Montparnasse cemetery is part of the city’s 14th arrondissement.
Created from three farms in 1824, the cemetery at Montparnasse was originally known as Le Cimetière du Sud (Southern Cemetery). Cemeteries had been banned from Paris since the closure, owing to health concerns, of the Cimetière des Innocents in 1786.
Several new cemeteries outside the precincts of the capital replaced all the internal Parisian ones in the early 19th century: Montmartre Cemetery in the north, Pere Lachaise cemetery in the east, and Montparnasse cemetery in the south. At the heart of the city, and today sitting in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, is Passy Cemetery.
The cemetery is divided by Rue Émile Richard. The small section is usually referred to as the small cemetery (petit cimetière) and the large section as the big cemetery (grand cimetière). Divisions 5 and 30 were originally Jewish enclosures and contain many Jewish graves.
Sorted by year of death:
- Cesar Franck (1822-1890).
- Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894).
- Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921).
- Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931).
- Paul Painleve (1863-1933).
- Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935).
- Clara Haskil (1895-1960).
- Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967).