As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in my post Kissell on Kessel, I discovered shortly after arriving in France that there’s a street named after a famous writer and journalist whose name looks suspiciously familiar. I’d been to the street, but once I read Kessel’s biography and discovered that he’s buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery, I felt compelled to visit his grave as well. It’s a simple, elegant, unassuming tomb, helpfully noted on the maps posted around the cemetery, whose other residents include Baudelaire, Simone de Beauvoir, Samuel Beckett, and André Citroën (yes, that Citroën). It’s a lovely little park, though inconveniently bisected by a city road and less tranquil than Père-Lachaise.
While we were there, an interment was in progress not far away, and though I don’t believe we were close enough to disturb the mourners, I did feel rather conspicuous walking around with my camera—in jeans and a T-shirt, not black dress clothes—when something so solemn was going on nearby.