A grand and emotional funeral ceremony took place Thursday, May 5, at the Saint Roche church in Paris, where an impressive array of celebrities gathered to pay homage and bid farewell to Yves Saint Laurent, one of the greatest couturiers of the 20th century.

President Nicolas Sarkozy and first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who once modeled Saint Laurent’s creations, attended the funeral, sitting in the front row of the church. Actress Catherine Deneuve, longtime muse and friend to the fashion designer, carried a posy of green wheat and read a poem by Walt Whitman.

Saint Laurent's lifetime partner and business associate Pierre Bergé spoke next, revealing that he and Saint Laurent had decided to create a civil union together in the days before the celebrated fashion designer died.

“It’s going to be necessary to part now,” Bergé said, tenderly addressing his lifelong friend, now in the coffin. “I don’t know how to do it because I never would have left you. Have we ever left each other before? Even if I know that we will no longer share a surge of emotion before a painting or a work of art.

“But I also know that I will never forget what I owe you, and that one day I will join you under the Moroccan palms,” he said, as quoted by the New York Times.

Saint Laurent, born in Oran, Algeria, will be cremated and his ashes buried in a botanical garden near his home in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh.

Saint Laurent passed away Sunday, June 1, aged 71, of a brain tumor. The famed fashion icon had been ill for some time. Hailed as “the greatest couturier in the world” by prominent French newspaper Le Figaro, Saint Laurent was widely considered the last of an exquisite generation that included Christian Dior and Coco Chanel and made Paris the fashion capital of the world, with the Rive Gauche, or Left Bank, as its elegant headquarters.

Among those humbly gathered to pay tribute to the great artist were some of the models he dressed, including Claudia Schiffer and Laetitia Casta, and designers who have been inspired by him, including Christian Lacroix, John Galliano, Vivienne Westwood, Sonia Rykiel, Kenzo Takada and Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Among the mourners were also revered French actress Jeanne Moreau, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe and former French first lady Bernadette Chirac.

Saint Laurent’s oak coffin was draped with a yellow silk cloth with delicate sheaths of wheat adorning it. The church was filled with sweetly perfumed flowers. Full military honors were held outside the church.