Paris, France Folder C/parisC432
Previous | Home | NextThis is the Chapelle Expiatoire (the "Chapel of Atonement"), at the corner of Rue d'Anjou and Rue Lavoisier, on the east side of Rue-d'Anjou and occupied an entire block called "le Square Louis XVI." The view is northeast. There had been a cemetery here -- Cimitière de la Madeleine (Madeleine Cemetery) -- which had fallen into disuse but was reactivated to dump unceremoniously 3000 victims of the French Terror after they had been guillotined.
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were among those guillotined and dumped in Madeleine Cemetery. The cemetery itself was abandoned in 1794. It must have been eerie for Madame Lavoisier to pass by this cemetery each day she left or returned home.
In 1815 the remains of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were disinterred and buried at the Basilica Saint-Denis, 7.5 km north. There were three other cemeteries used for victims of the French Terror -- Errancis, Picpus, and Sainte-Marguerite. Errancis was located at the present site of Parc Monceau, 1 km to the northwest. At the Cimitière de Errancis was dumped the bodies of Lavoisier -- as well as, ironically, Danton and Robespierre, themselves once leaders of the Revolution.
