Paris's
Ancient Catacombs:
Subterranean Empire of the Dead
By Roy Stevenson
I'll never forget my first visit to Paris. After walking around overwhelmed with
her collective magnificence and splendor, it took me a few days to start
focusing on the individual beauty of her architecture. Elaborately carved creamy
pale yellow colored limestone buildings, bridges, sidewalks, monuments, museums
and apartments distract your eye wherever you walk.
How many stonemasons chipped away, over the centuries, at large rectangular
blocks of limestone to sculpt the long fierce looking gargoyles jutting out from
the side of the Notre Dame Cathedral? And the intricately carved niches and
statuettes that seem to adorn every office or apartment building, now becoming
smooth and weathered with age? Then a thought kept popping up in my mind. This
limestone had to come from somewhere.
It wasn't until I'd made several trips to Paris and finally visited the
underground Catacombs that I finally figured it out-it comes from beneath Paris.
Underneath Paris, the City of Lights, there is a much darker world. Every year
over 150,000 morbidly curious people visit part of a labyrinth of 186 miles of
eerie ancient subterranean limestone tunnels and mass graves known as the
catacombs.
Walking through this huge underground crypt is like entering another realm where
the surreal is normal, amidst enormous piles of macabre grinning skulls and aged
yellowed bones. This bizarre necropolis contains the bones of 6 million bodies.
Gruesome scenes that even the big budget horror movies would have difficulty
creating. And its real.
Everything about these catacombs is unusual, from its understated small black
metal entrance door in an unassuming metal art-nouveau building, across the
street from the Denfort Rochereau Metro station. .
 The sign at the entrance to this innocuous building reads "Entrée Des Catacombes". You buy your ticket at a small counter. A nearby sign warns you
that this visit is not for claustrophobics, or people faint of heart, or people
with emotional problems: you enter at your own risk. You think "is this just
hype to intrigue the visitor"?
Almost immediately you descend a long, seemingly bottomless, narrow spiral
staircase of 130 stairs to get to the tunnels. You're now 20 meters under the
streets of Paris. You enter a small chamber at the end of the staircase. It's a
mini-museum with photographs and signs that tell you the history of the
catacombs. In 1785 millions of bodies were exhumed from mass graves in Paris'
cemeteries and dumped into the catacombs-six million of them over the next few
years.
Most came from the area now known as Les Halles. The cemetery there, Les
Innocents, contained 10 centuries of bodies, or thirty generations. One
gravedigger there buried 90,000 bodies in 35 Years. It's estimated that 4
million bodies were interred here in the 400 years up to 1785.
The king decided to have the bodies removed from the Cemetery of Les Innocents
to the quarries of Denfert-Rochereau, which at that time was outside the Paris
boundaries. It took 15 months to move the bodies, done at nighttime in
horse-drawn covered wagons.
 The
tunnel begins here at the museum. It's cool (a constant 11degrees Celsius), and
the damp dimly lit limestone tunnels are oppressive, squeezing the breath out of
you as you walk along its long straights, 90-degree twists and turns. The
tunnels are about six feet high and three feet wide.
The absolute quiet is unnerving. You only hear the occasional muted sound of a
tourist talking in the distance, water dripping from the ceiling, your breath,
and the crunchy sound of gravel under your shoes. You begin to wonder if you'll
ever reach the end of the long tunnel. You pick up your pace to get to the
necropolis because you're starting to feel claustrophobic.
The Denfort Rochereau catacombs are about 1 mile long, and will take you an hour
or more to get through. In parts you will have to crawl through long narrow
crevices in the limestone on your stomach to get to the next tunnel. OK-I made
that part up. You can comfortably walk through the tunnels, but if you are over
5 feet 8 inches you will find yourself stooping a bit. If you extend your arms
you can touch the sides. Walking along the tunnels you see dates inscribed on
the walls, indicating when they were excavated-most are from the 19th century.
 Suddenly you come to a metal grated doorway with a sign above it saying "Arrete!
C'est ici l'empire de la mort". (Stop! This is the empire of the dead). You enter the Ossuary, or bone gallery. Then it gets
really weird. Bones. Bones of tibias, femurs, and grinning skulls piled up
everywhere. Bones arranged in orderly mounds by type. Bones layered from the
floor to the ceiling right next to you. You can touch them. Long heaps of neatly
stacked bones-I walked ten paces alongside one pile and it still continued off
into the darkness.
 You find yourself wondering who this person was, now reduced to a pile of
stacked bones passed by thousands of tourists each day. When did they live? How
old were they when they died? It's a very strange and personal experience. Some
of the tourists conceal their reactions by joking, posing with a skull in their
hand. Others like me walk along quietly trying to get our heads around the whole
bizarre scene.
Behind these piles are more bones all the way to the back of the cave-20 feet
deep in some places. These are the remainders of the skeletons. None of the
bones are identified. Instead, each pile of bones has a sign or plaque listing
which cemetery the bodies were moved from and what year they were exhumed.
 Adding to the surreal atmosphere, some piles of bones are arranged in artistic
patterns and designs; there's a crucifix made of skulls inset into bones,
another crucifix of femurs, a skull and crossbones, and a heart with an arrow
through it. Did they stack the bones like artwork as a sign of respect, or out
of some quirky sense of humor?
Graffiti dating from the 18th Century is scrawled along walls. Small dark rooms,
niches in the walls, crypts, and memorials lurk off to the sides of the twisting
tunnel. Cryptic signs in French and Latin
 remind
you that you too will die one day ("If you have ever seen a man die, remember
that one day that fate awaits you"), or remind you of the constant presence of
death ("Happy is he who always has the hour of his death before his eyes and is
ready to die every day"), or the shortness of life. Another implores you to get
right with god. One reminds us that we die and move on alone (. "Upon death, you
leave everything").
A high-ceilinged "chapel" indicates you are coming to the end of your
underground tour. For many people, it's probably a great relief to know the tour
is nearly over. You climb another long metal spiral staircase, finally emerging
into a small room leading to the exit. Here you have your backpack searched
before exiting. I start to ask the attendant why he wants to examine my backpack
then stop mid-sentence. "No, people don't really try to take bones, do they"? I
ask him. "Oui, monsieur-people try to steal bones and skulls for
souvenirs". This is too much.
When you open the exit door, you re-enter the bright sunlit streets of Paris,
disoriented from your visit to the empire of death. As if this isn't enough for
your reeling mind, you're totally lost because the exit is a mile from the
entrance. You'll need to wander around cross checking your map and the street
signs to get your bearings.
Having visited Paris dozens of times while living in Brussels, I have come to
know her as well as any tour guide. But my visit to the catacombs will always
remain one of the most memorable sights I've ever seen in this beautiful city.
Roy Stevenson is a freelance writer on Travel and Culture, Military History,
History, Fitness and Health, Sports, and Film Festival Reviews.
He can be reached for comment at
roy_stevenson@hotmail.com
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