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Origin and history

Picpus Cemetery, located in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, is one of two private cemeteries in the capital. It occupies the site of the former convent of the canonesses of Saint-Augustin, founded in 1640 under Louis XIII. In 1792, the convent was closed during the Revolution and became a national property, leased to private individuals. Between 14 June and 27 July 1794, during the Great Terror, two mass graves were dug there to accommodate the bodies of 1,306 guillotined people in Place du Trône-Rversé (present Place de la Nation). The victims, from all social backgrounds, are buried there without ceremony.

In 1796, Princess Amélie de Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen secretly bought the land sheltering the pits, where her brother Frédéric III of Salm-Kyrbourg, guillotined in 1794, was buried. In 1802, a subscription organized by families of victims, including the Marquise de Montagu, made it possible to acquire the entire estate. A committee, including figures such as the Marquise de Lafayette, founded the Société de Picpus to preserve this memorial place. A private cemetery is set up next to the pits, reserved for the descendants of the convicted of 1794, with the exception of historian G. Lenotre, author of a study on the site.

The cemetery also houses the tomb of the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the French Revolution and American independence, whose burial is marked by an American flag renewed every 4 July. The Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix chapel, built around 1840 by architect Froëlicher, retains the names of the 1,306 victims engraved on marble plates. Since 1805, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Picpus has been providing memorial services, praying for both the victims and their executioners, in a spirit of reconciliation.

Ranked a historic monument in 1998, the site also includes remains of the original convent, such as a 17th century pavilion. The pits, now protected by a wall and a grid, recall one of the darkest episodes of the Revolution. The cemetery, open to the public in the afternoon, remains a place of remembrance and gathering, managed by the Foundation of the Oratory and Cemetery of Picpus.

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