Cimetière de Belleville, Municipal cemetery in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, France
The cimetière de Belleville is a municipal cemetery in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, set on one of the highest points in the city. The grounds hold around 3,200 burial plots, many of them old, shaded by trees that are over a century old, and a memorial dedicated to the Paris Commune stands among them.
The cemetery was created between 1804 and 1808 on land that had been part of the former park of the Château de Ménilmontant, sold by an aristocrat named Suzanne Louise le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau. Its founding followed an imperial decree that banned burials inside city limits, which is why the elevated, outlying site was chosen.
The cemetery sits on Rue du Télégraphe, a street named after optical telegraph experiments carried out in this area at the end of the 18th century. Walking through the grounds, visitors can notice family tombs that span several generations of local Belleville residents.
The cemetery is a short walk from the Télégraphe metro station on line 11, and some sections are accessible to visitors with reduced mobility, though the terrain can be uneven in places. Visitors should keep noise to a minimum, as eating and any use of sound devices are not allowed on the grounds.
Léon Gaumont, one of the early pioneers of cinema in France, is buried here, even though the site rarely appears on visitor lists compared to the nearby Père-Lachaise. Because this is the second highest cemetery in Paris, some of its paths offer an open view over the rooftops toward the Seine on a clear day.
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