In 1803, the City of Paris bought back the Mont-Louis estate to turn it into a cemetery. Who was the prefect of the Seine behind this project?
The answer
Nicolas Frochot, the first prefect of the Seine, had the estate bought on 7 May 1803 for 180,000 francs and opened the new cemetery, first named the Cimetière de l'Est, on 21 May 1804. Parisians would nonetheless very quickly come to call it after the famous Jesuit who had once lived there.
This question belongs to the “Before the Cemetery” series of the Père-Lachaise quiz: ten questions, a story behind every right answer.