Last weekend, I went with some friends on a long-awaited trip, to the catacombs which are found miles below Paris's streets. Once dug out as stone quarries, the catacombs are now famous for a more macabre reason, and a quick glance at Google images will let you know exactly why.
The quarries are hundreds of years old, but after the 1777 collapse of some of the mines, Police Lieutenant-General Alexandre Lenoir was firmly behind the idea of moving Paris' dead from existing ceremonies to the newly renovated subterranean passageways. This idea had been circulating since 1782, but the idea for a future ossuary became confirmed in late 1885.
Whereas at first the bones were laid pell-mell in the, Louis-Etienne Hericart de Thury who was the head of the Paris mine inspection service from 1810 had the vision to transform the underground caverns into a visitable mausoleum (Source). Hence, the catacombs feel like a strange mix between a science museum detailing the mining history and explaining the rock formations deep underground, a museum of Paris' history as you walk past sculptures and poetry by Lamartine carved into the rock, and of course a graveyard - a final resting place for 6 million people.
The journey begins as you travel deep underground (hundreds of steps and no way to exit once you are below, N.B. there are no toilets underground, and the experience is not suitable for people of limited mobility). After being informed on the construction of the quarries, and walking for at least 20 minutes, you suddenly come to this sign:
It is a cold and chilling place, made all the more so by the missing skulls, prised from the walls where they had been set into the shape of a cross or a heart. Poetry and quotes about the fleeting nature of life and the imminence of death are also sobering. Some tourists had forgotten that this is a resting place for the dead, and were cheerfully taking 'selfies' with the bones.
"And so everything on the earth goes by,
Spirit, beauty, graces, talent,
Such is a fleeting flower,
Bowed by the lightest wind"
It is hard to know how to treat the catacombs, as a tourist attraction, a museum or a graveyard - despite the fact that they have been open to the public for centuries: the first known visitor of note was King Charles X in 1787. It is worth a visit if you are respectful, but now I've been I don't know if I would go again! Website here.
À Bientôt !
x
