale of celebrities laid to rest as its bigger
and better-known counterpart, there are still numerous famous graves (mapped on
signboards around the grounds).
Some of the illustrious 'residents' at Cimetière du Montparnasse include poet
CCharle
uel Becckett, sculptor
Constantin Brancusi, painter Chaim Soutine, photographer Man Ray, industrialist
André Citroën, Captain Alfred Dreyfus of the infamous Dreyfus affair, actress Jean Se-
berg, and philosophers, writers and life partners Jean--Paul Sa
rles B
s Baudela
udelaiire, writer Guy de Maupassant, playwright SSamuel B
ul Sartre and Sim
Simone de
e de
Beauuvoiir, who are buried together.
Like Père Lachaise, Cimetière du Montparnasse has its time-honoured tomb tradi-
tions. One of the most popular is fans leaving metro tickets atop the grave of crooner
SSerge G
e Gaiinssbouurg (in division 1, just off av Transversale), in reference to his 1958 song
'Le Poinçonneur des Lilas' (The Ticket Puncher of Lilas), depicting work-a-day mono-
tony through the eyes of a metro ticket-puncher. Gainsbourg enacted the soul-des-
troying job (since eclipsed by machines) on film when recording the song in the Porte
des Lilas station.
