Quaternary 86 of the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris is the burial place of the poet, art and literary critic with Polish roots Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918). Since 1919, the poet's friends and admirers have gathered at his tombstone at around 11:30 a.m. This custom is still cultivated today.

Apollinaire went down in history as one of the most important writers and critics active in France in the 20th century. He was the author of 'Alcohols', 'The Murdered Poet', 'Caligrams', the treatise 'The Cubist Painters', and the creator of the term Surrealism, among others. Through his reviews, published in various journals, he played a key role as a promoter of the 20th-century avant-garde. His views had an important influence on the formation of many artistic trends, such as Orphic Cubism, Surrealism and Purism.

Description of the tombstone

The poet's tombstone, designed by his close friend, painter, writer and publisher of the magazine 'Les Soirées de Paris' Serge Férat in 1935, consists of a rectangular stone slab with a menhir. The slab is engraved with excerpts from Apollinaire's poems, taken from the collection Caligrams: a heart-shaped calligram reading 'mon cœur pareil à une flamme renversée' ('my heart like an inverted flame') and three stanzas from the work 'Les Collines' ('The Hills'), which recall Apollinaire's poetic project:

Je me suis enfin détaché
De toutes choses naturelles
Je peux mourir mais non pécher
Et ce qu'on n'a jamais touché
Je l'ai touché je l'ai palpé

Et j'ai scruté tout ce que nul
Ne peut en rien imaginer
Et j'ai soupesé maintes fois
Même la vie impondérable
Je peux mourir en souriant (...)

Habituez-vous comme moi
À ces prodiges que j'annonce
À la bonté qui va régner
À la souffrance que j'endure
Et vous connaîtrez l'avenir

(I have finally freed myself to you

From all things natural

I can die, sin never

And what has not been touched

I have touched I have taken in hand

I have explored all that hitherto

Could not imagine

In my hand I weighed a thousand times

A life that weighs nothing

With a smile I will be able to die [...].

Prepare like me

For the miracles I foretell

To the goodness that is to come

To the sufferings that harden me

You will all then know the future).

The poet's wife Jacqueline Apollinaire (1891-1987) is also buried in the tombstone.

Genesis of the project

The tombstone was financed by an auction of works by artists who were friends of Apollinaire, held on 21 June 1924.The project was conceived in consultation with the committee of friends of Apollinaire (Souvenir d'Apollinaire), active since 1920 to commemorate the poet at Père Lachaise cemetery. The selection of the author and the concept for the tombstone in the mid-1930s was the result of an inability to reach an agreement between the members of the committee, in which the literati and Apollinaire's widow had a decisive say, and the artist originally chosen for the project, Pablo Picasso. Picasso's avant-garde, Surrealist-influenced designs, presented to the committee in 1927-1928, did not correspond to the traditionalist vision of the monument favoured by the decision-makers.