Catacombs

Today I went to Paris's Catacombs, created in the late 1700s to deal with the overflow of Paris's cemeteries. As in, the cemeteries were so stuffed with decomposing bodies that they posed a major health risk. Now those bones have rested in the catacombs for a few centuries and have no lack of visitors -- tourists have been checking out the catacombs since the mid-1800s.

Before I could go in, I waited in line with hundreds of people, all from different countries. I could hear German, French, and English being spoken while we were all waiting. When I finally made it to the ticket office, I noticed signs that said, "Any person caught stealing bones will be taken to the police." Wow.

After descending a loooong spiral staircase, and after traveling through some seriously long tunnels, the first things you see are a few sculptures by a quarryman named Decure, who was apparently imprisoned at Port Mahon and chipped out images of the fortress from memory. Here's an example of his work:



This interesting display was, of course, followed by more walking -- and if you ever go to the catacombs, wear shoes with good treads, because the stone you walk on is smooth, moist, and slippery! Eventually I came to a door that ominously welcomed me to the "empire of the dead."



And suddenly I was surrounded by human bones. They are piled up all around you as you walk, the skulls positioned to face outward and stare at you as you walk by. Some of them are arranged in interesting patterns, supported on piles of (former) limbs stacked beneath and around them. Flash photos aren't allowed down there, and it was pretty dark, but I managed to get a few decent pictures. As you walk along, you are treated to meditative quotations in French and Latin on the subject of death.



Although there must have been a ton of people down there with me, I got to do a lot of exploring without a soul in sight, and that made for a much better experience.

It was also cool to be in a place that Victor Hugo wrote about and that the French Resistance made use of during WWII. I kept expecting Michelle Dubois to leap out of the shadows and whisper, "Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once!" I was at least partially influenced by the fact that I had already walked along Avenue General Leclerc! (If you haven't watched 'Allo 'Allo, you should.)

As you walk though all those piles of bones, it's very difficult to imagine that they were all real people, once. As you leave the tunnel and approach the stairs leading back up to the street, there is a display discussing various activists and intellectuals -- both royalists and revolutionaries -- who were guillotined and dumped somewhere down there. A shame, really.