22. The Paris Catacombs

It's still cold and wet in Paris.  I wonder if Spring will ever come?  

Yesterday we only managed a walk to Jack Wolfskin to buy a small surprise for each of the two grand-lads, before it came down in buckets and the driest place was a cafe table under a deep verandah.

But it cleared a bit today and we headed to the Paris Catacombs again.  Only a short  queue this time.  They allow only 200 people underground at any one time, so there is always some queueing required.  

The Catacombs were created at the end of the 18th century to serve as an ossuary - a final resting place of human remains.  

In 1780, Paris' largest cemetery at Les Halles was closed for public health reasons.  Apparently the locals were complaining that the milk kept going sour, the eggs went bad and the children got ill (not in that order, I hope).  Five years later the king agreed to remove the human remains.  

Some years earlier, it had been necessary to begin the huge task of shoring up thousands of old limestone quarries that run underneath most of the city, in order to prevent subsidence.  So it was decided that the bones from all of the cities cemeteries would be stored in the disused limestone quarries, in a district that was then on the outer edge of the city. The storage continued until 1860 when Baron Haussman began his astonishing redevelopment of Paris for Napoleon 111.  At the beginning of the 19th century the Catacombs opened to the public and have always attracted much interest.

As the vast underground limestone quarries and their tunnels were reinforced to stop Paris collapsing, the workmen carved records into the stone.

One of the many different bracing techniques.

In order to keep their bearings underground, the quarrymen carved on the walls the names of the streets and landmarks 60 metres above them, on the surface.

After about one kilometre of walking through the reinforced tunnels or galleries we arrived at the entrance to the ossuary. The ossuary door is framed by two stone pillars decorated with white geometric figures on black backgrounds. The lintel bears the inscription "Stop! This is the Empire of Death".  

Once inside this vast area you are surrounded by the remains of six million Parisians stacked in 780 metres of corridors.  

The first bones were brought here in 1786, and simply thrown into the corridors.  It was only around 1810 that the General Inspector of Quarries had the catacombs arranged in an orderly manner, forming a decorative facade with the skulls and long bones, behind which the remaining bones were piled.

It was very dark and in some areas, wet.   Flash photography was not allowed. My photos of the most decorative and interesting areas were too dark to show you.

Some areas were fenced off because they were too wet and slippery.

As we left the ossuary and neared the exit, we came upon two bell shaped subsistence cavities that illustrate the commonest type of damage sustained by the limestone quarries in Paris - that is, ceiling collapse.

I can't begin to explain how a ceiling collapse could cause these splendored curved roofs, but there was an excellent diagram which I have photographed that explains it well.  In the photo above you can see the alternating geological layers from when Paris was a shallow, tropical sea of sludge, 45 million years ago.

The entry to the Catacombs was down a spiral staircase of 130 vertical steps to a level more than twice as deep as the Metro tunnels.  The distance from the entry to the exit is 2km.  The constant temperature is 14°C which is not cold because there is no wind.

The exit is up an 18th century, extremely narrow, vertical,  spiral staircase of 83 steps - with no landings.  I was the first of 6 people going up, one after the other.  I kept up a good pace till I thought my lungs and thighs were both going to give way and then I called back, "I'll have to have a little rest, folks" and had stopped for all of 3 seconds when Paul pushed me from behind and said "Oh come-on, its only 8 more steps!" so on I go, emerging at the top to see another woman my age really struggling to get her breath back, sitting on a stool underneath the Defribrillateur.  Lucky for her she didn't need it!

I catch my breath and wonder about the four people who started up behind us.  They still hadn't emerged when we turned the corner at the end of the street in search of a cool drink.

And we certainly got that!  

This is what happens when you mis-order. One small beer and one large beer in French is 'Deux pressions, s'il vous plait: une petit et une grande.'  'Une grande bierre?' asks  the waiter, who has spotted the tourist.  Does Monsieur want 'le grande bierre' or 'le GRANDE bierre?'.  Knowing how thirsty he was, Paul confirmed he really wanted a large beer.  

And large it was! It turned out to be a litre!  But we had no trouble finishing it.  Ossuaries are a thirsty business and the sun had come out.

P.S. The waiter got a tip for catching Mr Sharp-as-a-Tack off-guard.