This famous Parisian cemetery was named for Père François de La Chaise (1624 - 1709), the spiritual adviser of Louis XIV, though the cemetery was not laid out and established until 1804, when Napoleon Bonaparte lifted the ban of such burial grounds, which had been deemed a health hazard.
Many believed this cemetery to be too far beyond the downtown city limits for convenience and it took a while before the site became popular with the general public. Wise marketers-of-old devised a plan to attract individuals to purchase plots in the cemetery, transferring the remains of writers Molière and La Fontaine to the Père François de La Chaise Cemetery, making it the hip place to be buried. Records note that the cemetery's population increased quickly after that because everyone wanted to be buried among the famous.
The 43.2 hectare (109-acre) cemetery is also rich with sculpture, as each family of the deceased buried here tried to out-do the sculptures and monuments placed by the city's other wealthy families. The result is many spectacular works of art that are equally as interesting to view as the various gravesites of famous individuals