But it was only after Balzac featured Pere Lachaise in a key scene of his 1835 novel Le Pere Goriot that it became fashionable to buy a plot.
Memorials of every shape and size bear witness to the cultural diversity of the cemetery, which from the beginning took in Catholics, Protestants and Jews alike, breaking the Catholic Church's previous monopoly on mass burial sites.
There are monuments to the dead of World War II concentration camps, alongside the bullet-riddled Communards' Wall where 147 members of the Paris commune were shot in 1871 after their brief revolutionary city government was defeated.
For some relatives of the dead, the presence of tourists is a comfort rather than an inconvenience.
"It doesn't bother me at all," said local resident Manuela Eckes, 66, who visits her husband's grave once a week. "On the contrary, people should join in. It's nicer. Maybe for the dead too, it's nicer to have people around."
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