Père-Lachaise, the most important and most picturesque of these enclosures in Paris, takes its name from the confessor of Louis XIV, to whom it was presented by his royal penitent. The Cimetière de l'Est was inaugurated, in 1804, in a locality which originally bore the name of Champ l'Évêque, because it had been the property of the Bishop of Paris. The Jesuits purchased it, in 1626, under cover of a private individual, and established there a country house, surrounded by trees and shrubbery, the site of which is indicated to-day very nearly by the central rond-point of the cemetery. Popular report ascribed to this pleasure-house a character in keeping with the hypocrisy and luxury of the order as painted by its enemies; and young Louis XIV visited it, in consequence of which it became known as Mont-Louis. Afterward, when in the possession of the royal confessor,--who said, himself, of his office: "_Bon Dieu! quel rôle!_"--it was still further enlarged, and the grounds handsomely laid out around his little villa, two stories in height, overlooking Paris. At his death, it came again into the possession of the fathers of his order, and at their suppression, in 1763, it was sold to pay their creditors. The Préfet of the Seine purchased it for its conversion into a municipal cemetery in 1804.
That of Vaugirard was situated near the ancient barrière and at the entrance of what was then the village of Vaugirard; it had in nowise the importance of the two just mentioned, and was much more the burial-ground of the poor than of the rich. As early as 1810, its insufficience was recognized, and in 1824 it was closed, and replaced by that of Montparnasse. The Cimetière Sainte-Catherine was in the quarter Saint-Marcel, by the side of the old cemetery of Clamart, which was full of bodies and closed in 1793; Sainte-Catherine was also replaced by Montparnasse in 1824. The latter, the necropolis of the left bank of the Seine, is the least interesting and least visited of any of the Parisian cemeteries. The ground is quite level, and the enclosure so crowded with tombs that there is very little space left for verdure or shade. The number of distinguished dead who rest here is also less than in either Père-Lachaise or Montmartre. Previous to 1824, it received only the human débris from the hospitals and the bodies of criminals from the neighboring scaffold. Vaugirard and Sainte-Catherine have since been completely removed, and the sites devoted to other uses; and the number of ancient urban cemeteries that have thus disappeared is very considerable. That of the old church of Saint-Roch is now traversed by the narrow streets which enclose the church; that of Saint-Gervais is buried under the caserne Lobau, back of the Hôtel de Ville; Sainte-Marguerite-Saint-Antoine, in which were placed the remains of the young dauphin, is now a waste land; Saint-Joseph, and the little Cimetière de la Chapelle Marcadet which was used during the siege of 1871, are now occupied by commercial or secular establishments. Among those the sites of which are still recognizable are Saint-Vincent and Saint-Pierre at Montmartre; Saint-Médard--so famous in the last century as the scene of the extravagances of the convulsionnaires and the alleged miracles on the tomb of the Jansenist deacon, Paris--has been only partially destroyed by the opening of the Avenue des Gobelins; and on the old Cimetière de la Madeleine now rises the Chapelle Expiatoire to the memory of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.