Catacombs of Paris
Geographic Information
Contact	48 50 '02 "North 2 19 '56 "East / 48.83389, 2.33222
Country	France
Locality	Paris
General Information
Opening Date	1810
Collections	old underground quarries in the late eighteenth century
Area	1.7 km long
Visitor Information
Address	Place Denfert-Rochereau 75014 Paris
Website	The Catacombs at the portal of the City of Paris
change

The catacombs of Paris, a term improperly used to appoint the are old underground quarries located in the ^14th arrondissement of Paris , connected by galleries inspection. They are transformed into an ossuary at the end of the ^eighteenth century with the transfer of the remains of six million Parisians evacuated cemeteries for reasons of public safety.

From about 1.7 km long, located twenty meters below the surface, they can be officially viewed from the Place Denfert-Rochereau and form a museum of the City of Paris, depending on the Carnavalet Museum.

This party is open to the public only a tiny fraction (about 1 / 800 ^th) of the vast underground quarries of Paris , which extend in several districts of the capital.

This site is served by the subway station Denfert-Rochereau. This site is also served by the RER station : Denfert-Rochereau.

Nearly 300 km of tunnels spread out in central Paris, sometimes on three levels of careers. The average depth is about 20 meters underground. When the quarries were active, we extracted the stone building, which has for several centuries to build buildings of Paris without importing other construction material. But there were also underground voids formed by the ancient quarries of gypsum (at the foot of the Sacred Heart , for example). These voids are filled or nearly all swoon (career voluntarily by explosion collapsed pillars). Only remaining Cave Buttes-Chaumont is in fact part of an ancient underground quarry.

History

The Cemetery of the Innocents , in the heart of Paris.

In the late ^eighteenth century , to cope with the saturation of Paris cemeteries, the decision was made to move the bones from mass graves located in the underground quarries.

The problem of cemeteries

The Cemetery of the Innocents for ten centuries receives dozens of generations of Parisians who died within twenty-two parishes of Paris, and the corpses removed from the Hotel-Dieu and the morgue. In the late ^eighteenth century , the ground of the cemetery is hence more than two meters above street level, causing problems of inadequacy, reported long.

In February 1780, an incident leads finally a decision: the wall of a cellar in the Rue de la Lingerie, adjoining the cemetery, broke under the pressure of a mass grave. Moreover, an economic reason helps accelerate the choice: the lack of city markets, the Halles lack of space and abuts against the cemetery wall. This is the opportunity to redevelop the economic heart of the capital and improve circulation in a very crowded day and night .

A decree of the State Council of November 9, 1785 scrapped the cemetery of the Innocents with removal of bone and its redevelopment in procurement. Catacombs is the name given to careers appointed by analogy with the ancient underground cemeteries of Rome, even if the premises were not used to direct burial and have no sanctity.

The career development

Skull in the Catacombs of Paris 2010.

On 7 April 1786, the Catacombs are dedicated and transfers of bones from the cemetery of the Innocents begins. A religious rite is scrupulously respected: tanks covered with black sheets funeral travel at dusk at the well of Career Services at the Tomb-Issoire order to discharge their loads. They are accompanied by torch bearers and followed by priests chanting the burial service. Following the example of the Holy Innocents, other Parisian cemeteries adjoining the churches are gradually emptied in turn, from 1787 to 1814.

In 1810, the successor to Guillaumot, Louis-Etienne Hricart Thury , landscape the Catacombs and gives them their present appearance. In 1815 he published the description of the Catacombs of Paris, which became the basis on which all subsequent studies leaned .

An unusual tourism

Since their inception, the Catacombs of curiosity. In 1787, the first visitor, the Comte d'Artois, the future Charles X, descends in company with ladies of the Court. The following year, it mentions the visit of Madame de Polignac and Madame de Guiche. But it was not until 1806 that the first public tours are organized, they do take place at irregular dates for a privileged few. It Hricart Thury that organizes regular visits from his first inauguration. He draw a black line on the ceiling, using breadcrumbs to visitors. In 1814, Franois 1st, Emperor of Austria, winner residing in Paris visit the Catacombs. But in 1833, religious leaders get the prefect of police Rambuteau the closure of the ossuary, considered a sacred place unfit for the visit. It was not until 1850 for four annual visits are organized again. In 1867 then in 1874 we increased that number to two per month, plus an additional day of the dead, the day after All Saints Day, when an underground act is celebrated for the repose of the souls.

In 1860, Napoleon III descends with her son. In 1860 also, the photographer Nadar , a pioneer of aerial photography, is also the first to create a series devoted to the Paris underground, especially to the catacombs and sewers .

The Catacombs today

The Catacombs of Paris reopened June 14, 2005 after several months of closure for renovation. They have been to strengthen the arches, the back walls of bones and revise lighting.

On November 18, 2007, the catacombs close again to achieve significant development work safety standards. This work, amounting to 430,000 euros, were fully financed by the Cultural Affairs Division of the City of Paris. They aim to install fire alarms on air handling units, and a device to prevent the spread of smoke. A new fire escape was also conducted in midcourse to allow faster evacuation of the public in the event of an incident. The modernization of the home allows automatic counting of the public between the entrance and exit tunnels. Finally, fire doors are also put down the access stairs .

On April 15, 2008, the catacombs reopened after several months of work, the final cost 720 000. Gallery Port Mahon, closed since 1995, is reopened for the occasion , and the foot bath quarries and Descent .

On September 13, 2009, the catacombs are victims of vandalism , leading to closure of three months and forty thousand euro public works rehabilitation, mobilizing a permanent team of four workers .

The catacombs are managed by the Muse Carnavalet. The tour, along two miles, requires at least forty-five minutes, with 130 steps down and 83 to rise in an ambient temperature of 14 C. In 2008, the ossuary Paris City welcomed nearly 240,000 visitors .

Catacombs of Curiosities

The adits

The tour begins at the Catacombs 1, avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy ( Denfert-Rochereau ), near one of the buildings grant built by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and hosting the General Inspectorate of Mines. After the small window, a staircase of one hundred and thirty steps gives access, twenty feet below, in small rooms, exposing panels explaining the history of the Catacombs and temporary exhibitions. From 2010 to 2012, for example, an exhibition is devoted to photos of the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo.

A gallery escapes towards the south, under the avenue Ren Coty , a former Park Avenue Montsouris. Further, the route is narrow galleries consolidation of the aqueduct of Arcueil , made for Marie de Medicis , and which allowed to supply water to the Luxembourg Palace. The visitor then goes to the "Workshop" is to tell the old limestone quarries of Lutetian , the gross appearance and provided numerous departures galleries, closed by gates. The sky's career is supported by pillars with arms (taken from the ground) or turned (shaped stones stacked), and the walls are formed of Hague. A sloping corridor provides access to lower levels .

Sculpture of the fort at Port Mahon.

Then leads the visitor's gallery in Port Mahon. These sculptures in stone from 1777 to 1782, are the work of a carrier named Dcure veteran armies of Louis XV. Working day in the work of consolidation under the direction of Guillaumot he carves from work and represents a model of Fort Port Mahon , the principal city of the island of Menorca , the Balearic Islands , where he was a prisoner of time English. Wanting to perfect his work, he urges the creation of an access stairway from the upper level of the quarry, but it causes a sinkhole and which killed him instantly .

At close range, the foot bath is a small quarry-pit, containing a water particularly clear, once used by workers working on consolidation of the ossuary. With a guardrail, it owes its name to the water transparency, which makes it very visible to the casual visitor to it feet wet down the last steps of the submerged staircase. Gallery wins so high in the passage of said dual careers. The visitor then arrives at the ossuary, whose hall is also used for temporary exhibitions.

The ossuary

The Alexandrian poet Delille inscribed on the lintel.

The sepulchral lamp.

Before entering the ossuary, a metal door flanked by two supporting pillars decorated with geometric designs in white on black background, a warning Alexandrian poet Delille inscribed in black letters on the lintel greets visitors: "Stop! This is where the empire of death ". On the left wall of the first room, a plaque commemorates the creation of the ossuary.

The bones of six million Parisians lie in approximately 780 meters of tunnels tortuous, often inaccessible to the public, with an average height of five feet. Their total area reaches 10,933 square meters. On either side of the course of the visit, the bones form long rows of heads of femurs and skulls, showing a romantic-looking decorative macabre. However, behind these alignments, thousands of skeletons remain entangled in disorder .

Engraved plaques indicate the source and the year of transfer to the bones, while others are often bombastic quotes of great authors or other celebrities from the early ^nineteenth century , French or Latin. Amid a widening gallery rotunda, the fountain is made of the Samaritan in 1810 to collect water from the source called Lethe or Oblivion, discovered during the development work of the ossuary .

Further, a larger room or chapel, called crypt Sacellum, has an altar, which was long celebrated the funeral. The altar, reproduction of an ancient tomb discovered in 1807 on the banks of the Rhone River between Vienna and Valencia, is in fact a disguised consolidation, made necessary after a landslide in 1810. The room also has a large white cross and small stone stools. After a bend in the gallery, is a recess in a stone column topped by a basin, called sepulchral lamp. This monument, the first conducted in the ossuary, used to burn the resin pitch. It was used to ensure the dead, and more prosaically to improve air circulation, before the construction of ventilation shafts.

The visit will discover shortly after the tomb or sarcophagus lachrymatories Gilbert, who has a tomb that his name since this is still really a consolidation. It is dedicated to Nicolas Gilbert ( 1,750 - in 1780 ), poet cursed with some verses are engraved on the monument. It is the mining engineer who proposed the idea Caly unusual build this false tomb in the middle of thousands of bones deprived of burial. The following galleries contain the remains of victims of the fighting of the Tuileries and the Revolution.

Further on is the only headstone that contains the ossuary, that of Frances Gllain (or lady Legros). The woman fell in love without ever having seen a prisoner from the prison of Bicetre , adventurer Latude ( 1725 - 1 805 ), which she found the ticket thrown from a window. She then devoted her life to get him released. Reached its end, it has a price under the French Academy in 1784 .

Near the exit of the ossuary, a large room surrounded entirely of bones, called Crypt of the Passion or the tibias rotunda, features a strange sculpture of bones, barrel-shaped. It is entirely made up of guards around a pillar consolidation. It is in this room that runs the underground concert on 2 April 1897. A massive door used to exit the ossuary .

The gallery output

Leaving a gallery straight dug eighteen meters under the street-Rmy Dumoncel, allows to observe two sinkholes statements. Instead of being filled, they were drained by workers taking advantage of the natural arch, which was stabilized in order to show the geological layers that overcome careers. The assembly is strengthened by a high masonry of eleven meters and the various states are painted different colors. A spiral staircase of 83 steps can reach the surface, at 36, rue Remy-Dumoncel .

The cataphiles

Skulls in the catacombs.

The Catacombs designate, by misuse of the word, the whole network of tunnels located in old underground quarries of limestone. Is well qualified cataphile anyone who enters the old underground quarries of Paris and runs through the galleries.

In 1983 , the book by Barbara Glowczewski and Jean-Franois Matteudi , City of cataphiles , anthropological mission in the underground of Paris popularized the existence of clandestine walkers network of galleries. The numerous articles that appeared subsequently caused a significant increase in attendance, the point of becoming a fad. Although fading over the years, this phenomenon has persisted with many associations close to caving of heritage protection as well as accustomed places .

Input queue of the catacombs, at the pavilion ^No. 3 of the Barriere d'Enfer.

In film

The Catacombs appear in film. In The Gaspards , French Film Pierre Tchernia in 1974 with, among others Michel Serrault , Philippe Noiret and Michel Galabru , a group of opponents to work in Paris was established as a community in the underground networks in Paris.

In video games

In Deus Ex , the player must traverse a portion of the Parisian catacombs to reach certain places in the city without dealing with the militia on the surface, with reference to the French Forces of the Interior uses the network under the German occupation. The catacombs are home to a clandestine group of French revolutionaries called Silhouette , refugees in the Bunker .

References

See also

Related articles

• Underground quarries of Paris
• Career Path Port Mahon
• List of museums in Paris

Bibliography

• Alain Clement and Gilles Thomas, Atlas of Underground Paris - The dark lining of the City of Light Parigramme, 2001 ( ISBN 2840961911 )
• Charles Kunstler, underground Paris, Flammarion , 1953
• Barbara Glowczewski , City of cataphiles - Mission anthropological in underground Paris, Librairie des Meridians, 1983 , 1996
• Gnter Liehr and Olivier Fay, The Underground Paris - Legends, mysteries, smugglers, cataphiles ... From Boreas , 2007 ( ISBN 2844946348 )
• Patrick Saletta, Discovering the underground of Paris, Sides, 1990 ( ISBN 2868610757 )
• Police in the basement , coll. "Liaisons" (publication of the Prefecture of Police in Paris ), ^No. 70, January-February 2000
• ... more books in French on this subject

External Links

• The Catacombs at the portal of the City of Paris
• History, a tour of the catacombs and detailed plan of the ossuary

• Portal museums
• Portal History
• Portal de Paris

Leave a Reply

Frequently Asked Questions