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Origin and history

The tomb of Marie Joly is a funeral building built in 1798 in the hamlet of Saint-Quentin, on Mount Joly, in Soumont-Saint-Quentin (Calvados). It was erected to house the remains of Marie Élisabeth Joly, born on 8 April 1761 in Versailles and died on 5 May 1798 in Paris, at 37 years old. As a member of the Comédie-Française, she died of tuberculosis contracted during her five-month prison term at Sainte-Pélagie prison, where she had been sent by order of Georges Jacques Danton, suspected of royalism. This neoclassical tomb is the work of sculptor Jacques Philippe Lesueur.

The funerary complex includes an enclosure bounded by hedges, a bossed door surmounted by a triangular pediment, and a stele dedicated to melancholy. The monument, with its enclosure and stele, was listed as historical monuments on 7 December 1970. However, the site had to be temporarily closed to the public in August 2016 for security reasons. The tomb is located at a specific address: 14 Rue Marie Élisabeth Joly, in the commune of Soumont-Saint-Quentin, whose Insee code is 14678.

Marie Joly, wife Fouquet-Dulomboy, marked her time by her theatrical talent, but also by her tragic destiny linked to the political upheavals of the French Revolution. His tomb, isolated on the heights of Mount Joly, became a romantic symbol and a place of memory. Historical sources, such as the Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie (1825) or 19th century works, bear witness to the enduring interest in this monument, often associated with the local legend of the Brèche-au-Diable.

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