The Père-Lachaise quiz
Famous Figures
The ten questions in this series
Molière, Chopin, Piaf, Morrison: ten figures who built the cemetery's reputation. Each question stands on its own, with its story — or can be played as part of the full series.
- Molière and La Fontaine both rest in the same Division of Père-Lachaise. Why were their remains moved there in 1817, so long after their deaths?
- Frédéric Chopin's body rests at Père-Lachaise. But part of him is elsewhere, in Warsaw. What part?
- The grave of Jim Morrison, singer of the Doors, had to be surrounded by a permanent fence. Why?
- The winged sphinx adorning Oscar Wilde's grave had to be protected behind glass in 2011. Why?
- The bronze statue on the grave of Victor Noir, a journalist killed in a duel in 1870, has turned strangely shiny in one particular spot. Which one?
- The dolmen-shaped tomb of Allan Kardec is one of the most visited in the cemetery. What movement did he found?
- On the grave of the American writer Gertrude Stein, another name is carved on the back of the stone. Whose?
- The American dancer Isadora Duncan, a pioneer of modern dance, died in particularly unusual circumstances. What happened?
- Under what real name, the one inscribed on her grave, does Édith Piaf rest?
- Balzac's grave bears a fairly modest bust. Which sculptor created, much later, the monument that is now the most famous tribute to the writer, on display elsewhere in Paris?