Autumn Wanderings Through Paris’s Quiet Cemetery Corners
Autumn brings a subtle invitation to wander through Paris, a city steeped in history and the whispers of its cemeteries. The French capital feels alive with memory, from the storied graves of Pere Lachaise where Molière, Balzac, Proust, and Jim Morrison rest among others, to Montparnasse, where Baudelaire, Cortázar, and Simone de Beauvoir lie at last to their final rest. Yet there are many lesser-known sites that reveal pivotal moments in history, tucked away for locals and visitors to discover.
The Picpus Cemetery stands as a stark reminder of the Revolution. Located at 35 Rue Picpus, near Place de la Nation on Paris’s eastern fringe, it is a place where more than 1,300 people were executed by guillotine between June 14 and July 27, 1794, during the Terror that marked the height of the French Revolution. Among those laid to rest here is the Marquis de Lafayette, a celebrated general who played a key role in the American Revolution and later supported a cautious republican cause. His remains mingle with others who faced the blade, anchoring Picpus as a burial site deeply tied to that turbulent era.
More than 2,490 people were executed by guillotine in Paris
Access to Picpus begins through a plain wooden door set between aging office blocks. A modest church in a classical style welcomes visitors, and behind it lie the sites of two mass graves where the executed were laid to rest. The site preserves a stark chronicle of a time when the guillotine moved through Paris in a way that left a lasting imprint on the city’s memory.
The entrance fee remains modest, and a blue-grill door separates visitors from the rest of the grounds. In front of two stone markers bearing crosses, plates indicate the location of the tombs, numbered 1 and 2, guiding footsteps toward a deeper history.
nobles’ cemetery
Within the grounds, 1,306 individuals who faced the guillotine are believed to have been buried on the Square of the Overturned Throne. Among them were members of prominent aristocratic families such as Rochefoucauld, Montalembert, Montmorency, Noailles, and Grimaldi. Yet the site also holds figures not born to titles, including the poet André Chénier, whose memory also found life in the operatic stage, and historical figures connected to Napoleon’s era. Josephine, Napoleon’s wife, is associated with the period, and Marie Antoinette’s hairdresser and other notable names are part of the complex narratives surrounding the Revolution. Contemporary testimonies describe them as buried in groups, sometimes unclothed, creating a haunting reminder of the era’s harsh realities and the reasons they were not exhumed for later restoration.
Amélie, a Saxon princess of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, purchased the land in 1797, and her brother is buried there. The cemetery has remained one of Paris’s quieter private burial grounds, home to a succession of small mausoleums and tombs that range from weathered stone to modern materials. It is not uncommon to see a mix of family names etched into the stones, revealing layers of history across centuries.
This is a place many Parisians overlook. One journalist noted encountering only a handful of visitors during a two-hour afternoon exploration in October. Beyond the graves, a prominent feature is the Lafayette tomb, marked by an American flag that has flown there for generations and endured through occupation, lending the monument a resonant aura similar to memorials found along the East Coast of the United States where figures of the American Revolution are honored.
Even as Lafayette’s monument stands, the grim record of the Revolution remains in the background. The Mountain factions led by Robespierre, Saint-Just, and Danton were executed and buried in Paris’s principal mass grave related to the upheaval. The only visible trace today is a plaque near a neighborhood bakery, a quiet reminder of a city still grappling with its revolutionary past.
In summary, Picpus Cemetery offers a powerful, tangible link to the Revolution and to the lives of those who faced the guillotine there. It stands alongside Paris’s more famous cemeteries as a site of memory, inviting reflection on the human stories behind historical upheaval and on how communities remember their former rulers, poets, and citizens alike.
References: historical accounts and local memorial records provide context for the events commemorated at Picpus and the individuals interred there.