Édith Piaf and the Famous Names of Père-Lachaise

Next, a musician who stands for France: Édith Piaf, a figure you may already know from film and other media. She is the singer whose life was dramatized in La Môme, the film that won Marion Cotillard an Oscar for Best Actress, and whose song serves as a wake-up cue in Christopher Nolan's Inception.

Piaf was born in 1915 in the Belleville district of Paris and died in 1963 in Grasse, in the south of France, a town known for perfume. A cabaret chanson singer and songwriter, she was the most beloved popular vocalist in France. Standing just 142 centimeters tall, she was nicknamed "the sparrow." She began singing at a young age, traveling from place to place with her father, a circus performer. Her life was full of hardship: she lost loved ones throughout her life, survived four car accidents, and lost a child she had borne young to meningitis. While staying in Cannes and battling liver cancer, she asked to be taken back to Paris, where she wanted to spend her final days, but she died on the way north.

After her body was laid out in her Paris apartment, as many as 100,000 people are said to have come to pay their respects. A funeral Mass was held at Notre-Dame, and on the day she was laid to rest at Père-Lachaise, 40,000 people turned out, proof that she was truly the nation's singer. People pushed and shoved to catch even a glimpse of her coffin, and many were hurt or fainted. It is also said that when Radio France, the state radio network, heard the news, it canceled its entire schedule and kept broadcasting a special program of Piaf's music.

Loved even after her death, Piaf lived a personal life filled with sorrow, and she poured that emotion and ache straight into her songs, captivating countless listeners. Her style is marked by a fast vibrato and a delivery suited to dramatic classic chanson. Her signature songs include "La Vie en rose," "Hymne à l'amour," "Milord" and "Non, je ne regrette rien," which appears several times in Inception. Piaf is buried in a family tomb at Père-Lachaise. It is a plain, coffin-shaped rectangle, yet you will always find freshly cut flowers on it.

Many more famous people lie in Père-Lachaise. They include Marcel Proust, author of In Search of Lost Time; the poet Rimbaud, who declared he was giving up writing at 20 but left behind works of genius; Molière, the master of Western comedy and founder of modern French comedy; the writers Honoré de Balzac, Colette and Alphonse Daudet; the composers Rossini and Bizet; the chanson singer and actor Yves Montand; the painters Modigliani and Delacroix; the filmmaker Georges Méliès; the dancer Isadora Duncan; and the opera singer Maria Callas. They are names you have probably heard somewhere before. Some graves are plainer than you would expect, others fit their occupants perfectly, and fans still leave flowers, gifts and letters every day, so each one moves you in its own way. Take your time and see as many as you can.

Finally, don't forget the World War I memorial and, at the southern end, the Wall of the Federalists (Mur des Fédérés), which honors the 147 people killed in the Paris Commune on May 28, 1871. The nearest metro station is Gambetta, from which you can enter on the Oscar Wilde side.