Les artistes peintres à Saint-Roch

Following the law of June 12, 1804 creating new regulations for cemeteries, the city of Grenoble inaugurated the new cemetery on August 20, 1810, near the former medieval chapel that gave it its name. The burial space, enclosed by a 2.50 m-high wall, initially took the shape of a trapezoid, divided into six large squares served by a main aisle intersected at right angles by two narrower transverse aisles. All are planted with Italian poplars, felled in 1882. Inside, a chapel was built in 1826, replacing a section of the far wall at the end of the central aisle. Financed by private donations, it was soon joined by the large cross erected by the 1818 mission. Gradually, the cemetery underwent a series of extensions. In 1843, four additional squares were laid out, and the "Porte des Adieux" (demolished in 1924) of the new Haxo enclosure served the cemetery. In 1853-1854, a specific hemicycle addition, with only squares and perpetual concessions, added almost 12,000 m² to the rear of the chapel. The overall design, a true church plan with a wide nave and an apse, was exceptional in French cemeteries of the period, but it was to be undermined by subsequent expansions. Although the 1870 expansion extended the original plan with five squares lined up along the west wall, like a bas-côté, the 1884 expansion took a different approach, opening up a space dedicated solely to concessions and surrounded by boxes to the east of the original wall, where the space available up to the towpath was irregularly shaped. Two gates, now walled in, provided direct access from the outside on the Isère side.
Other improvements have been made inside and in front of the cemetery:
In front of the chapel, the semi-circular square is decorated with a monument to the dead of the 1870 war, a counterpart to the mission cross. A Way of the Cross encircling the building from behind soon links them. The roadway around the cemetery was also rectified at the same time. In line with the main entrance, a semicircular square was designed at the end of the avenue du cimetière, echoing the curved interior shapes of the new entrance pavilions.
Further small extensions were added in 1899 on the Isère side, and in 1907 on the Bastille side, where the 14-18 military cemetery was later located. In 1921, square XVI was extended westwards by two new, slightly irregular squares. Finally, in 1926, the last extension to Saint-Roch was opened, with three squares that were completely irregular in size, shape and the multiplication of lateral rows. The total surface area was now around 13 hectares.
It wasn't until 1941, in the middle of the war, that a new resting place opened up on the other side of the river, adjoining like a suburb: the Grand Sablon cemetery.
In 2006 - 2007, the city of Grenoble and the Conseil général de l'Isère launched a heritage inventory. It was carried out by the Conservation du Patrimoine de l'Isère (now the Service du Patrimoine Culturel) on the Saint-Roch cemetery, and resulted in the compilation of over 800 detailed fact sheets on outstanding heritage features (tombs, steles, slabs - steles, vaults, broken columns, crosses, cippes, sculpted decorations, chapels and funerary monuments) and the production of a summary report.