Picpus Cemetery and the Reign of Terror

Behind 2 large portal doors on a narrow, nondescript street lies the only private cemetery in Paris. The sign at 35, rue de Picpus, says: Here, in two mass graves, are buried the bodies of more than 1300 people guillotined on the Place du Trône from June 13 to July 28, 1794. (now Place de la Nation, on the eastern side of Paris.) This cemetery was not easy to find--from the street, there is not even a glimpse of what lies beyond its portals. On the day I visited this cemetery, I was not alone, which was just as well. A history buff from Texas, who was there to see Lafayette’s burial place, visited the grounds with me.

The French Revolution was a revolt against both the monarchy and the clergy. The Reign of Terror was designed to get rid of anyone who harbored counter-revolutionary intentions and thus to consolidate the power of the Committee of Public Safety, of which Maximilien de Robespierre was the most powerful member. The Committee did away with a suspect’s right to public trial and to legal assistance. Those who, by their conduct,  their relationships, their remarks, their writing, or their neighbor’s accusation, were executed as partisans of tyranny and federalism and enemies of liberty. All told, between 18 and 40,000 lost their lives to the guillotine or as a result of imprisonment. (You’ll be glad to know that the bloodshed stopped when Robespierre himself was beheaded.)

This cemetery is a very somber place--not just because it is a cemetery--Père Lachaise Cemetery is a solemn place, but not sad in the same way--Picpus is sad because of the way these people died and the reason for their death. They died not because of what they did but because of who they were. 

Picpus Cemetery entry portals  

  

The simple, unadorned sign indicating the location of the mass graves 

The Chapel of Our Lady of Peace (Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix) is located at the entrance to the cemetery. 

A plaque beside the blue portal in honor of  General Pershing and the American Army in France, a gift from the Daughters of the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin Chapter, Paris

A plaque on the other side of the blue portal in honor of General Lafayette, a gift from the Daughters of the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin Chapter, Paris

A walkway in the garden of the former convent

Picpus Cemetery was created from land seized during the French Revolution from the convent of the Chanoinesses de St-Augustin (Sisters of Saint Augustine).  The convent of the Chanoinesses de Saint-Augustin was created by King Louis XIII in 1640 outside of the old Parisian city walls.  In May, 1792, 4 years after the start of the French Revolution,  it was confiscated by the state. In March, 1794, it was converted into a prison hospital. In June, the garden was dug up to accommodate mass graves for approximately 1,300 men and women. 

A tree in the convent garden

A shrine to Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph with Jesus as a child

A vestige of the original convent chapel

The marker indicates that the chapel of the ancient convent was used by the gravediggers as an office to make an inventory of the clothes of those who had been executed.

Amidst the sounds of a very busy city, the convent garden and cemetery grounds are remarkably peaceful.

Walkway leading to the cemetery

Blue portals in the old convent wall open up from the garden to the cemetery.

Only descendants of the 1,306 victims executed during the Reign of Terror are eligible to be buried at Picpus Cemetery.

Family tomb of Montalembert

The Count Charles Forbes de Montalembert (1810-1870) was a  historian, politician and defender of the Catholic faith. He had two strikes against him--he was both a noble and a devout Catholic.

A view of the cemetery, with Lafayette’s tomb in the far corner

Family mausoleums

Lafayette’s tomb

The cemetery holds the tomb of the American Revolutionary hero, the Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), over which an American flag is always present. He is buried next to his wife, Adrienne de Lafayette, whose sister, mother and grandmother were among those beheaded and thrown into the common pit. Past Lafayette’s grave, behind another blue gate (on the far left in the pic), lie the common graves from the Revolution.

On July 4, 1917, Charles E. Stanton, a colonel in the US Army, visited the tomb of  Marquis de Lafayette. To honor the nobleman's assistance during the Revolutionary War and assure the French people that the people of the United States would aid them in World War I, he said, “And here and now, in the presence of the illustrious dead, we pledge our hearts and our honor in carrying this war to a successful issue. Lafayette, we are here.” 

Every July 4, an American delegation places a wreath on Lafayette’s tomb, and the American flag is replaced during the ceremony. In the past, the ceremony has started at 11:00 AM. There are speeches, and a band plays the American & French anthems and both versions of Taps. Unfortunately, the ceremony is by invitation only.  I would love to attend this ceremony, as I will be in Paris on July 4, but I don't know how to do it. It's not as if a great number of people even know about this cemetery or memorial service, but it is still closed to the public on this day.

Becky in front of Lafayette’s tomb

A view back toward the entrance to the cemetery

Of the 1,109 men, there were 108 nobles, 108 churchmen, 136 monastics (gens de robe), 178 military, and 579 commoners. There are 197 women buried there, with 51 from the nobility, 23 nuns and 123 commoners.

A plaque commemorating poet André de Chenier, son of Greece and France,  “servit les muses, aima la sagesse, mourut pour la vérité”.

Among the women, 16 Carmelite nuns, aged 29 to 78,  became known as the “Martyrs of Compiegne.“ They were brought to the guillotine together, singing hymns as they were led to the scaffold. They were guillotined for refusing to renounce their vocation. They were beatified by the Catholic church in 1906. Their story is memorialized in books as well as in the opera, “Dialogues of the Carmelites,” by Francis Poulenc, which includes the sound of the dropping guillotine blade in the score.

The gate through which the bodies were brought from the Place de la Nation, where they were guillotined. 

A plaque beside the wooden gate dedicated to the victims of the Terror

The decapitated bodies of people from all walks of life were thrown in together in a pit dug at the end of the garden. A second pit was dug when the first filled up. The pits are now designated by the gravel areas. Commoners and nobles alike suffered the same fate and now rest together.

Trench # 2

Trench # 1

A visit to the chapel, Our Lady of Peace, before leaving the cemetery grounds.

The sculpture of the Virgin holding Jesus visible in the chapel was created in 1530 and is believed to have been the origin of countless miraculous healings, including the healing of King Louis XIV in 1658.

Choir practice

The names, ages, occupations and date of death for each of the 1,306 people interred in the mass graves are inscribed on enormous plaques on the walls of the chapel.  You can see one of the plaques in the background. The bloodshed stopped when Robespierre himself was beheaded on July 28, 1794.  

Leaving the chapel

How the Picpus Cemetery came to be:

In 1797, the land was acquired by Princess Amalie Zephyrine of Salm-Kyrburg, whose brother, Frederick III, Prince of Salm-Kyrburg, was guillotined in 1794 and buried in one of the common graves created during the Revolution. In 1803, families whose members had been executed founded the Committee of the Society of Picpus to acquire the rest of the land on which the cemetery now sits. Even today, many noble families still use the cemetery as a burial place. 

Directions:

If you want to visit this cemetery, it is easily accessible by métro. However, do not exit at the Picpus métro stop (as I did) because Blvd de Picpus will only take you farther & farther away from 35, rue de Picpus. Instead, exit at Nation, take rue Fabre d’Eglantine to rue de Picpus, and you will arrive at your destination in 5 minutes. I would never have found the cemetery if it hadn’t been for a French couple who actually walked me there. Generally, hours are between 2 and 5pm, Tuesday -Sunday. The cost is 2 euros. Call before you go, and call after you get there if the doors are not open (01-43-44-18-54). It is worth the trouble.