Envoys raise a glass to genius buried in Paris

The dandy in the purple velvet waistcoat and green silk scarf looked wistfully from the front page of Le Figaro's literary section yesterday, and all Paris seemed infused with his presence.

If Oscar Wilde's ghost was by his graveside at Pere Lachaise cemetery, or in the glittering dining room of the Irish Ambassador's residence, among the congregation at the memorial Mass at St Joseph's Church, or in the half-dozen theatres where he was celebrated, then the ghost must surely have worn a smile of derision.

Wilde might have seen in his rehabilitation - indeed glorification - the flip side of the human folly which caused him such suffering in Victorian England. By the time he died on November 30th, 1900, at the age of 46, poor, broken and alcoholic, even Wilde's friend, Andre Gide, shrank from being seen with him in public.

But yesterday the sting of scandal was gone, and the familiarity of those with close connections to "Oscar", "Robbie" and "Bosie" had survived a century.

The Irish and British ambassadors raised champagne glasses to Wilde's genius. Referring to Wilde's deathbed conversion to Catholicism, Father Thomas Scanlon spoke of the prodigal son "who was dead and is alive again, who was lost but now is found".

The Taittinger champagne company, which financed one of the Wilde exhibitions in London, asked his grandson, Mr Merlin Holland, if there was anything else they could do. When Holland said he needed a place to stay, Taittinger sent him to the Crillon, the most expensive hotel in Paris.

About 20 people waited outside the Pere Lachaise gates and entered the cemetery with the dustmen at dawn. They included Mr Holland; the Ambassador Mr Patrick O'Connor and Mrs O'Connor; the British ambassador Sir Michael Jay, and Mr Oliver Ross and Ms Christabelle Ross de Marsangy, the nephew and grand-niece of Wilde's most loyal lover, Robbie Ross.

Ms Sheila Colman, the executor of the estate of Wilde's other great love, Lord Alfred Douglas, was also there. So were the British actors Sir Donald Sinden and Steven Berkoff, and the playwright Sir David Hare.

Wilde was buried in a pauper's grave at Bagneux. But Robbie Ross purchased the Pere Lachaise plot and had him moved there.

At Ross's request, his own ashes were later placed with Wilde. Now the Ross family looks after Wilde in death, just as their uncle cared for him and his family in life.

Wilde's white marble tomb had been immaculately cleaned for the centenary. Its lovely angel, sculpted by Sir Jacob Epstein, remains mutilated since two English women castrated it with a hammer.

The tomb has long been a target of graffiti artists and was recently covered with scores of stencilled purple lipstick kisses. "If you can write something that will result in people leaving it alone, I'd be very grateful," Mr Oliver Ross, a London solicitor, pleaded. "There are other ways of showing respect."

The Oscar Wilde Autumn School in Bray sent 15 people to Paris for the commemorations. "It's ironic that a man so ignored and vilified is now accepted as a national figure," Ms Carmen Cullen, the school's director, said.

Others become preoccupied with Wilde's life, but she prefers to concentrate on his work. "There was a seedy side to him," Ms Cullen explained, alluding to the "rent boys" he once frequented. "There is still a lot of ambivalence."

Mr Holland anticipated detractors in his remarks at the Irish Embassy breakfast. When people criticised his grandfather, "part of me says, how dare you?" But then he remembers Wilde's aphorism: "Praise makes me humble, but when I am abused I know I have touched the stars."