At Père Lachaise, it's easy to determine the location of iconic figures: simply follow the crowd. I imagine many are there for the same reason people go to the Eiffel Tower, so that they can say "Been there, done that. Here's the 50 pictures I took." I often wonder how familiar they really are with the deceased life. I wouldn't blame anyone, though. I hardly know the lives of many of the icons sleeping in Père Lachaise. I was utterly confused at the placement of potatoes on the tomb of Antione-Augustin Parmentier. Another visitor looked at me in complete disbelief for not knowing that he developed a brand new potato dish? (It's basically mashed potatoes, by the way).
Parmentier's grave. You can't make this up!
But then again, I probably would have had the same reaction had someone told me they didn't know who Jim Morrison was (*cough cough Octavian*).
I like to think that there are also people there to pay their respects, or as a sort of spiritual pilgrimage to the final resting place for a personal idol. I tried to take some time in "La Foule" of tourists to think about Édith Piaf's final moments, and of the enormous turnout for her funeral despite being denied the Catholic church's blessing. It was emotionally provocative to imagine the mystery surrounding "The End" of Jim Morrison's turbulent life. But I also tried to remind myself that the site of their burial has very little to do with who they were as a person. The only relation a person has with their grave is that it is a storage place for their decaying corpse. The real Édith Piaf exists in the concert halls of Paris. The real Jim Morrison is performing half-drunk on stage. It's important to remember that a grave is not the person written on it. A person's life, no matter how long ago it ended, will always be far more complex.
I also found myself thinking about how many interesting and important historical figures we had the opportunity to pay our respects to in Paris while I visited Père Lachaise. More than that, I found myself gaining a new respect for cemeteries and other similar places. Walking through Père Lachaise and running into people who had come from all parts of the world just to pay their respects to their idol or inspiration was an eye opening experience. Looking at the vast variety of graves and tributes I began to understand how amazing it was that someone whose life had ended was still being recognized for who they were in the afterlife. Each grave told a story, and it was intriguing to wander through the cemetery and visit a countless amount of graves both known and unknown to me.
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