Paris Subterranean Sight – Pimsleur Blog
Paris is the most visited city on earth. Tourists flock from around the world to see its plethora of famous attractions, from the Eiffel Tower to the Louvre Gallery to Notre Dame Cathedral, or to simply stroll the city’s atmospheric side streets. However, this preference for the open air means there’s one spectacular sight in the French capital that is usually, quite literally, overlooked by most visitors. The city Catacombs.
Although the term is often applied to the entire network of subterranean tunnels that are criss-crossing beneath the city (a network that is officially known as the Carrières de Paris – the Quarries of Paris – and runs for a total of more than 280 kilometers), the actual burial sites only make up a very limited section of the tunnel system. However, they are far and away its most interesting feature. It’s no surprise, then, that the Catacombs have been attracting some of the most adventurous visitors to Paris since the 1800s.
Issues surrounding the burial of Paris’ dead date back to antiquity. Originally, in Roman times, people who passed away here were buried on the outskirts of the city, but the subsequent rise of Christianity across France meant that people suddenly demanded to be buried in consecrated grounds – which generally meant cemeteries attached to the inner-city churches. However, this was never really a viable solution, as the continued growth of the city meant these churchyards were unable to expand, so there were soon to many dead to be accommodated in the city.
This led to churches adopting a policy of ‘mass inhumation’, where the graveyards would be periodically covered over, compressed down and used to bury bodies again. However, the overwhelming number of bodies in the city led to some appalling sanitary conditions, so by the 18th century some new solutions were desperately needed. One solution was to build mass burial sites on the outside of town, including the likes of Montmartre Cemetery and Père Lachaise, but the other solution was to look underground.
The area under Paris was home to a network of long-deserted mines, and it was decided that a portion of this could be renovated to inter some of the city’s dead. So in the mid-1780s a corner of the tunnels was slowly converted into a mass bone repository – decorated with crosses, urns and other necropolis memorabilia – and by 1788 the first human bones were transferred there. But it was only 20 years later that it was transformed from a standard bone-yard to a true sepulcher, on a par with any city mausoleum.
Delve below the streets of Paris today and you will discover one of Europe’s most original tourist sights. Visitors enter the tunnels through Paris’ former western city gate, descend a narrow spiral staircase for 19 meters then walk along through the damp subterranean tunnels in almost complete darkness, until they come to a stone portal – the entrance to the Catacombs. And here a candle lights up the creepiest inscription you’re likely to see: ‘Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la Mort’. ‘Halt! This is the Empire of Death’.
Yet it’s only once you take a step over the threshold that you get a sense of why people delve deep into the earth to see this place. As you enter the Catacombs you’ll quickly notice that the walls on either side are stacked top-to-bottom with a series of carefully-arranged bones. Look closer and you’ll see that the central ‘keg’ pillars are made from, and decorated with, an assortment of skulls. But that’s really just the beginning. Everywhere you look, in every direction, you will find inventive, decorative assortments of human remains. A morbidly-beautiful heart-shaped frieze made from a series of deformed skulls and shin bones; a round table constructed entirely from calf bones; a skull-and-crossbones sculpture tacked onto a large bone pile: a huge art installation made from the remains of more than six million Parisians.
There are also some other interesting monuments in the Catacombs that aren’t human remains, such as an original, beautifully-engraved fountain called “La Samaritaine”, and some spectacularly rusty old iron gates that come straight out of a Gothic Horror novel. But let’s face it – this place is all about the bones.
As you exit the underground tunnels – back up a long series of steps, unfortunately – and emerge into the bright Parisian sunlight, it can be a little disconcerting to think of all those bones lying below. But as you explore the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Notre Dame Cathedral, or stroll the city’s atmospheric side streets, one thing’s for sure: your abiding memory from Paris won’t be anything you saw above ground.
