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July 15, 1984, Sunday, Late City Final Edition THE WORLD OF PERE-LACHAISE

By NOELA WHITTON.

In a recent vacation in Paris my husband was planning the next day's activities. ''Tomorrow,'' he said, ''I have arranged a special trip. We are going to P ere-Lachaise to visit the of Marcel Proust. We'll take a picnic.''

I was delighted. I'd discovered Proust years ago after seeing a film of the French countryside, with extracts from Remembrance of Things Past' as the sound track. I was captivated from the beginning.

The of P ere-Lachaise is the largest in Paris (Metro: P ere-Lachaise. Open all year.). Designed by Brongniart in 1803 and built on the very uneven ground of a former Jesuit retreat house, it is named for Louis XIV's confessor, Father La Chaise, who made generous donations to the Jesuits when he was their guest. A high stone wall runs around the perimeter. Guards man the four entrances and the iron gates are shut at 6. It is said that 3,000 cats have made it their home and that they come out at night to play. We saw perhaps 20, all furtive, all scrawny.

The guards will provide a map of the cemetery in exchange for a small coin. On the map's list you will find, among many others, Rossini, Colette, Piaf, Balzac, Bizet, Victor Hugo, Moliere and Gertrude Stein.

When we arrived I found it difficult to keep my concentration. There are thousands of , row after row, seemingly on top of one another. Some are in a state of total neglect, many are the shape of a roadside telephone booth.

There are few places to sit on the Avenue Circulaire, on the main Transversales or on the dozens of winding avenues. You must keep moving, reading the names, some of them famous, most of them unfamiliar, wondering how these ornate tributes - some with strained glass windows and doors, altars decked with priceless Sevres pieces and gilt- framed family pictures - ever came to be built. The ground is completely covered and the old trees meet overhead to hold in the feeling of death. 2

On a plain black marble I saw: ''FRANZ JOSEPH KRAMER Born December 10, 1873 Died February 15, 1875.'' And beneath it: ''FRANZ JOSEPH KRAMER Born August 13, 1876 Died August 19, 1876.''

On another monument two bearded stone figures, in shrouds, lay hand in hand. Croce- Spinelli and Sivel. They fell 8,600 meters on April 15, 1875.

Next were the of two forgotten families, the Valadiers and the Lemoine-Holliers. The ground had caved in and the tombs leaned together like a couple of drunks, rusted doors ajar, cobwebs keeping in the darkness.

''We'll open the wine,'' I said, ''as soon as we find Proust.''

''There's no way we can have a picnic in here. We'll look for an exit.''

Suddenly, we found the grave, in Division 85. A cat rushed out from behind the black alabaster, where Marcel Proust, his father, mother, brother and sister-in-law all rest.

Two dead flowers were the only adornment. As we stood in silence a girl named Agnes Sureau came with two red carnations, one for her grandfather (Murset) nearby, and one for Proust. ''I always bring an extra one for Proust,'' she said.

She was young and pretty and pleased with herself, like Albertine, but she did not, I noticed, have Albertine's ''mole on her upper lip, just below her nose.''

Searching for an exit we came on the vast Columbarium (from the Latin columba, meaning pigeon) where hundreds of thousands of living, loving, laughing people have been reduced to ashes and placed on permanent file in eerie ''pigeon holes.'' Somewhere in here was Isadora Duncan, but the stench of dead flowers and cheap candles forced us out.

We passed the modern section where Madame Kazimer was washing the monument to her husband who died, aged 60, in 1972. She had come equipped - short-handled broom, watering can, two cloths (one for polishing) and fresh flowers.

Outside on the Avenue du P ere-Lachaise it was apparent we would have to forget the idea of a picnic. There was not even a seat at the bus stop.

Determined to find Piaf, Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt and Marshal Ney, as well as the Federalists' Wall, with the unmarked grave of 147 members of the Paris Commune who were buried where they fell, when shot by their own countrymen, in 1871, we headed for the northeast corner along the hard, cobbled paths. The bullet holes in the rough stone wall are still there, and ivy and begonia cover the ground where the bodies lay.

Up the slight hill from where they were shot, like cattle, there are dozens of monuments to the fallen of France, those killed by men other than their brothers. They record: Twelve 3 thousand five hundred French deported to Linz, 10,000 French exterminated. The survivors liberated on May 5, 1945. Thirteen thousand five hundred martyrs honored by the families of the lucky 600 who survived.

A crowd had gathered in Division 97. A black tomb, covered in flowers, was the center of attention. Madame Lambouskas, otherwise known as Edith Piaf, shares a grave with her father, her baby daughter and her young husband.

I visited her birthplace a week later and pressed my nose to the glass in the front door of a dingy building on the Rue de Belleville a street just north of P ere-Lachaise. Her mother was alone on the stairs where ''the little sparrow'' was born Dec. 19, 1915. Her on Oct. 14, 1963, was more spectacular. Eleven cars were needed to carry the flowers and 40,000 people attended.

The monuments to the French marshals were next, across rough country in Division 29. Back to 44 in search of Sarah Bernhardt who lies in a lead coffin, covered with silk pink flowers, which sits on an open-sided sandstone tomb. Carved in large gold letters in the sandstone is simply ''SARAH BERNHARDT 1844-1923.''

If we hurried there might just be time for Abelard and Heloise. Off we ran in search of Division 7. When we thought we were getting warm we started calling out ''Abelard? . . . Heloise?'' to passing strangers. All we got were pitying looks.

''They think we've lost our children,'' I said.

Uniformed guards appeared, whistles blew, people headed for the exits; still we kept on calling. An obliging old man heard us and pointed the way. Defying the guard, we doubled back.

There they were, those 12th-century tragic lovers, together at last. Inside their high steel spiked fence, prone statues in their own pavilion, silently proclaiming their love.

With indecent haste we were herded through the exit to the Boulevard Menilmontant, picnic basket intact. The gates shut behind us in this seedy part of Paris where, at night, they put out the people and lock up the cats.

NOELA WHITTON IS AN AUSTRALIAN WRITER WHO LIVES IN LONDON