No two days are the identical for Benoît Gallot, whose title since 2018 has been “curator” on the storied Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, the resting place of alternative for the nice and good of France and people who love them.
He may handle a group assembly, negotiate the sale of a household plot, supervise a delicate exhumation, put together for a celeb burial, scout areas with a film director, meet with a disgruntled customer or authorize a commemorative ceremony.
And signal paperwork. All the time extra paperwork. Evidently, Gallot does all of it whereas impeccably groomed.
Skilled as a lawyer, Gallot can add to his tasks Instagram star and, now, creator. His debut e book, “The Secret Lifetime of a Cemetery: The Wild Nature and Enchanting Lore of Père-Lachaise,” is an ode to the historical past and biodiversity of his household’s adopted dwelling: He, his spouse (first cautious, now a funeral advisor) and their 4 kids dwell full time inside Père-Lachaise’s 110-acre grounds.
“To them, dwelling in a cemetery is regular,” mentioned Gallot once we lately chatted over videocall, along with the e book’s translator, Arielle Aaronson. “Three of the 4 have by no means recognized the rest.” Rising up in a household of funerary marble employees, he has by no means discovered the environment morbid, both.
Père-Lachaise is the most-visited cemetery on the earth — and website of the toughest plots to snag. House to Colette, Eugène Delacroix, Isadora Duncan, Honoré de Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Georges Bizet, Abelard and Heloise and numerous worthies of the French authorities and navy, its verdant grounds entice a mixture of vacationers, college teams, pilgrims, groupies (Jim Morrison’s fervent followers price their very own sidebar) and plain previous mourners from each nook of the globe.
