Picpus Cemetery

In my post on the 12th arrondissement I mentioned the Picpus Cemetery, where the victims of the guillotine of the Place de la Nation.  I had originally decided to visit it while exploring the 12th in general but I found it interesting enough to merit its own post.

Firstly, it's not a very well known place; it's privately owned (though I don't know if the noble families' descendents or the church owns it) and one of the few places in the city that does not have a student discount.  There is a plaque on the wall outside saying what the place is, but there is no indication of it being a site that's open to the public.

 

("Here, in two common graves, the bodies of more than 1300 people who were guillotined at the Place du Trone [now Place de la Nation] were buried between June 13 and July 28 1794.")

I went in and it seemed deserted, with just a little chapel.  This is not the original church that was here at the time of the Revolution; a convent had been on this ground at that point but it was seized by the revolutionary government.

An older guy came out of a small office to the right and told me the site is privately owned and you have to pay two euros to get in.  It seemed like most people must leave when they find that out, because he started to go back in, but I responded that I knew that and I'd like to see the cemetery.  He seemed quite surprised, but told me where to go and gave me a little map of the grounds.  I guess no one really comes here; the only other person I saw visiting was a little old lady who I think was a family member of some of the people buried there.

Anyway, first I went to check out the chapel, which is the darkest one I've ever seen, and is dedicated to the victims of the Terror.  I had to take this picture with the door open to let in some light.  It's a simple place, with a list of those buried here in the back.

Then I went out and through the gate to the garden and cemetery.  It was immediately evident that it's historically been a site of particular American interest; the Marquis de Lafayette, aka General Lafayette of American War of Independence fame, is buried here.  These plaques are next to the gates:

("In memory of General Lafayette, 1757-1834.  Gift of the Benjamin Franklin Paris Chapter and the Daughters of the American Revolution.")

("To commemorate the arrival of General Pershing and the American army in France, July 1917.  Gift of the Benjamin Franklin Paris Chapter and the Daughters of the American Revolution.")

After that is a rather empty garden, which separates the modern chapel grounds from the old convent living areas.

That is one of the old convent walls.

Passing through the wall, I came to the cemetery proper.  There is a garden and then the burial area is off to the right, but at the far end of these trees is one of the common graves.

Weirdly, I did not take any long shots of the cemetery itself so I can't show it as a whole.  Instead I will direct you to the first part of this post, because overall it looks like a compact version of the other Parisian cemeteries.

Anyway, some background on the modern cemetery: in 1797, after the Terror was over and people were no longer being guillotined, Princess Amelie Zephyrine of Salm-Kyrburg secretly bought a small area of the old convent land, intending to make it a memorial to the victims buried there, one of whom was her brother.  By Napoleon's time some other family members of the noble victims bought the rest of the land and formed a proper cemetery right next to the common graves.  These were mostly women, and included widows, sisters, and mothers of men who had been killed.  General Lafayette's wife, born Adrienne de Noailles, was one of the main members; her sister, mother, and grandmother were some of those in the common grave.  Her extended family was nearly wiped out during the Terror because they were very close to the monarchy.

Their graves

The following is going to be largely pictures of plaques and gravestones, with translations and a bit of commentary.  Since it's not going to interest most people I'm going to do something I never do and generally dislike, and put a page jump.

The families continued burying members here, and some still do to this day.  I saw some markers from the 2000's.  But still nearly everyone buried in the proper part of the cemetery retains a noble title or is an immediate descendent of the French nobility.  (Here I should explain: of course the true French nobility has not existed for quite some time, and the titles that people retain are not recognized by any authority.  They were passed down through families that survived the Revolution, or they were bought or earned under Napoleon, Napoleon III, and restoration of the monarchy in the 19th century.)

So there is one walled-off area that you can walk around that is the current burial area, and right next to it are the two main common graves.  You can't walk around there, but you can look through the gate that separates the two areas.

Here is what I was able to see of the common graves.  The rectangular areas covered in pebbles represent the actual pits where the bodies were thrown; the one is very close and you can just see the other in the background.

("Grave number two: length, 10 meters, width, 6.3 meters, depth, 8 meters.  Approximately 304 martyrs, decapitated in the Place du Trone in June 1794, rest here awaiting resurrection.")

 On the wall between the two areas

("The two common graves contain the 1306 bodies of the victims of the guillotine at the Place du Trone.  197 women - 7 nuns, 16 Carmelites, 51 former nobles, 123 commoners; 1109 men - 108 clergy, 108 former nobles, 136 notables/lawyers/officials, 178 army members, 579 commoners.)

One of the memories associated with this place is that of the "Martyrs of Compiegne," a group of 16 Carmelites from the countryside who had refused to obey the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, an order that abolished religious communities in France.  They were arrested and taken to Paris to be guillotined, and they sang hymns as they were brought to the scaffold.  The ones awaiting execution continued singing as each sister went up.  The Terror ended days after their deaths and it has been suggested that the shock of their execution was a factor in ending it.  Here is the plaque for them.

("To the memory of the 16 Carmelites from Compiegne who died for their faith on July 17 1794, beatified May 27 1906.  [Their names and religious titles]  Their bodies rest behind this wall.")

The cemetery proper, as I mentioned, mostly contains nobility and former nobility.   Some of the stones were quite interesting, and many people come from families that were significant in French history.

For example this is the tomb of the de Polignac family, and it has dozens of names on the walls.

And there are lots of references to other major events in French history since then.  Here is the grave of four priests who were killed in the Commune (I assume one of the families paid for them to be buried here).

("[Their names]...taken hostage and massacred in the Rue Haxo during the events of the Paris Commune, May 26 1871.")

This guy was a duke, a count, and a marshal in the army, killed during World War I.

Most surprising and interesting to me were the number of nobility/former nobility who were arrested by the Germans during World War II and killed or put in work or concentration camps.  I had no idea that any French people from background like that were killed outside of actual battle or in the course of the Resistance.  I would guess the ones who weren't in the army must have been suspected of Resistance activities.

("Remember before God - Anne, Princess of Bauffement-Courtenay - died for France in deportation at Ravensbruck camp, 1919-1945.)

(Left: "Remember before God - Jean de Nouailles, duke of Ayen, earned the Croix de Guerre 1914-1918 - arrested January 28 1942 by the Gestapo, deported to Germany, to Buchenwald, Flossenburg, and Sachsenhausen, died at Belsen camp April 14, 1945 at 52 years old.  And Adrien Maurice de Nouailles, his only son - army volunteer, sergeant in the Charolais battalion, Croix de Guerre 1944, fell in Rupt-sur-Moselle in Vosges, October 9 1944 at 19 years old.  Died for France.

Right: "Remember before God - Count Maurice de Jacquelot du Boisrouvray, born July 27 1910, reserve aerial captain, knight of the Legion of Honor, friend of the Liberation, Croix de Guerre, disappeared in aerial combat December 20 1941 south of Benghazi, Libya.  Died for France.")

Finally, outside the burial area is the last common grave but it seems like they're not completely sure where it is.  It's somewhere around here, but this also marks the original convent that stood there until the Revolution.