There are many graves of famous Poles in the Montmartre cemetery, it is even sometimes called the necropolis of the Great Emigration. Juliusz Słowacki (1809-1849) was buried there thanks to the efforts of his Parisian friends, despite the very meagre funds available for his tomb. The monument was erected a year after the poet's death, in 1850, but acquired its final form a few years later, thanks to the efforts of Słowacki's mother. The original design - a romantically composed mound of stones - was made by the French painter Charles Pétiniaud-Dubos, a friend of Słowacki's, who also took care of the funeral expenses. It is said that it was thanks to his mother's efforts that the modest monument was later enriched with a marble medallion with the poet's image, made by Władysław Oleszczyński (1807-1866), supported by a lyre, the symbol of poetic inspiration, and with books partly obscured by a laurel wreath, in which quotations from, among others, 'Anhelli' were inscribed. The medallion currently on the monument is a bronze copy of this work, made in 1894. The original was first moved to Rapperswil and then to the National Museum in Warsaw, where it was lost during the Second World War. In fact, it repeated, with minor changes, the well-known portrait of the bard from a bronze medallion that Oleszczyński had carved back in 1841. - This portrait was highly praised by Słowacki himself in a letter to his mother; Cyprian K. Norwid regarded it as one of Oleszczyński's best works.

In 1875 Cyprian Godebski reported from Paris that the monument was "crumbling and falling apart". After restoration, carried out at the end of the 19th century through the efforts of Polish emigrants, its condition improved, yet Jan Lechoń, in his poem 'On Słowacki's grave', wrote: "On the monument, which crumbles darker and darker/ sleep the insignias, three books of stone and a lyre.../ If you come here, think: not everything dies".

The bard's body was moved to the crypt in Wawel Cathedral in 1927.