The man behind it’s creation, an urban planner by the name of Nicolas Frochot, purchased the lot with the express purpose of prohibiting any more “living” quarters being built in what was already an overpopulated area, deciding he could make more money off clients who didn't complain. To this end he persuaded local authorities to have the corpses of Moliere, La Fontaine and Abelard and Heloise transferred to his new cemetery to give it some “cachet” and opened it to the public in May 1804. The ploy worked as it soon became the necropolis plus ultra for the rich and famous. In an ironic, but profitable, twist Frochot even sold a burial plot to the original owner of the land for more than he had paid for the entire parcel.

Napoleon was so impressed by the layout of the graveyard, with it’s sloped terraces and numerous trees and bowers he ordered a “Garden for the dead” be created, along the lines of an English garden, with sinuous paths, ample trees and grass, and tombs amid dense vegetation. The result is a 17-hectare park within the cemetery where people can quietly promenade amid the tombs, following a guide a bit like the map of the star’s homes in Hollywood.

And stars there are: Edith Piaf is in the far eastern corner, near the Mur des Federes where the last of the “Communards” were unceremoniously lined up and shot. Oscar Wilde’s grave is farther north, along the back wall, with its beautiful winged messenger sculpture by Jacob Epstein curiously defaced; although that’s not really the correct term, its penis is missing. The appendage was last thought to be a paper-weight in the cemetery director’s office.

Mausoleums of every description abound, from the sublime to the ridiculous. One huge edifice to an obscure politician rises like a misshapen obelisk high above the others. Most, however, resemble small chapels in various states of disrepair. Others have a touch of the whimsical. In lot 86 Jean Pezon, a lion tamer, can be seen riding a lion. Felix Faure, the President who died in his mistress’s arms at the Elysee Palace, reposes draped in the French flag. The tomb of Victor Noir, a journalist shot for criticizing a member of Napoleon III’s family is adorned with a an effigy of him lying on his back, fully dressed and very evidently exited. Infertile women can frequently be seen giving Noir a quick rub as a sex charm. A muse weeps for Chopin in Lot 11, but poor Marcel Proust lies in a traditional family tomb.

The real rich and famous however, appear to prefer simple markers. Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, lies in lot 6, his once graffiti covered tomb now scrubbed clean. It is probably the only tomb with its own police guard to ensure its condition. A rumour has it that the family removed his body back to the USA long ago, but left the tomb intact as a distraction from his real resting place. All the after-life glamour and folly of the famous but dead cannot in any way lighten the spirit of the monuments to the collectively killed: In lot 97 are the memorials to the victims of the Nazi Camps, the unknown fallen and murdered and the Resistance fighters of World War II.

As much as it is a tourist attraction (2 millions of visitors annually), the Cimetiere de L’Est, dit du Pere Lachaise is a reflection of the inequalities in life: The murderers and the murdered lie side by side, head to toe in places of greater or lesser importance, occupying the same place in the hierarchy of death as they did in life.