Among the Stones: A Visit to Carcassonne’s Old Cemetery
Where Stone Walls Meet Stories of the Past
On my way around the legendary walled city of Carcassonne, I found myself detouring to a place most visitors pass by without much notice: the old cemetery that lies just beyond the Narbonnaise Gate. It’s easy to be distracted by the looming towers and battlements of the fortress, but the quiet enclosure on the hill offers a very different perspective on history—one not of sieges and crusades, but of lives lived, remembered, and carefully memorialised.
This is the Cimetière de la Cité, Carcassonne’s oldest modern burial ground, laid out in the 18th century. The land was chosen on a rise about fifteen meters above the surrounding streets, giving the cemetery both a vantage point over the medieval walls and a sense of serene remove from the bustle of the tourist paths below. Unlike the fortress with its martial grandeur, the cemetery’s story is intimate: here are bishops, writers, soldiers, rugby players, families whose names whisper the passage of centuries.
One of the oldest resting places belongs to Bishop Armand Bazin de Bezons, who died in 1778, his stone marking the cemetery’s early role as the city’s sacred ground. Another name etched in memory is Jean Cau, the Carcassonne-born writer and secretary to Jean-Paul Sartre, whose words once wrestled with modern French identity. And then there is Louis “Lolo” Mazon, the beloved rugby player who carried Carcassonne’s colours to historic victories, his presence reminding visitors that cemeteries are not just about solemnity but also about local pride and affection.
Wandering through the alleys of stone, I noticed how much care had gone into the monuments. Many graves are adorned with photographs of the deceased, a practice that feels uniquely intimate—faces from the late 19th and 20th centuries gazing out from porcelain ovals, bridging the gap between past and present. Family mausoleums stand side by side with modest headstones, crosses and angels softened by weather, iron gates rusting gently in the southern sun. It is a place where art and grief merge into something contemplative.
The cemetery also tells a civic story. As Carcassonne grew, the Cimetière de la Cité became crowded, especially as elaborate tombs took up more space. By the late 19th century, a new cemetery at La Gravette was opened (1896) to relieve the pressure. Yet the old cemetery has remained, stubbornly rooted just outside the medieval gates, as if to remind the living that the fortress without its people is just stone.
What struck me most was how the cemetery sits in dialogue with the walls of Carcassonne itself. On one side, towers that once defended against armies; on the other, tombs that defend memory against time. To walk here is to see the city from a different angle—less grand, perhaps, but more human. Tourists stream past the battlements, cameras raised, while in the cemetery, there is only the shuffle of leaves, the occasional crow, and the weight of names etched in stone.
Visiting the Cimetière de la Cité is not about morbidity. It is about balance. Carcassonne is often presented as a fairy-tale fortress, all turrets and crenellations. But its old cemetery reminds us that the city was, and still is, a place of families, of community, of continuity. Standing among the graves, looking out over the walls, I felt the connection between the citadel of stone and the city of lives—both equally important, both equally enduring.
I didn’t stay long. Just enough to wander, to read a few names, to notice how light fell on the marble, how silence clung to the air. Then I slipped back through the gate, rejoining the flow of visitors heading toward the castle. But I carried with me a sense that Carcassonne’s story is not only written in towers and walls, but also here, in the quiet rows of its old cemetery. Thanks for reading! Until next time…