Père Lachaise Cemetery (French: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, [simtjɛːʁ dy pɛːʁ laʃɛːz]; formerly, cimetière de l'Est, "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris (44 hectares or 110 acres), though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.

Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement and is notable for being the first garden cemetery, as well as the first municipal cemetery. It is also the site of three World War I memorials.

The cemetery is on Boulevard de Ménilmontant. The Paris Métro station Philippe Auguste on line 2 is next to the main entrance, while the station called Père Lachaise, on both lines 2 and 3, is 500 metres away near a side entrance. Many tourists prefer the Gambetta station on line 3, as it allows them to enter near the tomb of Oscar Wilde and then walk downhill to visit the rest of the cemetery.

History and description

Origin

The cemetery takes its name from the confessor to Louis XIV, Père François de la Chaise (1624–1709), who lived in the Jesuit house rebuilt in 1682 on the site of the chapel. The property, situated on the hillside from which the king watched skirmishing between the Condé and Turenne during the Fronde, was bought by the city in 1804. Established by Napoleon in this year, the cemetery was laid out by Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart and later extended.

As the city graveyards of Paris filled, several new, large cemeteries, outside the precincts of the capital, replaced them: Montmartre Cemetery in the north, Père Lachaise in the east, and Montparnasse Cemetery in the south. At the heart of the city, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, is Passy Cemetery.

Père Lachaise Cemetery was opened on 21 May 1804. The first person buried there was a five-year-old girl named Adélaïde Paillard de Villeneuve, the daughter of a door bell-boy of the Faubourg St. Antoine. Her grave no longer exists as the plot was a temporary concession. Napoleon, who had been proclaimed Emperor by the Senate three days earlier, had declared during the Consulate that "Every citizen has the right to be buried regardless of race or religion".

At the time of its opening, the cemetery was considered to be situated too far from the city and attracted few funerals. Moreover, many Roman Catholics refused to have their graves in a place that had not been blessed by the Church. In 1804, the Père Lachaise had contained only 13 graves. Consequently, the administrators devised a marketing strategy and in 1804, with great fanfare, organised the transfer of the remains of Jean de La Fontaine and Molière. The following year there were 44 burials, with 49 in 1806, 62 in 1807 and 833 in 1812. Then, in another great spectacle in 1817, the purported remains of Pierre Abélard and Héloïse d'Argenteuil were also transferred to the cemetery with their monument's canopy made from fragments of the abbey of Nogent-sur-Seine (by tradition, lovers or lovelorn singles leave letters at the crypt in tribute to the couple or in hope of finding true love).

This strategy achieved its desired effect: people began clamouring to be buried among the famous citizens. Records show that, within a few years, Père Lachaise went from containing a few dozen permanent residents to more than 33,000 in 1830. Père Lachaise was expanded five times: in 1824, 1829, 1832, 1842 and 1850. Today there are over 1 million bodies buried there, and many more in the columbarium, which holds the remains of those who had requested cremation.

The Communards' Wall (Mur des Fédérés) is also located in the cemetery. This is the site where 147 Communards, the last defenders of the workers' district of Belleville, were shot on 28 May 1871 – the last day of the "Bloody Week" (Semaine Sanglante) in which the Paris Commune was crushed.

The Crematorium and Columbarium

A funerary chapel was erected in 1823 by Étienne-Hippolyte Godde at the exact place of the ancient Jesuit house. This same Neoclassical architect created the monumental entrance a few years later.

A columbarium and a crematorium of a Neo-Byzantine style were designed in 1894 by Jean-Camille Formigé.

Cemetery today

Père Lachaise is still an operating cemetery and accepting new burials. However, the rules to be buried in a Paris cemetery are rather strict: people may be buried in one of these cemeteries if they die in the French capital city or if they lived there. Being buried in Père Lachaise is even more difficult nowadays as there is a waiting list: very few plots are available. The gravesites at Père Lachaise range from a simple, unadorned headstone to towering monuments and even elaborate mini chapels dedicated to the memory of a well-known person or family. Many of the tombs are about the size and shape of a telephone booth, with just enough space for a mourner to step inside, kneel to say a prayer, and leave some flowers.

The cemetery manages to squeeze an increasing number of bodies into a finite and already crowded space. One way it does this is by combining the remains of multiple family members in the same grave. At Père Lachaise, it is not uncommon to reopen a grave after a body has decomposed and inter another coffin. Some family mausoleums or multi-family tombs contain dozens of bodies, often in several separate but contiguous graves. Shelves are usually fitted out to accommodate them.

In relatively recent times, Père Lachaise has adopted a standard practice of issuing 30-year leases on gravesites, so that if a lease is not renewed by the family, the remains can be removed, space made for a new grave, and the overall deterioration of the cemetery minimized. Abandoned remains are boxed, tagged and moved to Aux Morts ossuary, in Père Lachaise cemetery.

Plots can be bought in perpetuity, for 50, 30 or 10 years, the last being the least expensive option. Even in the case of mausoleums and chapels, coffins are most of the time below ground.

Although some sources incorrectly estimate the number of interred as 300,000 in Père Lachaise, according to official website of the city of Paris, one million people have been buried there to date. Along with the stored remains in the Aux Morts ossuary, the number of human remains exceeds 2–3 million.

Aux Morts ossuary

Behind the Aux Morts (To the Dead) monument sculpted by Paul Albert Bartholomé lies an ossuary of the bones of Parisians from cemeteries all over the city, a smaller kind of modern day catacombs. Although the monument is well known, it is not general knowledge that it is also an ossuary, and its doors usually remain closed and locked to the public. When it became overcrowded recently, the bones were removed for cremation and returned to the ossuary after the incineration process. In the Père Lachaise ossuary, efforts are made to store bones and ashes in separate boxes.

Burials

A

• Peter Abelard – French philosopher
• Edmond François Valentin About – French novelist and journalist
• Marie d'Agoult – French author who wrote under the nom de plume of Daniel Stern
• Avetis Aharonyan – Armenian politician, writer and public figure
• Jehan Alain – French composer and organist
• Marietta Alboni – Italian opera singer
• Jean-Charles Alphand – French civil engineer
• Karel Appel – Dutch painter
• Guillaume Apollinaire – French poet and art critic
• François Arago – French scientist and statesman
• Armand Pierre Fernandez – French painter
• Miguel Ángel Asturias – Guatemalan diplomat and author, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1967
• Daniel Auber – French composer
• Hubertine Auclert – French feminist and activist for women's suffrage
• Pierre Augereau – French military commander and Marshal of France
• Jean-Pierre Aumont – French actor, father of Tina Aumont and husband of Maria Montez
• Jane Avril – French dancer

B

• Salvador Bacarisse – Spanish composer
• Honoré de Balzac – French novelist of the 19th century
• Joseph Barbanègre – French general
• Henri Barbusse – French novelist
• Paul Barras – French statesman
• Antoine-Louis Barye – French sculptor
• Alain Bashung – French singer
• Stiv Bators – ashes sprinkled on the grave of Jim Morrison
• Jean-Dominique Bauby – French journalist
• Jean-Louis Baudelocque – French obstetrician
• Pierre Beaumarchais – French playwright
• Félix de Beaujour – French diplomat, politician and historian
• Gilbert Bécaud – French singer
• Pierre Augustin Béclard – French anatomist
• Vincenzo Bellini – Italian composer; remains later transferred to Italy
• Hans Bellmer – German (French) surrealist photographer, sculptor, draughtsman
• Judah P. Benjamin – American lawyer and statesman
• Pierre-Jean de Béranger – French lyricist
• Claude Bernard – French physiologist, known for several advances in medicine, as the introduction of the scientific method to the study of medicine, and the study of the sympathetic nervous system.
• Bernardin de Saint Pierre – French writer
• Sarah Bernhardt – French stage and film actress
• Alphonse Bertillon – French anthropologist and father of anthropometry
• Julien Bessières – French scientist, diplomat and politician
• Ramón Emeterio Betances – Puerto Rican nationalist
• Bruno Bianchi – French animator, co-creator of Inspector Gadget
• Marie François Xavier Bichat – French anatomist and physiologist
• Fulgence Bienvenüe – French civil engineer remembered as the Father of the Paris Métro
• Samuel Bing – German art dealer
• Georges Bizet – French composer and conductor
• Louis Blanc – French historian and statesman
• Sophie Blanchard – first professional female balloonist and the first woman to die in an aviation accident
• Auguste Blanqui – French revolutionary socialist.
• François-Adrien Boieldieu – French composer
• Rosa Bonheur – French painter
• Ludwig Börne – German political writer and satirist
• Pierre Bourdieu – French sociologist
• Alexandrine-Caroline Branchu – French opera singer
• Édouard Branly – French scientist
• Pierre Brasseur – French comedian
• Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin – French Lawyer, Politician, Epicure, and Gastronome
• Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart – French architect, best known for designing the layout of the Pėre Lachaise Cemetery
• Pierre Brossolette – French journalist, politician and Résistance leader
• Jean de Brunhoff – French author of Babar the Elephant
• Auguste-Laurent Burdeau – French politician and plaintiff in the Drumont-Burdeau trial

C

• Joseph Caillaux – French statesman
• Gustave Caillebotte – French Impressionist painter
• Maria Callas – The opera singer's ashes were originally buried in the cemetery. After being stolen and later recovered, they were scattered into the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Greece. The empty urn remains in Père Lachaise.
• Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès – French lawyer and politician
• Giulia Grisi de Candia – Italian opera singer, well known as "Giulia Grisi", her grave is marked Giullia de Candia.
• Jean-Joseph Carriès – French sculptor, ceramist, and miniaturist
• Pierre Cartellier – French sculptor
• Claude Chabrol – French film director
• Albert Champion – French road racing cyclist
• Jean-François Champollion – French decipherer of the hieroglyphs and father of Egyptology
• Claude Chappe – French pioneer of the telegraph
• Gustave Charpentier – French composer
• Ernest Chausson – French composer
• Richard Chenevix – Irish chemist
• Luigi Cherubini – Italian composer
• Claude de Choiseul-Francières – Marshal of France
• Frédéric Chopin – Polish composer. His heart is entombed within a pillar at the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.
• Auguste Clésinger – French painter and sculptor
• France Clidat – French pianist
• Émile Cohl – French cartoonist
• Colette – French novelist
• Count Alexandre Joseph Colonna-Walewski – French statesman (illegitimate son of Napoleon)
• Édouard Colonne – French conductor
• Auguste Comte – French thinker; father of Positivism
• Benjamin Constant – Swiss-born liberal philosopher
• Bruno Coquatrix – French lyricist and music impresario
• Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot – French painter
• Ramón Corral – Mexican Politician, Vice-president from 1904 until 1911 under President Porfirio Díaz administration
• Jean-Pierre Cortot – French sculptor
• Benoît Costaz – French bishop
• Georges Courteline – French playwright
• Thomas Couture – French painter
• Rufino José Cuervo – Colombian writer and philologue
• Nancy Cunard – English poet and activist
• Henri Curiel – Egyptian politician
• Georges Cuvier – the founder of paleontology

D

• Jarosław Dąbrowski – exiled Polish revolutionary Nationalist and last Commander-in-Chief of the Paris Commune of 1871; body never found, memory honored on Federated Wall in northeast corner of the Père Lachaise Cemetery and on monument erected outside the wall in the Square Samuel de Champlain
• Pierre Dac – French humorist
• Édouard Daladier – French Radical-Socialist politician of the 1930s, signatory of the Munich Agreement in 1938 and Prime Minister of France at the outbreak of the Second World War
• Alexandre Darracq – French automobile manufacturer
• Alphonse Daudet – Famous French author who is known for his literary works, such as, "Lettres de mon Moulin".
• Honoré Daumier – French caricaturist
• Jacques-Louis David – Napoleon's court painter was exiled as a revolutionary after the Bourbons returned to the throne of France. His body was not allowed into the country even in death, so the tomb contains only his heart.
• David d'Angers – French sculptor
• Louis-Nicolas Davout – Napoleon's "Iron Marshal"
• Gérard Debreu – French economist, won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1983
• Jean-Gaspard Deburau – Czech-born French actor and mime
• Denis Decrès – French admiral and Naval Minister under Napoleon
• Cino Del Duca – Italian-born French publishing magnate, film producer and philanthropist
• Simone Del Duca – French businesswoman and philanthropist, wife of Cino Del Duca
• Eugène Delacroix – French Romantic artist
• Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre – French mathematician
• Pierre Dervaux – French conductor
• Pierre Desproges – French humorist
• Henry Edward Detmold (1854-1924), English painter and illustrator
• Gustave Doré – French artist and engraver
• Michel Drach – French film director
• Marie Dubas – French singer
• Kavasjee Hormasjee Dubash – Indian ship chandler magnat
• Jacques Duclos – French politician
• Léon Dufourny – French architect
• Paul Dukas – French composer
• Isadora Duncan – American / Soviet dancer
• Henri Duparc – French composer
• Éléonore Duplay – Friend of French Revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre
• Guillaume Dupuytren – French surgeon
• Rosalie Duthé – French courtesan

E

• Paul Éluard – French surrealist poet
• George Enescu – Romanian composer, pianist, violinist and conductor
• Gérard Encausse (Papus) - French physician, hypnotist, and popularizer of occultism, founder of the Martinist Order
• Camille Erlanger – French composer
• Max Ernst – German artist

F

• Alexandre Falguière – French sculptor
• Félix Faure – former President of France
• Mehdi Favéris-Essadi – French DJ and musician
• Laurent Fignon – French cyclist, who won the Tour de France twice
• Robert de Flers – French playwright and journalist
• Suzanne Flon – actress
• Pierre François Léonard Fontaine French Neo-classical Architect
• Jean de La Fontaine – French litterateur best known for fairy tales
• Joseph Fourier – French mathematician and physicist
• Jean Françaix – French composer
• Pierre Frank – French Trotskyist politician
• William Temple Franklin – grandson of Benjamin Franklin
• Augustin-Jean Fresnel – French inventor of Fresnel Lens
• Loie Fuller – French dancer
• Marie-Madeleine Fourcade – also known as Madeline of the Resistance, leader of the French Resistance network "Alliance" during WWII

G

• Antonio de La Gandara – French painter
• Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès – French statesman
• Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac – French chemist and physicist
• Pierre Georges – French Resistance leader better known as Colonel Fabien
• Théodore Géricault – French Romantic painter, whose major work The Raft of the Medusa is reproduced on his tomb by sculptor Antoine Étex.
• Sophie Germain – Early French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher
• Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou – leader of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan
• André Gill – French caricaturist
• Annie Girardot – French actress
• Manuel de Godoy – Spanish prime minister and court favorite
• Yvan Goll – French-German poet and his wife Claire Goll
• Enrique Gómez Carrillo – Guatemalan novelist, journalist, war correspondent, chronicler and diplomat, lived most of his life in Europe; he was the correspondent to important newspapers in Spain and Argentina; published 86 books between novels and chronicles of his journeys to faraway places.
• Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr – French military commander and Marshal of France
• Zénobe Gramme – Inventor of the Direct Current (DC) Dynamo. There is a statue on the grave of Zénobe sitting and looking at a dynamo rotor.
• Stéphane Grappelli – French jazz violinist and member of the Quintette du Hot Club de France
• Eileen Gray - Irish architect and furniture designer
• André Grétry – Belgian-born French composer
• Maurice Grimaud – French Prefecture of Police during May 1968
• Giulia Grisi – Italian opera singer. Her grave is marked under her married name Giulia de Candia.
• Félix Guattari – French militant, institutional psychotherapist and philosopher
• Jules Guesde – French statesman
• Yvette Guilbert – actress and singer
• Joseph-Ignace Guillotin – proposed the guillotine as the official method of execution in France
• Ernest Guiraud – French musician
• Yılmaz Güney – Kurdish/Turkish actor, film director, scenarist and novelist

H

• Melanie Hahnemann – French homeopathist, the first female doctor in homeopathy
• Samuel Hahnemann – German physician, founder of homeopathy
• Georges Haussmann – French civil engineer and town planner
• Jeanne Hébuterne – French artist and common-law wife of the artist Amedeo Modigliani
• Sadeq Hedayat – Iran's foremost modern writer of prose fiction and short stories
• Heloïse – French abbess and scholar, best known for her love affair with Peter Abelard
• Klementyna Hoffmanowa – Polish prose writer, popularizer, translator and editor
• Ticky Holgado – French actor
• Jean-Nicolas Huyot – French architect best known for his work on the Arc de Triomphe

I

• Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres – French painter
• Jean-Baptiste Isabey – French painter

J

• Claude Jade – French actress
• Edmond Jabès – French-Egyptian-Jewish writer and poet
• Léon Jouhaux – French trade union leader, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1951

K

• Božidar Kantušer – American and Slovenian composer
• Allan Kardec – born Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail, founder of Spiritism
• Ahmet Kaya – Turkish/Kurdish singer and songwriter and political exile
• François Christophe de Kellermann – French military commander and Marshal of France
• Patrick Kelly - American fashion designer
• Thomas Read Kemp – English property developer and statesman
• Alexander Khatisian – Prime Minister of Armenia
• Henri Krasucki – French trade unionist
• Rodolphe Kreutzer – French violinist and composer

L

• Jean de La Fontaine – French fabulist
• Jérôme Lalande – French astronomer and writer
• René Lalique – French glass designer
• Édouard Lalo – French composer
• Pierre-Simon Laplace – French mathematician and astronomer (remains moved to Saint Julien de Mailloc in 1888)[12]
• Theophanis Lamboukas – French actor and singer, husband of Édith Piaf
• Francisco Largo Caballero – Former president of the Spanish II Republic.
• Dominique Jean Larrey – French military surgeon
• Clarence John Laughlin – American Surrealist photographer from New Orleans, Louisiana. His most famous published work was Ghosts Along the Mississippi.
• Marie Laurencin – French painter
• Charles-François Lebrun – French statesman
• Alexandre Ledru-Rollin – French politician
• Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély – French organist and composer
• François Joseph Lefebvre – French military commander and Marshal of France
• Edith Lefel – French singer
• Marie Anne Lenormand – French cartomancer
• Ferdinand de Lesseps – French architect, designed the Suez Canal
• Pierre Levegh – French racing driver killed in the 1955 Le Mans disaster
• Jean-François Lyotard – French philosopher

M

• Jacques MacDonald – French military commander and Marshal of France
• William Madocks – English landowner and statesman
• Miłosz Magin – Polish composer
• Nestor Makhno – Ukrainian Anarchist revolutionary
• Jacques-Antoine Manuel – French lawyer and statesman
• Auguste Maquet – French author
• Marcel Marceau – French mime artist
• Angelo Mariani – French chemist
• Célestine Marié – French opera singer
• André Masséna – French military commander and Marshal of France
• Étienne Méhul – French composer
• Georges Méliès – French filmmaker; produced A Trip to the Moon
• Émile-Justin Menier – French chocolatier
• Henri Menier – French chocolatier
• Antoine Brutus Menier – French chocolatier
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty – French philosopher
• Stuart Merrill – American symbolist poet
• Cléo de Mérode – French dancer
• Charles Messier – French astronomer, publisher of Messier's catalogue
• Teresa Milanollo – Italian violinist and composer, sister of Maria
• Maria Milanollo – Italian violinist; sister of Teresa
• Jules Michelet – French historian
• Borrah Minevitch – American harmonica player
• Amedeo Modigliani – Italian painter and sculptor. Famous for his intense rivalry with Pablo Picasso.
• Molière – French playwright
• Gustave de Molinari – Belgian-born economist associated with French laissez-faire liberal economists.
• Silvia Monfort – French comedienne
• Gaspard Monge – French mathematician; remains later moved to the Panthéon
• Édouard Monnais – French journalist, theater director, playwright and librettist
• Yves Montand – film actor
• Jim Morrison – American singer and songwriter with The Doors, author, and poet. Permanent crowds and occasional vandalism surrounding this tomb have caused tensions with the families of other, less famous, interred individuals. Contrary to rumor, the lease of the gravesite was upgraded from 30 year to perpetual by Morrison's parents; the site is regularly guarded (due to graffiti and other nuisances).
• René Mouchotte - Battle of Britain fighter pilot and Free French Air Force wing commander
• Jean Moulin – leader of the French Resistance during World War II who went missing after his arrest with several other Resistants at Caluire, Lyon in June 1943. Understood to have died on a train not far from Metz station in July that year, ashes 'presumed' to be his were interred at Père Lachaise after the war and then transferred to the Panthéon in December 1964.
• Marcel Mouloudji – French singer
• Georges Moustaki – French singer-songwriter
• Joachim Murat – French Napoleonic general and Marshal of France.
• Alfred de Musset – French poet, novelist, dramatist; love affair with George Sand is told from his point of view in his autobiographical novel, La Confession d'un Enfant du Siècle

N

• Félix Nadar – a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist and balloonist
• Étienne de Nansouty – General of Division, commander of the Guard cavalry during the Napoleonic Wars.
• Francine Navarro – crown princess of Montenegro, wife of prince Nikola II. Petrović-Njegoš
• Auguste Nélaton – Personal physician to Napoleon III
• Gérard de Nerval – French poet
• Michel Ney – Marshal of France, Prince of the Moskowa, who fought in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars
• Alwin Nikolais – American choreographer
• Anna de Noailles – French poetess
• Charles Nodier – French writer
• Victor Noir – journalist killed by Pierre Napoleon Bonaparte in a dispute over a duel with Paschal Grousset. The tomb, designed by Jules Dalou, is notable for the realistic portrayal of the dead Noir.
• Cyprian Norwid – Polish poet
• Boghos Nubar – Armenian statesman and diplomat

O

• Krikor Odian – Armenian diplomat and statesman
• Pascale Ogier – French actress
• Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione – famous Italian noblewoman and socialite
• Max Ophüls – German film director
• Philippe Antoine d'Ornano – French soldier and political figure who rose to the rank of Marshal of France
• Louis-Guillaume Otto – French diplomat
• Gholam Ali Oveissi – Iranian military commander and statesman
• Andranik Ozanian – Armenian military commander and statesman

P

• Émile Henry Fauré Le Page – French small-arms manufacturer
• Jean Le Page – arquebusier et fourbisseur du Roi et de l'Empereur
• Antoine Parmentier – French agronomist known for enunciating the dietary value of potatoes
• Alexandre Ferdinand Parseval-Deschenes – French admiral
• François-Auguste Parseval-Grandmaison – French poet, uncle of the above
• Christine Pascal – French actress
• Adelina Patti – Spanish-born opera singer
• Robert Herbert, 12th Earl of Pembroke – English aristocrat
• Charles Percier – French Neo-classical architect
• Georges Perec – French author
• Casimir Pierre Périer – French statesman
• Michel Petrucciani – French Jazz pianist
• Édith Piaf – French singer
• Georges Picquart, French general, involved in the Dreyfus affair
• Christian Pineau – French statesman
• Roland Piquepaille – French technology writer
• Camille Pissarro – French Impressionist painter
• Ignace Pleyel – pianist, composer, and piano builder
• Eugène Pottier – French revolutionary socialist and poet, composed "The Internationale"
• Elvira Popescu – Romanian actress
• Francis Poulenc – French composer
• Antoine-Augustin Préault – French sculptor
• Marcel Proust – French novelist, essayist and critic
• Pierre-Paul Prud'hon – French painter

Q

• Yvonne Marie Elise Toussaint de Quiévrecourt

R

• Mademoiselle Rachel – French actress
• François-Vincent Raspail – French scientist and statesman; remains later moved to the Panthéon
• Pierre-Joseph Redouté – Belgian botanic illustrator
• Henri de Régnier – French poet
• Grace Renzi – American painter
• Norbert Rillieux – American engineer, invented the multiple-effect evaporator
• Étienne-Gaspard Robert – Belgian magician who performed under the stage name of Robertson
• Jacob Roblès – Famous grave for the medallion Silence (1842) by Antoine-Augustin Préault
• Georges Rodenbach – Belgian poet
• Jean Rollin – French director and novelist
• Jules Romains – French writer
• Gioachino Rossini – Italian composer. In 1887, Rossini's remains were moved back to Florence, but the crypt that once housed them (now dedicated to his memory) still stands in Perè Lachaise.
• Edmond James de Rothschild – Baron of the Rothschild family (in the family vault), moved to Ramat HaNadiv later
• James Mayer de Rothschild – (in the family vault in Division 7)
• Salomon James de Rothschild – son of James Mayer de Rothschild (in the family vault)
• Raymond Roussel – writer
• Alphonse Royer – French poet and dramatist

S

• Dr.Sadegh Sharafkandi Kurdish politician & Former Leader of Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan
• Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi – Iranian socialist novelist and playwright
• Countess Consuelo de Saint Exupéry – Salvadoran writer, wife of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire – French naturalist
• Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon – French sociologist who founded the "Saint-Simonian" movement
• Henri Salvador – French singer
• Yuliya Samoylova – Russian aristocrat
• Jean-Baptiste Say – French economist
• Victor Schoelcher – French statesman known for the abolition of slavery, Schoelcher's remains were transferred to the Panthéon on 20 May 1949
• Eugène Scribe – French librettist and playwright
• Raymond Adolphe Séré de Rivières – French general and military engineer
• Georges-Pierre Seurat – French painter of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, and father of neo-impressionism
• Shahan Shahnour – Armenian writer and novelist
• Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès – French clergyman, philosopher and statesman
• Simone Signoret – Academy-award winning French actress.
• Sidney Smith – British admiral, of whom Napoleon Bonaparte said "That man made me miss my destiny".
• Paul Signac – French painter
• Albert Soboul – French historian
• Joseph Spiess – French inventor of the rigid airship
• Eugène Spuller – French politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Education
• Serge Alexandre Stavisky – French financier
• Gertrude Stein – American author
• Elisabeta Alexandrovna Stroganova – Francophile Russian aristocrat
• Louis Gabriel Suchet – French military commander and Marshal of France
• Feliks Sypniewski – Polish painter and exiled Restoration of Poland advocate

T

• Eugenia Tadolini – Italian opera singer
• François-Joseph Talma – French actor
• Pierre Alexandre Tardieu – French engraver
• Gerda Taro – German war photographer and the great love of Robert Capa, also one of the iconographers of the Spanish Civil War. The monument is by Alberto Giacometti.
• J. R. D. Tata – Indian aviation pioneer and former head of Tata Group; Bharat Ratna and Legion of Honour
• Pavel Tchelitchew – Russian artist and painter
• Tapa Tchermoeff – First Prime Minister of the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus
• Thomas Tellefsen – Norwegian pianist and composer
• Ruben Ter-Minasian – Armenian politician and a revolutionary, member of Armenian Revolutionary Federation ARF Tashnag
• Adolphe Thiers – French historian and statesman
• Maurice Thorez – French Communist politician
• Isaac Titsingh – Dutch surgeon, scholar, VOC trader, ambassador to Qing China and Tokugawa Japan
• Alice B. Toklas – American author, partner of Gertrude Stein, Toklas' name and information is etched on the other side of Stein's gravestone in the same sparse style and font.
• Marie Trintignant – French actress
• Maurice Tourneur – French film director
• Rafael Trujillo – former dictator of the Dominican Republic

V

• Paul Vaillant-Couturier – French political journalist
• Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes – French painter
• Jean Valjean - Fictional French protagonist of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables
• Jules Vallès – French writer
• Bernard Verlhac (Tignous) – French cartoonist killed in the Charlie Hebdo shooting
• Louis Verneuil – French playwright
• Claude Victor-Perrin – French military commander and Marshal of France
• Louis Visconti – French architect best known for designing the modern Louvre and Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides
• Dominique Vivant, Baron de Denon – French artist, writer, diplomat and archaeologist. Located close to Chopin's grave.
• Louis Vivin – French naive painter.

W

• Émile Waldteufel – French composer
• Countess Marie Walewska – Napoleon's mistress, credited for pressing Napoleon to take important pro-Polish decisions during the Napoleonic Wars. Only her heart is entombed here, in the tomb of the d'Ornano family ; her other remains were returned to her native Poland.
• Sir Richard Wallace – English art collector and philanthropist
• Eduard Wiiralt – Estonian artist
• Oscar Wilde – Irish novelist, poet and playwright. By tradition, Wilde's admirers kiss the Art Deco monument while wearing red lipstick, though this practice will no longer be allowed because of the damage it has caused to his tomb, which had to be repaired and encased in glass. Wilde died in 1900 and was initially buried in the Cimetière de Bagneux. His remains were transferred in 1909 to Père Lachaise. The tomb is also the resting place of the ashes of Robert Ross, who commissioned the monument.
• Jeanette Wohl – French literary editor, longtime friend and correspondent of Ludwig Börne
• Richard Wright – American author, wrote Native Son and other American classics

Z

• Achille Zavatta – French comedian
• Félix Ziem – French painter