Pere Lachaise

Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise 26^th October

Claire’s reflections on death and dying after Claire and Alexis visited the cemetery on a clear but cold autumn day—number 69 bus from Rue de Rivoli. If you are thinking of making this trip we strongly advise you to collect a Marie de Paris Plan du Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise from the “Conservation” on Av. Du Puits as the guide book maps are not adequate to navigate this beautiful but complex site and terrain. We also noted that once a famous grave had been spotted then many tourists descended on the location—a ‘pop up’ crowd. However over dependence on the plan and a guidebook takes away from the pleasure of wandering through the cemetery and taking in the visual and atmospheric ambience and of ‘disinterring’ interesting graves by serendipity.

Claire’s tips for the aspiring artists and artistes wishing to avoid premature death: rug up, eat well, avoid drink, drugs and cigarettes, use condoms, stay away from guns and fly by boat.

Heroin overdose (though in JM's case it was and remains heroine overdose) Jim Morrison (1941-1971)*; Basquiat (1960-1988)

Liver cancer Edith Piaf (1915-1963)*

Plane crash Ginette Niveau (1919-1949)

Poverty/cerebral meningitis Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)*

Poverty/tubercular meningitis/addiction to alcohol and narcotics Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920)*

Studio fire Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)

Suicide by shooting Ernest Hemingway (1899-1960); Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

Syphilis Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)

Tuberculosis Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)*; Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923)*

*Buried at Pere Lachaise