A Visit to the Cimetiere Montparnasse

Call me morbid, but on my first day in Paris I wanted to pay my respects to the luminaries who had made Paris the City of Light. The dearest one to me of these was the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani who had moved to Paris at the age of 22, and died there 14 years later. Tracing my finger on the map along the Boulevard du Montparnasse where he would have walked, loved, and lived, I noticed a large green square slightly south of the great boulevard, labeled simply “Cimetière Montparnasse.”

In my mind Modi, as his friends called him, was so tightly associated with Montparnasse that I assumed this was where he must rest alongside his last lover, Jeanne Hébuterne. However, it was not Modigliani’s grave I found at this repository of the most talented bones in Paris, but the graves of Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Chaïm Soutine, Baudelaire, Henri Langlois, Brassaï, Brancusi, Jean Seberg, Serge Gainsbourg, Julio Cortazar, Man Ray, and Samuel Beckett, among many other writers, artists and philosophers.

I was stunned. It was as though the entire history of left bank bohemia had been condensed on one moderately sized piece of land. And what amazed me, too, was that all those who had been part of it (except Modi, of course,) were buried alongside one another regardless of religion or nationality – many Jewish stars and Muslim half-moons shone through the forest of crosses – but rather because they shared the same vision of left-bank Paris and the same desire to create.

There was nothing morbid about this cemetery, I realized, as I watched old French ladies stroll and gossip up the main alleys. This was the Hamptons of cemeteries, the hottest place to go for a permanent vacation, reserved for those who had truly developed their potential to its fullest and lived life as few others have. As an aspiring artist, I wanted to pay my dues.

Having gotten a map from the guardian’s office directly to the left of the main gate (you have to ask for it), I armed my pocket with small stones for the Jewish graves. My first stop along the alley directly to the right of the entrance (called Avenue du “Boulevard”) was the most frequented spot in the cemetery and the most shocking – one white gravestone announcing the joint grave of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Having never officially cemented their long-running and often tumultuous relationship, they were nevertheless often considered inseparable - apparently even in death.

Although Sartre and Beauvoir were easy to spot, I soon found that the map could be deceiving. The cemetery is actually a lot larger than it implies, and graves shown as directly facing an alley can actually be several rows deep.

Lost somewhere in the 3^rd division, I was rescued by an elderly French lady chatting with her friend on a bench. Having watched me walk by several times, she announced to her friend, “Attends, je vais l’aider.” Then turning to me, asked “Qui est-ce que tu churches?” Cortazar, I told her, and she waved her hand at me “Ah, Cortazar, Cortazar!” and led me several rows in to the exact location of the grave. How she knew precisely where it was, I still don’t know, but it was one of the most whimsical graves in the whole cemetery. Made of white stone, it was adorned by colorful subway and train tickets admirers had brought with them from Argentina, held down by small rocks. I later saw souvenirs from Ireland, too, on Beckett’s grave. Brassaï’s was unadorned, while Man Ray’s held an enigmatic inscription, “unconcerned but not indifferent.” Apparently someone named Julie had chosen it for him, because the last words on the headstone were, “love, Julie.” Now that same Julie lay buried next to him.

Unfortunately, he was my last stop. At twenty before 6 p.m., closing time, whistles starting blowing and a guardian rode past me on a golf cart shouting “Fermé, fermé!” and marking an X with his arms whenever he passed anyone, naturally assuming that we were probably not only foreign, but also deaf.

Walking back to the main gate facing north, to the center of Paris, I noticed how gently the buildings of Boulevard Edgar-Quinet peak in above the trees and cemetery walls. The Boulevard along which the cemetery runs is one of the greenest and quietest I have seen in Paris. The only menacing element was the black Montparnasse tower looming constantly on the left.

As I exited, I turned to the guard ringing the closing bell and inquired about Modigliani. Apparently he is buried in the somewhat older cemetery next door. Well, maybe some other time.