Père Lachaise Cemetery Haunting Experience Walks

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  Spiritism

  Allan Kardec

  1804 - 1869 Founder of Spiritism

  He wrote the book that taught Europe how to speak to the dead. His tomb is a raw stone dolmen, buried under fresh flowers every single day, and believers still lay a hand on his bust and wait for an answer.

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  A heart elsewhere

  Frédéric Chopin

  1810 - 1849 Composer

  Terrified of being buried alive, he asked for his heart to be cut out first. His sister carried it back to Warsaw in a jar of cognac. The rest of him stayed here, under a weeping muse and a permanent layer of roses.

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  The kissed tomb

  Oscar Wilde

  1854 - 1900 Poet and playwright

  He died broke in a Paris hotel room, complaining that the wallpaper was killing him. Visitors kissed his tomb in red lipstick for decades, until the grease began eating the stone. A glass wall went up in 2011. They kiss the glass now.

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  Still searching

  Marcel Proust

  1871 - 1922 Novelist

  He wrote at night in a cork lined room, chasing a memory he never quite caught. His grave is plain black marble: no statue, no epitaph, just madeleines left by strangers. Some swear they have passed him in the alleys, still looking for someone.

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  The last page

  Honoré de Balzac

  1799 - 1850 Novelist

  Ninety novels, fifty coffees a day, dead at fifty one. He ended Le Père Goriot on this very hill, his hero staring down at Paris: "It is between us two now." Thirty years later Balzac moved in for good.

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  Slept in a coffin

  Sarah Bernhardt

  1844 - 1923 Actress

  The greatest actress of her age slept in a coffin, rehearsed her death scenes lying in it, and posed for photographs with the lid open. Her grave is small, dark and utterly plain: the last joke of a woman who staged everything.

Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Molière and a million others rest around them. Your guide knows which ones still cause trouble.

Archive portraits, public domain.