Cimetière de Bercy, Urban cemetery in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, France
The cimetière de Bercy is a cemetery at 329 rue de Charenton, on the corner with avenue du Général-Michel-Bizot in the 12th arrondissement of Paris. Its 6,100 m² hold 1,120 graves: low stone slabs and raised blocks, many planted with flowers, among upright headstones and crosses. A pale stone wall runs behind the graves, with bare trees beyond.
The residents of Bercy were buried from 1643, at first on the Sainte-Marguerite cemetery. The current site opened in 1816 and was absorbed into Paris in 1860, when Bercy was annexed to the city.
The cemetery opened in 1816 for the former commune of Bercy, whose inhabitants had been buried since 1643 in the Sainte-Marguerite cemetery, a branch of the Saint-Paul parish. Among the graves are those of mayors Albert Cuvillier and Louis Gallois, historian Albert Vandal and architect Jean-Alfred Besnard. A firefighter, Théodore Dehaese, is also buried here.
The cemetery is easy to reach by metro line 8 or tram line 3a, at the Porte de Charenton stop. Some paths may be harder to navigate for visitors with reduced mobility, as the site dates back to the early 19th century.
In late May 1871, during the Semaine sanglante, the bodies of about 400 people shot without trial at the Mazas prison for links to the Commune were thrown into a well in the cemetery; no burial procedure was followed, so the victims could not be identified. The well is not marked for visitors.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,779 contributors worldwide.
