The demise of Jean-Paul Sartre was a drawn-out affair for his lover, who sat at his hospital bed for weeks.

Sartre’s writing on the subject hardly brought her much consolation.

“Death is never what gives life its meaning, but rather what removes it.”

At 4am on April 15th, 1980, noting that the spirit had expired, Simone de Beauvoir pulled back the covers and got into Sartre’s bed, laying there alongside the dead. *

She asked not to be disturbed.

In the hours that followed, the most famous feminist of the 20th century released a statement to press on the steps of the Hôpital Broussais, regarding the loss of France’s preeminent 20th century philosopher.

Her words were fully on-message.

“His death separates us. My death will not reunite us. That is how it is.”

***

Curious, then, that six years later, when death arrived to de Beauvoir’s porte, she would choose to be buried in his grave, with him.

Perhaps one does not have to like one’s philosophical beliefs to believe in them; or perhaps the heart must, on occasion, defy the intellect.

In any case, there they lie in Montparnasse Cemetry – Sartre & de Beauvoir, reunited in bones, if not in being.

Theirs is the most visited grave of this cemetery that I am now walking through.

The grave has a quality which sets it apart.

It is, essentially, pink.

Performative mourning makes of it a showy affair, festooned with lipstick and love notes. A once passionate feminist gesture, rendered banal by the homogenising forces of Instagram.

***

Being August, Parisians have evacuated this 14ème arrondissement, for the beach. Only the tourists remain, with our cropped shorts, white legs and ugly hats.

I bumped into Jacques Chirac on my way to visit Gainsbourg. Those boys are unlikely eternal brothers, but there they are, three metres apart in the noble heart of this noble place.

The President, who died in 2019, is honoured with sober flowers and bouquets.

In contrast, the great musician’s plot is a hanging garden of Nature, with blooms aplenty. There is no hint of his fame, his lyrics or his message. No performance.

Here lies a family man, interred with his mother,  Olga Ginsberg.

The singer who made love to words began with his own name. Lucien Ginsberg became Serge Gainsbourg.

Intentions of identity lay behind this creative act: to assert a kind of mid-century Slavic masculinity by becoming Serge, and to tune his Jewishness to the post-war moment with the franc-ified Gainsbourg.

As it happened, his death in 1991 coincided with my living in France. It took several more years to understand the level of mourning the country offered to a fallen hero.

***

Happy travel improvises along the path of least resistance.

I googled ‘museums near me’ and consequently visited Montparnasse’s Museum of the Liberation of Paris. Its noble building became headquarters for the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) in August 1944, a group set up by de Gaulle to bring order to a disparate French Resistance. It was from a clandestine post, below ground on these premises, that the order to insurrection for all Parisians was despatched, on 19th August 1944.

I signed up for a free-of-charge bunker visit, and was the only person to do so.

Alone, I descended the 100 concrete steps into the welcome cool of this austere shelter, and was greeted by a camera crew from France 2, a national TV station.

The 81st anniversary of the Liberation of Paris would be in some days’ time, and they were here to tell that story.

I was mic-ed up and followed around. The journalist then fired questions, asking me how I understood the meaning of Paris’ liberation in 1944, with the consequent end of Vichy France.

The focus of her story, I later discovered, was that French people hardly ever come to this museum. Across the hours the crew were down in the bunker, they only met foreign visitors.

On camera, I surely looked an absolute state in my un-ironed shirt, three-day-old shorts and Lidl sunglasses. But this concern paled with the opportunity to preach to 500,000 French TV viewers, on the virtue of taking interest in their own history.

I put in quite the performance, weaving humility and insufferability.

***

The following evening, I took a beer on the terraces of the Rue Daguerre, now bathed in amber light.

A bloke, about my age, sat in beside me, placing a pack of cigarettes on the table.

Jeez, I thought. All I need.

By way of deflection, I engaged Xavier Grégoire in conversation.

He is freshly divorced, and is now returned to the 14ème where he spent most of his twenties. Here was a man delighted to be back in Montparnasse.

‘Workers and elites walk these streets side by side’, he said proudly. ‘It’s friendly, and everyone knows everyone’.

We each sipped from our beers.

‘And there’s no tourism here’, he declared, without irony.

We spoke of the joys of living in a big city; how it can allow you turn a new page, move on from the past.

Xavier Grégoire’s hazel eyes caught the sun every time he turned to me. It emphasised his French-ness, elevating him in my eyes.

In time, I took leave, and we shook hands sincerely. He wished that we would meet again, depending on Daguerre to make it happen. Friendship among men is not to be forced.

Me too, I thought. Tobacco be damed.

***

I decided to take one more pass through the cemetery, this time in search of Susan Sontag.

The American philosopher and writer had studied at the Sorbonne, and felt she met her tribe in Paris. Being buried here was her philosophical choice. She died mid-winter, at the close of 2004.

Susan Sontag’s prose is compact, high-protein stuff. I like a bolchy quality in her; her preparedness to talk about forbidden things, and readiness to tear apart anyone who arrives ill-prepared.

Great as she was, our Susan was surely no bag of laughs.

When I found her plot, I was deflated at how unloved it seemed. It is located in a forgettable side-alley, and its black marble was covered with heavy summer dust.

I sat with her.

As I did so, the grave’s dust began to bother me. I debated whether I should perform a wiping down of Ms Sontag, with some Mr Sheen. I could easily drop back to Daguerre for some cleaning materials.

But would Susan want to be polished up?

I consulted ChatGPT, and established that she had no philosophical position on cleanliness. It remained an open question for some minutes, as I relaxed in the silence and enjoyed her company under those beautiful, dusty trees.

I decided against it.

If I wiped her grave of dust, it would only be for me. An indulgent, performative act.

My bunker sermon to the French people was perhaps performance enough for one visit.   

And besides, why bother – if death removes all meaning.

***

* This detail, described by Claude Francis and Fernande Gontier in Simone de Beauvoir: A Life, A Love Story has stayed with me since reading about it in the 90s