Alain Delon had expressed the wish to be buried just like “anyone else”, APA reports citing The Guardian.
But as a crowd of journalists, television crews and fans gathered outside the wrought iron gates of his country home on Saturday, it was clear this was not the funeral of just anyone.
The family had insisted that the actor, who died last Sunday aged 88, wished for his funeral to be held in “the strictest privacy” with only a select group of family and friends. Hours before the ceremony was due to begin, local police and gendarmes had closed the main road.
At the gates of the estate known as La Brûlerie just outside the village of Douchy in the Loiret, 85 miles south east of Paris, only VIP mourners, most in black luxury SUVs with tinted windows, were allowed through.
“Who was that?” journalists asked as they swept past. “No idea,” others replied.
Culture minister Rachida Dati was among the invited mourners, as well as Paul Belmondo, son of Delon’s great rival Jean-Paul Belmondo, and actor Vincent Lindon, who gave a reading.
A wall of flowers had grown slowly up the tall gates by the gatehouse of Delon’s home throughout the week as locals and fans made the pilgrimage to the property. On Saturday afternoon, defying sunstroke and dehydration, they kept coming. Several people paying tribute were taken ill as temperatures rose to 30C.
While Delon had requested no national ceremony, people wanted to show their respect, and more than 100 walked several hundred yards from the village, many carrying bouquets to place at the entrance of La Brûlerie and signing a book of condolences set up near the gates.
A group of fans organised a minute’s silence before singing Paroles Paroles, the 1973 hit by Dalida and Delon, as the sun disappeared behind clouds and it began pouring with rain.
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