Picpus Cemetery in Paris

Mass grave at Picpus, from Jeff Steiner’s blog Americans in France

I’m excited something happened that I hoped would happen. A friend is off
to Paris…and she asked me how to find the Picpus cemetery that appears
in my novel Betrayed. I’m delighted to send someone to a place that is
pretty rare for the typical tourist, and yet an incredibly important
Revolution site. This is the cemetery where two mass graves hold the
victims of the nearby guillotine that once stood at today’s Place de la
Nation.

Years ago, I myself had a hard time figuring out where Picpus was. I knew
I wanted to visit. I had been trying to learn what happened to all those
bodies because certainly they weren’t given back to their families for a
loving burial. It makes sense that these victims of the Terror were carted
off to a location where a mass grave was dug to hold their remains.

I was able to determine that Picpus was the site (at least for that particular
guillotine–there were others set up across Paris). I remember getting off
the metro and walking the wrong way and asking for directions and people
didn’t know what I was talking about–a mere street or so away! This is
how history works: a catastrophic event drenched in blood becomes a sedate
fenced-in yard in a quiet neighborhood–and most people don’t know it’s
there.

Marines in 1889 decorating the grave of the Marquis de Lafayette, also at Picpus. His wife’s family perished in the Terror.

By the way, the story in Betrayed about the little girl who followed the tundrel full of bodies… that is a story I heard at Picpus.

Well, to help out my friend and those who are visiting Paris and wish to
find Picpus, here are the official directions from a site called
Pariscemeteries.com:

Directions
Located at 25 rue de Picpus. As you exit the metro at Place de la Nation
you’ll be faced with numerous streets radiating out from the place. So to
find your way to rue de Picpus, not the Blvd Picpus, take rue Dorian, rue
Jaucqourt, or rue Fabre d’Elegantine off the place, turn left onto rue
Picpus and then walk down to the entrance, on your left at no. 35.

Hours
The cemetery hours are erratic and often unpredictable. Generally, Picpus
is open Tuesday-Sunday, often from 2-6, mid-April to August. From October
to mid-April it is open 2-4.
It is closed on holidays, Mondays, and in September, and for the US Fourth
of July celebration when there is usually a ceremony featuring the US
ambassador.

 

Images: I have many images of Picpus but can’t put my hands on them, so in the meantime the top image is from Jeff Steiner’s blog Americans in France and depicts one of the two mass graves at Picpus. The second image is from Wikimedia Commons and shows “US Marines Decorating Grave of Lafayette, Picpus Cemetery, Paris 1889.”