Why I love French cemeteries

Finding slices of French life at the local cemetery

Bonjour, c’est Véro.

Her name was Andrée Laffitte

My maternal grandmother left us decades ago after fighting a losing battle against Alzheimer’s disease.

She was not educated, as they say. When she became a widow in her late 40s Andrée found a job growing and harvesting oysters along the shores of the renowned Etang de Thau, a scenic saltwater lagoon lined with popular seaside resorts today. Mèze, a small town with a picturesque harbor was the family home base. My mother and her two brothers were raised there. A generation later my brother and I vacationed with Andrée for several weeks each summer.

When the back-breaking work at the local “parcs à huitres” (oyster farm) became too much Andrée eventually found a job as a cleaning lady at a local public school until she retired. She had become a city employee with benefits: Her three children were relieved.

I still remember the smell of bleach on her big, strong, industrious hands as they pressed my cheeks before she kissed me.

As the first born among her grandchildren I enjoyed a special status. I was la favorite. La préférée. La chouchoute. Andrée was proud of my schooling and remained my staunchest supporter until she didn’t know who we were anymore and had to be institutionalized. The long goodbye had begun.

Each summer when we stayed with her in the ground-floor apartment she rented in a social housing project I got to share her bed. My parents were in the second bedroom, my younger brother lying down on a cot next to them.

Andrée and I had long conversations. Often, we discussed the life of celebrities while reading popular gossip rags she stored under the bed. My father disapproved. I was too young to be exposed to scandals, star weddings and divorces. Yet he wisely chose not to pick up a fight with Andrée and looked away.

Andrée and Jean Laffitte rest side by side at the Mèze cemetery

Cemetery visits with Andrée

Andrée’s husband, my grandfather Jean Laffitte, passed away just a few months before I was born. We never met yet I feel like I knew him all thanks to Andrée who would visit him at the local cemetery a few times a week and brought us along.

It was a half-a-mile walk uphill from her apartment, a bit of a challenge on hot Mediterranean summer days as the stubborn sound of the local cigales (cicadas) followed us in the background.

At the cemetery Andrée made her way through the shaded alleyways sheltered by those tall, skinny cypress trees ubiquitous in southern France. She stopped in front of selected graves delighted to have company (and a captive audience) and told stories.

“C’était le mari de Suzanne. Il est mort il y a longtemps pendant un voyage à Paris.” (He was Suzanne’s husband. He died a long time ago during a Paris visit.) She spared us distressing details and spoke in short sentences delivered with a southern accent. They ended on a positive note whenever possible. “Il entraînait les jeunes de Mèze pour les joutes.” (He trained young people for water jousting tournaments.)

On we went along more alleyways listening to more stories.

I still recall looking at the black and white photo of a 10-year old boy who had died in a car crash and often wondered if he didn’t feel too lonely by himself, a small cement angel ornament his only company (“A notre cher ange,” to our beloved angel.)

Finally we made our way to the humble caveau de famille (the family’s vault.) Both my brother and I would then step up carefully to reach the small photo and give a kiss to “pépé Jean” a former long distance truck driver, our grandfather. Meanwhile Andrée kept busy filling an old metal “arrosoir” (watering can) stored at the back of the vault and picked up a few wilted flowers or leaves. We were allowed to help her now and then.

From a young age I learned valuable lessons during those cemetery visits with Andrée: People - adults and children - move on, yet are not forgotten. They are missed but live on in visitors’ memories. The local cemetery is a library with hundreds of books telling hundreds of stories. In that communal space, loved ones come to pay their respects and anyone, a former neighbor, a friend, a colleague - or Andrée! - can celebrate those who have left by learning (and sharing) their story.

These lessons stayed with me through adulthood. There isn’t a cemetery in France I haven’t enjoyed visiting since then.

Montmartre cemetery, Paris

Favorite cemeteries

Paris has some of the best cemeteries around.

One is so famous - le Père Lachaise - it’s become a landmark tourists explore like a local museum often with tour guides. Jim Morrison, Chopin, Edit Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Proust and Baron Haussmann are all there with many others, famous or not.

Paris cemeteries (Père Lachaise, Montmartre, Montparnasse) offer a perk more humble, local cemeteries can’t compete with: They boast glorious structures and architecture (made possible by money and artists’ creativity) surrounded by the breathtaking Parisian cityscape. A winning proposition.

There, during my Parisian years I featured favorite spots and personalities in blogposts or video tours, like always favoring the off-the-beaten path landmark or story. You may remember a stroll at peaceful Saint Vincent’s, the “other” Montmartre cemetery or a memorable encounter with the late Jane Birkin at Montparnasse cemetery.

Just a few days ago I skipped the long lines at Parisian sites open to the public on European Heritage days and strolled around the Montmartre cemetery once again paying my respects to local heroes like the great Francisque Poulbot (who never seems to get top billing with local tour guides unlike other former resident artists) or Louise Weber, aka “la Goulue” a cabaret icon in her heyday. The former Can Can queen rests not too far from another famous “Mademoiselle” who made it big on the silver screen, actress Jeanne Moreau.

As you visit those iconic Parisian sites you might be surprised to see they are favorite strolling grounds for locals, friends or colleagues on a lunch break, volunteers feeding the cemetery cats or those who come to pay their respects to loved ones and stand silently by their grave, lost in their thoughts and memories.

All seem comfortable inside cemeteries. There’s peace to be found along the shaded alleyways in the heart of the noisy, crowded city. You are never alone. Many of the names spotted on your walk are familiar if you are familiar with French history and French culture. If they aren’t you can learn about the cemetery residents, their lives, occupations or hobbies by looking at mementos and messages left on their graves.

More lessons learned in a cemetery

Never creepy, sad occasionally, always interesting, cemeteries can teach us about French history and heritage. While strolling around Amboise, Loire Valley earlier this week I climbed to the Cimetière des Ursulines. It is “classé” (a Historic Landmark of France.) Small, but mighty.

There are several historic figures there worth researching.

There’s also a “carré militaire,” a section dedicated to those who died for their homeland during military conflicts.

It’s not hard to see history is everywhere in French life, in street or school names, on monuments or on simple signs carved on graves in a remote corner of the local cemetery.

From WW1 to the German occupation during WW2 I walk along several rows featuring the names of heroes. Many were so young! However discreet the patriotic touch is there. Make no mistake: There is no triumphant nationalism at the Amboise cemetery. Visitors understand those resting there, their friends and families lost big time.

At the end of a row two graves catch my attention, two friends who died together fighting the enemy 80 years ago. They were members of the French Resistance and fell in southwestern France. A marker between the graves soberly states: “Unified in the fight against occupying forces. They now rest side by side.”

I look at them. All of a sudden I can hear Andrée’s voice in another small cemetery somewhere in southern France.

Andrée and the cicadas are not there by my side today. No matter. I think to myself: “Voilà certainement une belle histoire. Tu aurais aimé la raconter et moi l’écouter” (This must be a beautiful story. You would have liked telling it. I would have loved listening to you.)

Véro

Dedicated to Andrée Fauvet Laffitte and my great grand-father, Marius Fauvet.