Par
Solène Lavenu
Published on
Nov 1, 2024 at 8:29 a.m.
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1is November 2024. It is from tradition of going to flower our graves. Why not take the opportunity to take a look around you. Both Oscar Wilde and Bernard Cazeneuve assure us: to know the city, you must visit its cemetery.
“This is where we can discover the artistsTHE policiesl’family history who made the city,” insists Didier Lecoeur.
The tour guide dedicated a work, Walk in the Cherbourg cemeteryon the subject. We follow him through the paths of the Aiguillons cemetery“unique in the world! », he enthuses.
However, at first glance, nothing distinguishes it from any other cemetery, except its breathtaking view. “It’s fun, the architect of the ferry terminal, René Levavasseurburied here, can admire his work for eternity! »
Large as almost 7 hectares (67,613 m2 Exactly), it has 7,000 graves. Of the anonymousand military. Before laying your eyes on the epitaphs, and when the view has finished astonishing you, the particularity of the cemetery is obvious.
They made the city
At Les Aiguillons, at the entrance to the civil cemetery, there is a military square. It is the largest military cemetery in Normandy. More than 700 graves bear witness to the First and Second World Wars, and even conflicts in Algeria and Indochina.
White iron crosses, sometimes anchors, and even a few crescent moons. The majority belongs to French soldiersbut we can observe a Belgian square, another British and some Commonwealth. By examining the graves, will you also be able to find two Serbian soldiers and a Portuguese who are also buried there?
Unmissable Cherbourg figures
Along the paths, you will find the graves of civilians, and some of personalities. Here, the grave of Henri Jouan, this naval officerfrom a large family of soldiers, and who was part of the crew of the Beautiful Hen who brought back Napoleon's ashes of the island of Saint Helena.
“They were brought back to Cherbourg before going to Paris, at the Invalides», specifies Didier Lecoeur. We are then in 1840.
There, that of Alfred Roussel, a name that every Norman knows well, he is the lyricist of the anthem of Cotentin : Sure the me. When I reached the shore, byin quiet: are we like this? I think of those who are travelinghe writes.
Our journey to the heart of the Aiguillons continues in search of graves other essential Cherbourg figures .
On a path, away from the other graves, we will find, for example, Armand Le Veel. His sculpted bust adorns his tomb, one of his last works.
It dates from 1989, six years before his death.
Does his name mean nothing to you? It is the sculptor of the famous Napoleon on horseback who welcomes all walkers, opposite the town hallfrom Cherbourg-en-Cotentin.
Deputies and a resistance fighter
Alphonse Marcel-Jacques, the father of the bust of Jean-François Millet, placed in the center of the village of Gréville, the delegated commune of La Hague, is a few meters away.
Let us also mention, along the paths, the tombs of René Schmitt, the teacher resistedt , maire from Cherbourg, and called by Léon Blum in his third governmentwhere he occupied the place of Secretary of State for Reconstruction THE deputies Noël Agnès, Albert Mahieu or François Lavieille who worked with all his strength for the theater constructionfrom Cherbourg.
Victims of the Civil War
But these figures who built the city do not make this cemetery a unique place in the world. The exceptional lies at the bottom of the cemetery. It is there, at the foot of an American flag, that the bodies of soldiers of the Civil War.
Since 2004the Aiguillons cemetery is thus designated as the only site of the Civil War in Europe it is also the only place in the world where Southerners and Northerners are buried side by side.
These sailors are dead during the combat naval between theAlabama and the Kearsarge, in 1863 off the town. A war memorialnortherner as southerner was even erected in 1915.
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