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Paris cemetery is Shakespeare Club focus

The second meeting of the 2022-2023 Fredonia Shakespeare Club was held on Oct. 20, at Main Street Studios in Fredonia. President Dr. Irene Strychalski welcomed 15 members.

After a short business meeting, Gail Crowe read her paper on “Pere Lachaise Cemetery,” an installment in this year’s Club theme of “Distinctive Places”.

With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, the 110-acre Pere Lachaise is the largest cemetery in Paris and its largest garden/park with more than 5,000 trees. It is the most visited necropolis I the world.

By the end of the 18th century, burial space In Paris had become scarce, with officials increasingly concerned about the spread of disease. Immediately upon his coronation as Emperor, Napoleon addressed this by inaugurating a revolutionary new cemetery on the outskirts of Paris.

The grounds are located on a hillside owned by an affluent merchant in the 15th century. Jesuits took possession of his house in the 17 th century. Reverend Friar Francois d’Aix de la Chaise resided there as Jesuit confessor to Louis XIV, the Sun King. The popular story is that King Louis offered this property as a strategic gift to his savvy and forgiving Jesuit confessor in the hopes of having his sins removed.

Besides the abundance of notable graves, the cemetery was twice the scene of armed fighting. It’s hilly terrain and tree-lined avenues are at once overcrowded, peaceful, and seductive, embracing serenity, horror, anguish, and acceptance – the grand sweep of human experience.

Sculptures abound, and the tombs run the gamut from simple to elaborate. Some of the tombs are immaculately cared for, others dilapidated and abandoned. Maps showing the locations of popular graves (such as Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Marcel Proust, and Frederic Chopin, to name just a few) are widely available to anyone lucky enough to tour Pere Lachaise, the “City of the Immortals”.

The Fredonia Shakespeare Club was established in 1885.

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