The Paris Catacombs
Well, last month was a rollercoaster, with exams, moving my workplace (with the discovery of various problems, like leaking pipes and improperly wired electricity in a brand-new building) and especially the totally unexpected death of my sister-in law. I still cannot quite believe she is gone.
Add to that the equally unexpected assembly elections in France. We will likely have, as we say in French, either the plague (the far right) or the cholera (a weak coalition where people will keep arguing for the next years).
Just before all that fell on our head, we went to visit the Paris Catacombs. I have suggested to go there many years ago for Halloween, but the kids were not too keen on it!
The place is the dream for any fantasy, horror or DnD enthousiast and has actually been featured in quite a few novels and movies.
What is called the “Catacombs” are actually the limestone quarries which, from the Roman times, provided the stone to build Paris. Originally outside the roman, and then, the medieval city, they expanded over the centuries, creating an extensive network of tunnels, mostly on the Left (South) Bank of the Seine. Their total length est estimated at about 300km.
Nobody bothered to map those tunnels or keep track of their location. Therefore when Paris started to expand South, above the quarries, that brought quite a few issues.
When Queen Anne of Austria (1601-1666, the one in the Three Mousketeers) decided to rebuild the Val de Grâce monastery, it was discovered that the whole site was standing above empty cavities. It was finally built after pillars were erected underground to support the ceilings of the various underground tunnels, an operation much more expensive than originally planned.
More incidents, and accidents with house collapsing eventually led to the creation of the Inspection Générale des Carrières in 1777, a dedicated body responsible for mapping, and then overseeing the maintenance of the subterranean network. The quarries progressively closed over the following years.
That’s when a small section was turned into an ossuary. By the late 18th century, Paris faced a grave public health issue as its cemeteries became overcrowded and unsanitary. In one spectacular incident, the wall of the cellar of a private house caved in and bones and other bits fell inside. To address this, the city decided to relocate the remains to the abandoned quarries. Starting in 1786, bones from the city's cemeteries were transferred to a section of the quarries, turning it into an extensive ossuary. Over six million Parisians found their final resting place there.
Since this section was considered a cemetry, it has stayed open to the public and this is the part of the ancient quarries you can still visit today. Soon after the opening, the place become a tourist attraction. The Romantic period was in full swing, characterized by an interest in the mysterious and the sublime. Writers, poets, and artists were drawn to the catacombs' eerie atmosphere and profound sense of history (the ossuary contained the bones of many famous people, including some who dies during the French Revolution. Guided tours by candlelight allowed visitors to explore this underground world and have some thrills. This was helped by some morbid stories. In 1793, Philibert Aspairt, a doorkeeper at the Val-de-Grâce, ventured into the catacombs with a single lantern, apparently to break into a neighboring cellar and steal some wine. This was not going to end well. It seems he got lost in the labyrinthine tunnels and his body was found eleven years later.
The rest of the tunnels has served various practical and clandestine purposes like being a cellar, being used to grow mushrooms, an extra room for a café.
When I was a student, a tunnel crossed from the back of Cochin Hospital to the Junior doctor’s mess in the nearby Port Royal Hospital, so during a cold, rainy day, you could go and have lunch without getting soaked (it was also shorter if you had to run back). The tunnel ceiling was full of electric wires which would probably not be considered very safe today.
Of course, some of those tunnels were used for smuggling (you had to pay a special tax to bring goods into Paris up to the mid-19th century) of for hiding by criminals. During World War II, the French Resistance used the tunnels as a hideout and a means of moving undetected across the city. Similarly, German soldiers established underground bunkers within the catacombs.
Some places have notable landmarks, sculptures or plaques. Nowadays, exploring the underground network is illegal, apart from the ossuary. Still, it has become a magnet for cataphiles (enthusiasts of the catacombs) and urban explorers (urbex adepts). In 2004, a group of police officers exploring a section of the catacombs stumbled upon a 400 m2 fully equipped cinema, complete with a giant screen, seats carved from stone, a kitchen and a bar under the Trocadero (one of the most upscale areas of Paris). The électricity had been illegally tapped from a cable of the electricity company. Who set it up? This is still one of Paris mysteries.
Since July is the month of sales, my books will be on 50% sale on Smashwords until July 30:
I've been to the Catacombs. I carried from it a deep sense of reverence for life after going through the ossuary section.