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Origin and history

Montmartre Cemetery, originally called the North Cemetery, was established in the early 19th century to replace the old intramural cemeteries closed during the Revolution. Originally, the site housed gypsum quarries operated until the 18th century, transformed into mass graves after 1792, especially for the Swiss Guards killed at the Tuileries. The City of Paris acquired first ground in 1798, but its inadequacy led to the abandonment of the project. Between 1818 and 1824, a restructuring of the district allowed the purchase of 10 hectares, entrusted to the architect Étienne-Hippolyte Godde for its development. Inaugurated in 1825, it then extended into 1847 before a part was abandoned in 1879.

The cemetery was marked by the controversial project of Prefect Haussmann in 1867: to extend Caulaincourt Street by crossing the site, requiring the displacement of 200 graves. In the face of public opposition, a compromise was reached with the construction of the Caulaincourt Bridge (1887-1888), a metal bridge over the cemetery. The latter, integrated in Paris in 1860 with the annexation of Montmartre, became an emblematic place, housing tombs of personalities like Dalida, whose burial is most visited.

Since 2012, the City of Paris has been working to strengthen its heritage protection, inspired by the Père-Lachaise model. Two funeral chapels are protected: the Fournier Chapel (inscribed in 2013), representative of the antiquisant post-archeological excavation style in Greece and Italy, and the Potocki Chapel (classified in 2014), built around 1845 by Jacques Ignace Hittorff. These protections create a 500-metre buffer zone around the buildings.

The cemetery, with an area of 11 hectares, is the third largest in Paris after the Père-Lachaise and Montparnasse. It hosts about 500 annual burials and has divisions around avenues, such as Rachel Avenue or Samson Avenue, often used as cinematographic sets. Its history reflects the urban and social evolutions of Paris, from revolutionary mass graves to its current status as a heritage necropolis.

In popular culture, the cemetery appears in literary works such as Les Tombales de Maupassant (1891) or in cinema, notably in the films of François Truffaut (Les Quatre Cents Coups, 1959) or L-Amour en fuche (1979). More recently, funeral scenes have been shot, as in Les Souvenirs (2014) or Privacy (2025), reinforcing its image of both historical and living places.

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