The Tomb of Frédéric Chopin
Why is it significant?
Follow the flowers. Among the grey tombs one white marble monument is always covered in them: roses, carnations, little bunches tied with red and white ribbon, the colours of Poland. On top sits a young woman in stone, head bowed over a lyre whose strings are broken.
Key Facts
| Place | The Tomb of Frédéric Chopin |
|---|---|
| Address | Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Division 11, 16 Rue du Repos, 75020 Paris, France |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.86010, 2.39280 |
| Part of Walk | Rebel Hill: Buttes-Chaumont, Belleville & the Secrets of Père-Lachaise in Paris |
| Generated | Generated |
Follow the flowers. Among the grey tombs one white marble monument is always covered in them: roses, carnations, little bunches tied with red and white ribbon, the colours of Poland. On top sits a young woman in stone, head bowed over a lyre whose strings are broken.
This is the grave of Frédéric Chopin. He was born near Warsaw in 1810 and left Poland at twenty, only weeks before an uprising against Russian rule broke out; it was crushed the following year. He never went home. Paris became his city, the salons of the aristocracy his stage, and for nearly ten years the novelist George Sand was his companion. He died of a long illness, most likely tuberculosis, in October 1849, at only thirty-nine.
The muse on top is Euterpe, the muse of music, and the sculptor was Auguste Clésinger, who happened to be George Sand's son-in-law. At the funeral, at the Madeleine church, Mozart's Requiem was sung, as Chopin had asked. And the story goes that a handful of Polish earth, which he had carried with him since leaving home, was scattered over his coffin here.
But Chopin is not entirely here. Terrified of being buried alive, he asked that his heart be removed after his death. His sister Ludwika carried it back to Warsaw, reportedly smuggling it past the border guards in a jar of alcohol under her skirts. Today it rests inside a pillar of the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, where it survived the destruction of the city in the Second World War. So his body lies in France and his heart in Poland... which is perhaps the most exact description of his life.
A few paths away, in a corner hemmed in by barriers, lies a very different musician: Jim Morrison of The Doors, who died in Paris in July 1971, aged twenty-seven. His father later placed a Greek inscription on the stone, usually translated as true to his own spirit. Now head east along the avenues, and keep your eyes on the ground: you are looking for a bronze man lying flat on his back, with his hat beside him.