When one thinks of Paris, images of the Eiffel Tower or the Louver Museum may come to mind. After all, Paris is famous for its sidewalk cafes and shops. What you may not know is below the streets of Paris, there is a place where you can visit over six million skeletons!
The catacombs were started in 1786.
The Catacombs were created at the end of the 18th century
to serve as an ossuary. Paris was running out of room to bury the dead and the leaders were worried. The solution was to dig up the skeletons that were buried and move the skeletons underground into the old rock quarries. Within 15 months, millions of bones were dug out and moved below the streets of Paris.
The workers had to move the bones at night.
Above the door outside of the catacombs, a sign tells you, “Stop! This is the empire of death.” Some of the bones that were moved were turned into patterns and designs. One example can be found with the remains of the people who were buried at the Carmes Convent. The skeletons were turned into religious symbols are artwork. The symbols and artwork were mainly created from skulls and leg bones.
Kings would sometimes have parties in the catacombs. During World War II, people hid in the catacombs to escape Hitler’s troops. Today, the catacombs are a tourist attraction. For the price of a ticket, you have the chance to go underground and look at skeletons that were turned into artwork. In one place inside, you can find a quote that says, “Man, like a flower of the field, flourishes while the breath is in him, and does not remain, nor know longer his own place.”
At the beginning of the 19th century, the Catacombs opened to the public, attracting large numbers of visitors, including such prestigious figures as Francis I of Austria, who visited them in 1814, and Napoleon III, who visited in 1860 with his son, Prince Imperial.
Avenue René Coty
Access is via a stairway leading to the Catacombs, 20 meters below ground. Visitors begin by walking through long narrow corridors leading to the space beneath avenue René Coty (formerly avenue Montsouris), where inscriptions on the walls provide the names of the streets above and details of works conducted in the corridors (e.g. reinforcement, in the 18th century, of the Arcueil aqueduct, which was built between 1613 and 1623 at the behest of Marie de Médicis).
The Workshop
The “Workshop” is a disused quarry featuring stacked pillars (made o several pieces of stone) and pillars hewn in situ – two techniques used for supporting the quarry ceilings during Lutetian* limestone quarrying.
The Port-Mahon corridor
The sculptures in the Port-Mahon corridor, which are a highlight of the visit, were created by a quarryman named Décure, who had fought in the armies of Louis XV. In the walls of the quarry, Décure sculpted the fortress of Port-Mahon, the largest town on the island of Minorca, one of the Balearic Islands, where he is believed to have been held prisoner by the English.
The Quarrymen’s footbath
The so-called “Quarrymen’s footbath” (bain de pieds des carriers) is a body of crystal-clear groundwater uncovered by the quarry workers. The water was subsequently used by workers mixing cement required during works in the Catacombs.
Entrance to the ossuary
The space located before the entrance to the ossuary is used for themed exhibitions. The ossuary door is framed by two stone pillars decorated with white geometric figures on black backgrounds. The lintel bears the alexandrine “Arrête, c’est ici l’empire de la mort” (Stop! This is the empire of death!) in black letters. Further along, other maxims and reflections on the fragility of human life may be found.
The visitor is now surrounded by the remains of some six million Parisians, stacked in the 780 meters of corridors running under the quadrilateral formed by avenue René Coty, rue Hallé, rue Dareau, and rue d’Alembert. The first bones were brought in 1786 and simply thrown in the corridors. It was only in around 1810, under the Empire, that General Inspector of Quarries Héricart de Thury (1776-1854) had the Catacombs arranged in an orderly fashion, forming a decorative façade with the skulls and long bones, behind which the remaining bones were piled in a heap.
The “Fontaine de la Samaritaine”
The so-called Fontaine de la Samaritaine (Samaritan woman’s fountain) is a spring surrounded by a small circular space, the walls of which are made of bones from the Cimetière des Innocents.
The Sacellum Crypt: altar and large cross
The Sacellum Crypt: altar and large cross The corridor broadens, revealing an altar modeled on an ancient tomb and a chapel known as the “Sacellum Crypt”. A plaque on the left marks the spot where the first bones from the Cimetière des Innocents were placed in April 1786.
