The Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris is home to many famous dead people, including Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. The grave of Oscar Wilde, in particular, is very popular. His female fans have smothered the tomb with kisses leaving red lipstick marks all over. Many female visitors, after assaulting the grave of the famous Irish writer, move over to the adjacent plot for their next target—the effigy of Victor Noir.

It’s perfectly reasonable to ask who Victor Noir is, just like it was a century and a half ago when the man was alive. He was an ordinary young man, an impressive fellow, who just found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nobody knew him until he died. His recent cult following, however, has nothing to do with the manner of his death nor its political fallout, but rather on the mysterious bulge in his pants.

Photo credit: David Edwards/Flickr