Sunday
I finally found some time to relax a bit today and so i thought i'd go mad and do some extreme chilling out.
In a nice cemetary !
I'm not yet contemplating doing my wrists, swallowing razor blades or putting my head in the oven - it's a teensy weensy oven and is a bit on the electric side of things.
I wanted to go for a jaunt to a very atypical, non run of the mill cemetary ... the mother of all cemetaries, if you will.
I spent the afternoon at Le Père-Lachaise, where the dead, rich and famous people (DRAFP) are all just dying to get in.
If you click on an image it will open in a new page, only bigger and 'better'
Very briefly : the cemetary is named after a jesuit priest (François d'Aix) who was Louis XIV's confessor from 1675 until his death in 1709.
A hundred years later, the modest civilian cemetary around the jesuit's country house, which up until that time had been called the eastern cemetary, was rebatised La cimitère de La Père Lachaise.
I didn't quite know what to expect on arriving, y'know, cemeteries = glauque
....................... rats
.................. crows
............... worms
................ rats
.......... worms
dead people.
My immediate impression was of some kind of gothic looking shanty town with squillions of tombs crammed side to side, all almost obscenly heaped up, on top of one another
In a spirit of égalité, everyone has the right to 2m4 of turf.
Height though, is not a problem
I got the idea, that even in the last throws of various famillies' dynasties , people are still trying to out do each other in the after-life-one-up-manship-stakes and some of the stonework could grace any public building without shame
Like any self respecting tourist, i wanted to see the eternel resting place of Jimmy Doug Morrison.
I didn't buy the dead people's grave stones map - it really does exist, as crass as it seems ('cos i'm way too cool for that stuff) and wandered aimlessly around listening and looking for indicators (héhéhé).
I finally tuned into the waft of finest Afghan black (there was indeed, somewhat prosaically, a gothic chick having a spliff whilst looking dreamily at the head stone) which led me to the hallowed ground.
From there, in a flash of "let me just demonstrate to y'all my solidarity-with-my-feminist-side-of-things" i thought i'd check out Colette's grave.
I walked on for a bit and saw a group of people all congregating : this must be it, i thought.
I was at that point where you sort of surreptitiously edge along to the focal point of things, camera at the ready ..
... but just in time ... i held back ... i realised that it was a real burial sevice - priest in white frock ... handfulls of dirt... gravediggers checking their watches and calculating their overtime rate ... chicks in little black dresses (couldn't but help and notice that one) ... burying the last vestiges of some familly member.
I pursued upon my little way and stumbled onto another DRAFP
Finally, i doubled back and came upon what was probably my fave tomb (as if we can have a 'favorite' tomb).
The story is this : Victor Noir, twenty two, a young journalist, was called upon to act as a witness to a duel between Pierre Bonaparte (cousin of 'The' Bonaparte) who felt slighted by an article written by a fellow journaliste.
In the ensuing argument, a shot rang out and Victor fell to the ground d.e.a.d
Bonaparte couldn't be prosecuted, for obvious reasons, but the prime minister arrested him anyway in a show of good will (a revolution would've kicked off big time and the seconde republique'd've fell soon afterwards).
Wait .. but .. that's not all ...
Twenty years later (after the fall of the empire) the body of Noir, who by this time had been proclaimed as a symbol of the republic, was moved and a cast of his body was made : exactly as it had been at the moment of his untimely demise.
The story goes that he was due to marry the day after his death and was in a state of extreme, let's say "anticipative" exitation(!!) ... which goes to explain the 'protuberance' in the bronze cast ...
From that point onwards, Victor Noir's tomb has become famous for the lustre on certain parts of his efigy ...
... burnished by the hands of many's a young woman because it's said that caressing the feet and the ... heuuuumm ... 'manly bits' ...allows young ladies to find luuuuuuuuuuurve ! *yeah baby yeah*
In a nice cemetary !
I'm not yet contemplating doing my wrists, swallowing razor blades or putting my head in the oven - it's a teensy weensy oven and is a bit on the electric side of things.
I wanted to go for a jaunt to a very atypical, non run of the mill cemetary ... the mother of all cemetaries, if you will.
I spent the afternoon at Le Père-Lachaise, where the dead, rich and famous people (DRAFP) are all just dying to get in.
If you click on an image it will open in a new page, only bigger and 'better'
Very briefly : the cemetary is named after a jesuit priest (François d'Aix) who was Louis XIV's confessor from 1675 until his death in 1709.
A hundred years later, the modest civilian cemetary around the jesuit's country house, which up until that time had been called the eastern cemetary, was rebatised La cimitère de La Père Lachaise.
I didn't quite know what to expect on arriving, y'know, cemeteries = glauque
....................... rats
.................. crows
............... worms
................ rats
.......... worms
dead people.
My immediate impression was of some kind of gothic looking shanty town with squillions of tombs crammed side to side, all almost obscenly heaped up, on top of one another
In a spirit of égalité, everyone has the right to 2m4 of turf.
Height though, is not a problem
I got the idea, that even in the last throws of various famillies' dynasties , people are still trying to out do each other in the after-life-one-up-manship-stakes and some of the stonework could grace any public building without shame
Like any self respecting tourist, i wanted to see the eternel resting place of Jimmy Doug Morrison.
I didn't buy the dead people's grave stones map - it really does exist, as crass as it seems ('cos i'm way too cool for that stuff) and wandered aimlessly around listening and looking for indicators (héhéhé).
I finally tuned into the waft of finest Afghan black (there was indeed, somewhat prosaically, a gothic chick having a spliff whilst looking dreamily at the head stone) which led me to the hallowed ground.
From there, in a flash of "let me just demonstrate to y'all my solidarity-with-my-feminist-side-of-things" i thought i'd check out Colette's grave.
I walked on for a bit and saw a group of people all congregating : this must be it, i thought.
I was at that point where you sort of surreptitiously edge along to the focal point of things, camera at the ready ..
... but just in time ... i held back ... i realised that it was a real burial sevice - priest in white frock ... handfulls of dirt... gravediggers checking their watches and calculating their overtime rate ... chicks in little black dresses (couldn't but help and notice that one) ... burying the last vestiges of some familly member.
I pursued upon my little way and stumbled onto another DRAFP
Finally, i doubled back and came upon what was probably my fave tomb (as if we can have a 'favorite' tomb).
The story is this : Victor Noir, twenty two, a young journalist, was called upon to act as a witness to a duel between Pierre Bonaparte (cousin of 'The' Bonaparte) who felt slighted by an article written by a fellow journaliste.
In the ensuing argument, a shot rang out and Victor fell to the ground d.e.a.d
Bonaparte couldn't be prosecuted, for obvious reasons, but the prime minister arrested him anyway in a show of good will (a revolution would've kicked off big time and the seconde republique'd've fell soon afterwards).
Wait .. but .. that's not all ...
Twenty years later (after the fall of the empire) the body of Noir, who by this time had been proclaimed as a symbol of the republic, was moved and a cast of his body was made : exactly as it had been at the moment of his untimely demise.
The story goes that he was due to marry the day after his death and was in a state of extreme, let's say "anticipative" exitation(!!) ... which goes to explain the 'protuberance' in the bronze cast ...
From that point onwards, Victor Noir's tomb has become famous for the lustre on certain parts of his efigy ...
... burnished by the hands of many's a young woman because it's said that caressing the feet and the ... heuuuumm ... 'manly bits' ...allows young ladies to find luuuuuuuuuuurve ! *yeah baby yeah*
Libellés : Paris, Père Lachaise, Photos
posted by Damiel | 10:42 PM
4 Comments:
Le pere lachaise is one of the most wildly romantic places I've ever been to.
Have you been to Bagatelle? Go when the roses are in full bloom. It will kill ya.
Phouarr, p'raps it's just me but i just didn't find the famous peoples' graveyard that romantic ...
I'll definately check out Bagatelle though :)
That's 'cause you didn't being a girl and a picnic.
:^*
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