Père Lachaise: origin of the name and station history
Served by: metro lines 2 and 3.
Why this name?
The station takes its name from its position north-west of the Père-Lachaise cemetery, the largest cemetery within Paris, famous for the graves of well-known figures. It lies on the border of the Saint-Ambroise, La Roquette and Père-Lachaise districts, at the junction of boulevard de Ménilmontant, avenue de la République and avenue Gambetta. On line 3 it was first the eastern terminus of the initial section, before the extension to Gambetta. The Atelier des Lumières and the basilica of Notre-Dame-du-Perpétuel-Secours are nearby.
Anecdote
Because of the depth of the line 2 platforms, it is the first station on the network to have been given an escalator. Both its entrances are Guimard pavilions listed as historic monuments; the line 2 platforms are in orange Andreu-Motte decor, and those of line 3, at ground level, in yellow.
Audio guide
The Père-Lachaise cemetery, the largest cemetery in Paris
In 1804, Napoleon prohibited burials in churches and intramural cemeteries, which were overcrowded and unsanitary. The architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart built a vast landscaped garden east of Paris, on a plot that owes its name to Father François d 'Aix de La Chaize, confessor of Louis XIV. 🌳
Problem: it's too far from the center and Parisians don't want it. Then the administration deceived: in 1817, it transferred the supposed remains of La Fontaine, Molière, Héloïse and Abélard. Immediate success: all of Paris wants to rest with celebrities! 🎭
Today: 44 hectares, some 70,000 burials and more than 3 million visitors per year. Chopin, Piaf, Proust, Morrison rest there.
🌹 The dark anecdote: on the night of May 27, 1871, the last fighters of the Commune, surrounded by the Versailles army, fight with knives between the graves. The next day, 147 federates were shot against the perimeter wall and thrown into a mass grave. It's the end of Bloody Week. Become the "Wall of the Federated", it remains a high place of memory of the labor movement.
Around Père Lachaise
- Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, 750 m away — Paris's largest cemetery, opened in 1804, the final resting place of Chopin, Édith Piaf, Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde.
- Mur des Fédérés, 1250 m away — The wall where the last Communards were shot in 1871, now a memorial site for the French left.