Ghostly Paris: Eerie Itineraries in the City of Light

Temperatures are dropping as fast as the gold-stained leaves that crunch beneath our feet, filling the air with the fragrance of the colder months. Sedate men selling warm chestnuts balance their shopping cart roasters at metro entrances. Darker months have fallen on Paris. With Halloween just around the corner, it is the ideal season to explore the city’s darker side.

Pont Alexandre at night with an eerie, misty atmosphere photographed in black and white. — Top: Nicolas Saulnier
Above: Pont Alexandre photo by Nicolas Bruant, all rights reserved.

The Catacombs

The Catacombs are a macabre storage depot 20 meters below street level. A maze of femurs, ribs, and skulls are arranged, stacked, and aligned, evoking an exhibition of Art Naïve. The aging bones of 15th century literary luminaries Rabelais and Jean de la Fontaine entwine with 18th century revolutionaries Robespierre and Danton. They sit among the remains of six million other Parisians. All of them were originally buried in city cemeteries that were reclaimed as land for the living.

The Basilica of Saint-Denis

The first known Gothic cathedral, the medieval The Basilica of Saint-Denis, is another home of the ancient dead. But here rests those of noble birth, who lead aristocratic lives before they met their ends. Sunlight streams through soaring stained glass windows. It casts a rainbow of light on ornate, recumbent statues that mark the resting places of the Kings of France. The Good King Dagobert – Pipin before Broadway fame – and the Louis, Henris, and Philips that once ruled France rest here beside their queens. These include those who lost their heads and arrived long after their demise, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

The interior of the Gothic Basilique Saint Denis in Paris with soaring ceilings, stained glass windows and stone interiors. — Basilica of Saint-Denis photo by Ninara

The Panthéon

France’s most illustrious rest in the heart of the city, at the epic Pantheon. Here Émile Zola lays below Foucault’s pendulum, just meters from Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Voltaire, and Pierre and Marie Curie.

The interior of the Pantheon with a Roman columns, frescoes and blue and grey stone floor. — photo by Eric Huybrechts

Cemeteries: Père Lachaise, Montparnasse, Montmartre and more

There are more modern necropolis within the city as well. Père Lachaise is the most famous. Pilgrims flock to hold vigil at Jim Morrison’s tomb, or leave a lipstick kiss Oscar Wilde’s grave.

Montparnasse cemetery is the place to head for funerary art. Here you’ll find Constantin Brancusi’s masterpiece “The Kiss” and the larger-than-life sculpture of Monsieur and Madame Pigeon, snug in their brass bed, their namesake birds leaving their mark as they fly above.

Sunlight dapples the resting place of eternal expats Samuel Beckett, Brassaï, and Susan Sontag. Metro tickets honoring his hit song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, litter the tombstone of the original hipster, Serge Gainsbourg.

The stone gravestones crowded next to each other in Montparnasse Cemetery photographed in black and white. — Montparnasse Cemetery photo by Eric Huybrechts

More metro tickets can be found at the Montmartre cemetery, chez François Truffaut, in hommage to his movie, Le Dernier Metro. This monument to urbanization, at times below street level, is also the eternal resting place of Degas, Dumas, and Sasha Guitry.

The infinitely less famous, and ultimately more peaceful, cemeteries of Passy, Vaugirard, and Saint-Vincent in Montmartre house lesser names. However you will find General Lafayette buried in the Picpus cemetery, surrounded by mass graves of decapitated victims of the French Revolution. RIP.

Addresses

Paris Catacombs – Place Denfert-Rochereau, 1 avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, 75014 Paris. Tel: +33 (0)1 43 22 47 63

Basilique Saint-Denis – 1 Rue de la Légion d’Honneur, 93200 Saint-Denis. Tel: +33 (0)1 48 09 83 54

Panthéon – Place du Panthéon, 75005 Paris. Tel: +33 (0)1 44 32 18 00

Père Lachaise Cemetery – 16 Rue du Repos, 75020 Paris. Tel: +33 (0)1 55 25 82 10

Montparnasse Cemetery – 3 Boulevard Edgar Quinet, 75014 Paris. Tel: +33 (0)1 44 10 86 50

Montmartre Cemetery – 20 Avenue Rachel, 75018 Paris. Tel: +33 (0)1 53 42 36 30

Passy Cemetery – 2 Rue du Commandant Schloesing, 75016 Paris. Tel: +33 (0)1 53 70 40 80

Vaugirard Cemetery – 320 Rue Lecourbe, 75015 Paris

Saint-Vincent Cemetery – 6 Rue Lucien Gaulard, 75018 Paris. Tel: +33 (0)1 46 06 29 78

Picpus Cemetery – 35 Rue de Picpus, 75012 Paris

An eerie view of Pont Alexandre at night in black and white. — Pont Alexandre photo by Nicolas Bruant, all rights reserved.

There is a host of other, more sunny things to do in Paris in Autumn.
Autumn is the perfect season to take long, thoughtful walks. Why not get inspired by the Parisian cemeteries?
One expat shares her less than sunny encounters with French men.

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WRITTEN BY

Sylvia Sabes

Sylvia tells stories through images and words. She has worked as a Creative Director for international ad campaigns like Cartier and LOreal, and as a National Award winning Polaroid photographer. She writes and shoots all things Paris and beyond… She lives in Paris and the French Basque Region.