Cimetière des Batignolles

The Cimetière des Batignolles is marked by a massive stone bridge that carries the busy Parisian ring road directly over the graves. This graveyard holds the remains of people who shaped French culture, including the painter Édouard Manet and the poet Paul Verlaine. When it opened in eighteen thirty-three, it served the growing local population, but the construction of the highway in the nineteen seventies sliced through the original grounds. A portion of the cemetery now sits in the permanent shadow of the concrete overpass.