It was called "The East Cemetery" when it opened on May 21, 1804. However, it attracted little use because people felt that it was just too far away and in an "unfavorable" neighborhood. In its first three years it contained only 60 graves.

Pere Lachaise, Father François de Lachaise d’Aix, a Jesuit, was the Confessor for Louis XIV. It was on this hill where he built a Jesuit Rest House in 1682, which later became his residence. With his name being attached to the property for some 120 years, the name Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise, Cemetery of Pere Lachaise, was a popular one.

To encourage the purchasing of grave sites here, officials began to re-inter celebrities from other graveyards, beginning with playwright Moliere and poet La Fontaine and the ancient remains of Abelard and Heloise, whose tragic love affair from the 12th century is legendary among Parisians. The idea worked. By 1830, the number of grave sites purchased at Pere Lachaise Cemetery jumped to 33,000