La Dame aux Camélias

I continue my visit of graves at the Montmartre graveyard. Here is the one of "la Dame aux Camélias" ("Camille"). You can see some camelia flowers incrusted on the top of the monument and some more or less natural camelia flowers, which people have placed there.



The lady has really exisited. Here real name was Marie Duplessis (actually the "du" was added by herself, to make her name sound more noble). She was a courtesan (mistress), who died of tubercolosis in 1847, at the age of 23. She had a number of wealthy and famous lovers, including Franz Liszt and Alexandre Dumas the younger, who immediately wrote about her and made her famous (under the name of Marguerite Gautier). La Traviata by Verdi is based on Alexandre Dumas' play.



Actually, Alexandre Dumas the younger (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/adumas2.htm) is also buried at the Montmartre graveyard. Alexandre was the illegimate son of Alexandre Dumas senior - author of The Three Musketers, The Count of Monte Cristo... , who in his turn was the illegimate son of a general from the French revolution, who was the son of a Haitian slave.


(There are a lot of graves of famous people at Montmartre, 10 minutes walk away... More to follow.) This was supposed to be my contribution for April 26, wen I will be rather busy. Obviously I put it in just before midnight instead of just after midnight.