Fernand Arbelot was a banker: a graduate of HEC, he ran the Paris branch of the Westminster Foreign Bank, on the place Vendôme. His fame came only after his death: on his slab, a bronze recumbent figure holds his wife's face at arm's length and gazes at it. He died in 1942 and was first buried at Rueil-Malmaison; his wife Henriette outlived him by twenty-four years, and it was at her death, in 1967, that Arbelot was brought back to lie beside her.
The story
The grave is famous; the man is not. Fernand Louis Arbelot was born in Paris on 16 February 1880, the son of Ferdinand Arbelot and Amélie Poulain. He took his degree at HEC, the Paris business school.
His was a banker's life. In January 1914 he was running the Banque continentale de Paris, on the boulevard Haussmann. Called up in November of that year, he finished the war a lieutenant. He took over the Paris branch of the Westminster Foreign Bank, on the place Vendôme, in October 1942: he held the post for a month, then died. He is often said to have been a musician and an actor; he was a bank branch manager.
On 7 August 1919 he married, in Paris, Henriette Marie Louise Gicquel, born on 5 November 1885 at Josselin in Brittany. Hers is the face he holds.
He died on 16 November 1942 at Rueil-Malmaison, aged sixty-two, and was buried in the town after a service in its church. Henriette died at Saint-Cloud on 16 April 1967; on 20 April she was buried at Père-Lachaise, in Division 11, avenue Delille, and her husband's remains were brought there the same day. They entered the grave together, twenty-four years after Arbelot's death.
Visitors read in it either absolute love or an unsettling possession: the face seems by turns offered up and seized. It is that ambiguity people photograph — the monument is among the most photographed in the cemetery, cited often just after Chopin's, which lies in the same Division 11, on the far side of it, along the chemin Denon.
The grave
In Division 11, avenue Delille, first row, a bronze recumbent figure lies on the slab, arms raised: he holds his wife's face before him at arm's length, and gazes at it. The Belgian sculptor Adolphe Wansart signed and dated the work 1946 — twenty-one years before Arbelot's remains arrived from Rueil-Malmaison. The Friends of the cemetery rank it among the remarkable sculptures of Père-Lachaise. The plinth carries the epitaph: “They marvelled at the beautiful journey that led them to the end of life.”
On site, do not miss
Stand at the head of the effigy, in line with his gaze: it is the only spot from which you see what he sees. From the side, the work changes meaning and the face seems seized rather than offered.
Visitors' questions
What does Fernand Arbelot's grave depict?
A bronze recumbent figure, lying on the slab, holding at arm's length the face of his wife Henriette and gazing at it. Adolphe Wansart sculpted it in 1946.
Héloïse and AbelardWhere is this grave?
In Division 11, avenue Delille, first row, in the old lower part of the cemetery — Chopin's division, his grave lying on the far side of it, along the chemin Denon. Look for a bronze recumbent figure laid directly on the slab.
Sophie BlanchardWho was Fernand Arbelot?
A banker. A graduate of HEC, the Paris business school, he ran the Banque continentale de Paris and then, from October 1942, the Paris branch of the Westminster Foreign Bank on the place Vendôme; he died a month later. He is often said to have been a musician and an actor: his fame comes from his grave alone.
Georges RodenbachWhich other graves are worth seeing near Arbelot's?
Division 11 is one of the richest in the cemetery: Frédéric Chopin lies along the chemin Denon, on the far side of the division, and the jazz pianist Michel Petrucciani joined him there in 1999, out of admiration for the composer. On the avenue Delille itself lie the poet Jacques Delille, who gave the path its name, and Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, the architect who designed the cemetery.
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