Montmartre Cemetery (French: Cimetière de Montmartre) is a cemetery in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, France, that dates to the early 19th century. Officially known as the Cimitière du Nord, it is the third largest necropolis in Paris, after the Père Lachaise cemetery and the Montparnasse cemetery.
In the mid-18th century, overcrowding in the cemeteries of Paris had created numerous problems, from impossibly high funeral costs to unsanitary living conditions in the surrounding neighborhoods. In the 1780s, the Cimetière des Innocents was officially closed and citizens were banned from burying corpses within the city limits of Paris. During the early 19th century, new cemeteries were constructed outside the precincts of the capital: Montmartre in the north, Père Lachaise Cemetery in the east, Passy Cemetery in the west and Montparnasse Cemetery in the south.
The Montmartre Cemetery was opened on January 1, 1825. It was initially known as la Cimetière des Grandes Carrières (Cemetery of the Large Quarries). The name referenced the cemetery's unique location, in an abandoned gypsum quarry. The quarry had previously been used during the French Revolution as a mass grave. It was built below street level, in the hollow of an abandoned gypsum quarry located west of the Butte near the beginning of Rue Caulaincourt in Place de Clichy. As is still the case today, its sole entrance was constructed on Avenue Rachel under Rue Caulaincourt.
A popular tourist destination even today, Montmartre Cemetery is the final resting place of many famous artists who lived and worked in the Montmartre area. See the full list of notable interments below.
Adolphe Adam (1803–1856), composer
Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813–1888), composer
André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836), physicist (namesake of electrical unit ampere)
Édouard André (1840–1911), landscape architect
Benjamin Ball (physician) (1833-1893), psychiatrist
Michel Berger (1947–1992), composer, singer
Hector Berlioz (1803–1869), composer (originally buried in a less prominent plot in the same cemetery)
Mélanie "Mel" Bonis (1858–1937), composer
François Claude Amour, marquis de Bouillé (1739-1800), royalist general named in the French National Anthem, La Marseillaise
Lili Boulanger (1893–1918), composer
Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979), composer
Georges Hilaire Bousquet (1846–1937), jurist, legal scholar
Marcel Boussac (1889–1980), entrepreneur
Giuseppina Bozzacchi, (1853-1870), ballerina
Victor Brauner (1903–1966), painter
Václav Brožík (1851–1901), Czech painter
Alfred-Arthur Brunel de Neuville (1852–1941), painter
Myles Byrne (1780–1862), Irish revolutionary soldier
Moïse de Camondo (1860–1935), banker
Nissim de Camondo (1892–1917), banker, World War I pilot
Marie-Antoine Carême (1784–1833), famed inventor of classical cuisine
Louis-Eugène Cavaignac (1802-1857), politician
Fanny Cerrito (1817–1909), Italian ballerina
Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), neurologist
Jacques Charon (1920–1975), actor
Théodore Chassériau (1819–1856), painter
Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907–1977), director and screenwriter
Véra Clouzot (1913–1960), actress
Dalida (1933–1987), ItaloFrench Egyptian-born singer and actress, singing diva.
Louis Antoine Debrauz de Saldapenna (1811–1871), Austrian writer and diplomat
Edgar Degas (1834–1917), Impressionist painter, sculptor
Léo Delibes (1836–1891), composer of Romantic music
Maria Deraismes (1828–1894), social reformer, feminist
Narcisse Virgilio Díaz (1808–1876), painter
William Didier-Pouget (1864–1959), artist painter
Hippolyte Dreyfus-Barney (1873–1928), prominent early Bahá'í
Maxime Du Camp (1822–1894), author
Alexandre Dumas, fils (1824–1895), novelist, playwright
Marie Duplessis (1824–1847), French courtesan
François Duprat (1941–1978), Assassinated political radical
Renée Jeanne Falconetti (1892–1946), actress, notable for La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc.
Jean Marie Joseph Farina (1785–1864), Manufacturer of eau de Cologne, concession à perpétuité nos 368 et 750 – 1881, (19th division)
Georges Feydeau (1862–1921), playwright of La Belle Époque
Léon Foucault (1819–1868), scientist
Charles Fourier (1772–1837), utopian socialist
Christopher Fratin (1801–1864), animalier sculptor
Carole Fredericks (1952–2001), African-American singer
Theophile Gautier (1811–1872), poet, novelist
Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904), painter
José Melchor Gomis (1791–1836), Spanish Romantic composer
Edmond de Goncourt (1822–1896), author/publisher (patron of the Prix Goncourt)
Jules de Goncourt (1830–1870), author/publisher
Amédée Gordini (1899–1979), Gordini sports car manufacturer
La Goulue (Louise Weber) (1866–1929), Can-can dancer (she was originally buried in the Cimetière de Pantin)
Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), artist
Béla Grünwald (1839–1891), Hungarian historian and politician
Jules Guérin (1860-1910), nationalist political radical
Lucien Guitry (1860–1925), actor
Sacha Guitry (1885–1957), actor/director
Charles Gumery (1827–1871), sculptor
John Gunning (1773-1863), army Surgeon at the Battle of Waterloo
Fromental Halévy (1799–1862), composer
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), German poet
Fanny Heldy (1888–1973), Belgian soprano
Jacques Ignace Hittorff (1792–1867), architect
François-André Isambert (1792–1857), lawyer, historian, and politician
Daniel Iffla (1825-1907), Jewish philanthropist and financier
Maurice Jaubert (1900–1940), composer, conductor
André Jolivet (1905–1974), composer
Marcel Jouhandeau (1888–1979), author
Louis Jouvet (1887–1951), actor
Anna Judic (1850–1911), actress, chanteuse
Antoine-Henri Jomini (1779–1869), French General, Military Author
Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1784–1849), pianist, composer
Miecislas Kamieński, a Polish soldier, mentioned because the statue of Jules Franceschi on his grave is well known
Julian Klemczyński, (1807 or 1810-1851?), pianist, composer
Marie-Pierre Kœnig (1898–1970), Free French Field Marshal
Bernard-Marie Koltès (1948–1989), playwright, director
Joseph Kosma (1905–1969), composer
Eugène Labiche (1815–1888), dramatist
Dominique Laffin (1952–1985), actress
Charles Lamoureux (1834–1899), violinist
Jean Lannes (1769–1809), Marshal of France (his heart only, the body is in the Pantheon)
Pierre Leonard Laurecisque (1797–1880), architect
Margaret Kelly Leibovici (1910–2004), Miss Bluebell, Irish dancer
Frédérick Lemaître (1800–1876), actor
Elisabeth Leseur (1866-1914), Venerable (of the Roman Catholic Church)
Emma Livry (1842–1863), ballet dancer
Aimé Maillart (1817–1871), composer
Henri Meilhac (1831–1897), dramatist
Mary Marquet (1895–1979), actress
Victor Massé (1822–1884), composer
Joseph Porter Michaels (1838–1912), American dentist, professor at the Dental School of Paris, he collaborated with Professor Péan for the creation of the first shoulder prosthesis
Auguste de Montferrand (1786–1858), architect
José María Luis Mora (1794-1850), Mexican politician
Gustave Moreau (1826–1898), symbolist painter
Aimé Morot (1850-1913), academic art painter
Henri Murger (1822–1861), novelist
Musidora (1889-1957), actress/director/writer
Vaslav Nijinsky (1890–1950), Russian ballet dancer
Adolphe Nourrit (1802–1839), tenor
Eugène Nyon (1812-1870), playwright and novelist
Alphonse de Neuville (1836–1885), painter whose funerary monument was realized by Francis de Saint-Vidal
Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880), French composer of German descent
Georges Ohnet (1848–1919), writer
Takanori Oguiss (1901–1986), Japanese painter
Harriet Osborne O'Hagan (1830-1921), Irish portrait artist
Théophile-Jules Pelouze (1807–1867), chemist
Emile Péreire (1800–1875), financier
Isaac Péreire (1806–1880), financier
Jacob Rodrigues Péreire (1715–1780), educator
Francis Picabia (1879–1953), painter
Giles William Playfair (1910–1996), writer, the son of English actor Sir Nigel Playfair
Alphonsine Plessis (1824–1847), "La Dame aux Camélias"
Patrick Pons (1952–1980), motorcycle racer
Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail (1829–1871), novelist
Jean Le Poulain (1924–1988), actor
Francisque Poulbot (1879–1946), painter, illustrator
Olga Preobrajenska (1871–1962), ballet dancer (according to other sources, she is buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery)
Juliette Récamier (1777–1849), socialite and woman of letters
Salomon Reinach (1858–1932), archaeologist
Ernest Renan (1823–1892), writer
Jacques Rigaut (1898–1929), poet
Jacques Rivette (1928-2016), film director and film critic
Henri Rivière (1827–1883), naval officer, writer
Jean Rédélé (1922–2007), automotive pioneer, pilot and founder of the French automotive brand Alpine.
Hilda Roosevelt (1881–1965), opera singer, daughter of Cornelius Roosevelt (1847-1902)
Jeanne Roques aka Musidora (1889-1957), Actress/writer/director
Joseph Isidore Samson (1793-1871), actor and playwright
Henri Sauguet (1901–1989), composer
Adolphe Sax (1814–1894), musical instrument artisan (inventor of saxophone)
Ary Scheffer (1795–1858), painter
Helen Scott (1915–1987), Truffaut / Hitchcock
Philippe Paul de Ségur, Count of Ségur (1780–1873), historian
Claude Simon (1913–2005), novelist
Juliusz Słowacki (1809-1849), Polish romantic poet
Harriet Smithson (1808–1854), Anglo-Irish actress, the first wife of Hector Berlioz, and the inspiration for his Symphonie fantastique
Fernando Sor (1778–1839), guitarist
Alexandre Soumet (1788–1845), poet
Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) (1783–1842), writer
Charles Henri Sanson (1739–1806), executioner of Louis XVI
Marie Taglioni (1804–1884), ballerina
Ludmilla Tchérina (1924–2004), dancer, actress and painter
Ambroise Thomas (1811–1896), opera composer
Armand Toussaint (1806-1862), sculptor
Constant Troyon (1810–1865), painter
François Truffaut (1932–1984), French New Wave filmmaker and director
Stanislaw Ulam (1909–1984), Polish mathematician
Pierre-Jean Vaillard (1918–1988), actor
Horace Vernet (1789–1863), painter
Auguste Vestris (1760–1842), dancer
Gaétan Vestris (1729–1808), dancer
Pauline Viardot (1821–1910), opera singer, composer
Alfred de Vigny (1797–1863), poet, playwright, novelist
Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (1798–1875), luthier
René Waldeck-Rousseau (1846–1904), politician
Georges-Fernand Widal (1862–1929), bacteriologist
Émile Zola (1840–1902), author (original site, moved to the Panthéon in 1908). It should be noted however, that the Zola family grave is still there, with Émile's name on it.