[citation needed] In the early 19th century, on the orders of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, all the cemeteries in Paris were replaced by several large new ones outside the precincts of the capital.

The retaining wall of the cemetery is adorned with a bas relief (by Louis Janthial) commemorating the soldiers who fell in World War I.

[citation needed] Opened in 1820 in the expensive residential and commercial districts of the Right Bank near the Champs-Élysées, by 1874 the small Passy Cemetery had become the aristocratic necropolis of Paris.

Among its more famous burials are: The entrance of the cemetery is located at 2, Rue du Commandant Schlœsing.

The street in which it is situated is named for a Free French pilot, Squadron Leader Jacques-Henri Schlœsing (1919–1944), who flew with the wartime RAF until killed in action, the day that Paris was liberated.