The Catacombs of Paris Are Lurking Below

Romance, glamour and class – these are all words that spring to mind when you think of Paris. A loved-up picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower – a hamper filled with baguettes and Camembert. A spontaneous bike ride along the chic Champs-Élysées. A sophisticated stroll through the Louvre, thoughtfully considering the impression of Mona Lisa’s gaze.

As though the city were a caricature, these scenes play out in my mind like a brightly-coloured comic-reel. Remarkably, all of this casual frivolity transpires despite the menacing monster lurking beneath the surface.

All of a sudden, I picture the blissful cartoon characters being swallowed up as the city caves in on itself, exposing its hidden hellscape: the ancient bones of six million Parisians.

“An Unpleasant Problem”

In the 17th Century, Paris became plagued with an off-putting problem. Its cemeteries began to overflow with bodies. Stuffing the graves with corpses unsurprisingly caused an intolerable pungency to waft through the neighbourhood.

Perfume stores near Les Innocents – the city’s oldest and largest cemetery – complained that the smell of decomposing flesh was driving their customers away.

Meanwhile, a spate of rainy weather waterlogged the cemetery wall. It collapsed, spilling rotting cadavers onto the streets. The community was desperate for a solution!

Fortuitously, during the construction of the city in the 13th Century, an extensive network of underground limestone quarries had been mined.

Over 300 kilometres of winding tunnels were there for the taking. It was only logical that the bloated cemeteries be exhumed and shifted below the surface.

“A Creative Solution”

So in 1786, the quarrymen set about rousing the dead, unearthing a collection of skulls and femurs to be stacked up in their final resting place beneath the buzzing French metropolis.

Now, the spiderweb of underground tunnels is a magnet for travellers with a morbid curiosity.

The bones held within the Catacombs of Paris, some as old as 1,200 years, are mostly stacked into disturbingly neat piles. But it appears that the quarrymen took some creative liberty during their hard labour, shaping some of them into intriguing structures and murals.

My theory: toiling for 12 years, lovingly handling the fragile skulls of millions of once-living humans, could surely suck you into the darkness. I suspect the physical proximity to death would expose its inevitability.

With such an acute awareness of the certainty of dying, the quarrymen may have stumbled upon the realisation that fearing death is futile – to celebrate death is to take control!

Once you enter the frigid tunnels, the adoration of death becomes clear. A sign at the entrance of the ossuary reads "Arrête, c'est ici l'empire de la mort!"

“Stop! This is the Empire of Death!”

Every so often, four or five claustrophobic tunnels meet, forming cavernous pockets. In some, stone altars beckon visitors to rejoice in the darkness.

Nearby, a wall of femurs act as the backdrop to an artistic alignment of skulls: a love heart formed by the heads of thousand-year-old humans. Here, the afterlife is praised in all its glory.

All these years later, the Catacombs are still used as a place of worship, but the proclamations now come in the form of wild underground parties.

While a small section of the tombs is open for regulated guided tours, you never know when the manhole you’re stepping over on the streets above could serve as a covert entrance to the Grim Reaper’s kingdom!

The forbidden revelries are restricted to an elite group – the entrances and underground pathways that lead to makeshift bars are only divulged to a select few.

For those daring enough to enter the murky depths through the constricted damp passageways, a utopia of secretive fun awaits.

“HE WHO DESPISES LIFE DOTH NOT FEAR TO DIE”

In 2004, French policemen patrolled an isolated section of tunnels during a training mission. As they approached a large cave, they froze in horror as the tunnel filled with the sound of savage guard dogs.

It turned out to be a recording which was being used alongside a CCTV set-up to safeguard a cinema that could seat 20 people!

“‘Ne cherchez pas’ - ‘Do Not Search For Us’”

The cinema was highly sophisticated with the creators pirating electricity and installing telephone lines to communicate with the surface. The police later returned with a back-up crew to raid the establishment, but to their astonishment, it had vanished. All that was left was an ominous note that read, ‘Ne cherchez pas’ – ‘Do not search for us’.

The danger of the Catacombs is no threat to this subterranean society. As long as the quarries are intact, they will continue to exalt the afterlife.

Meanwhile, the idyllic comic-reel of picnics and bike rides will roll on and these two conflicting worlds will somehow live harmoniously: The City of Light above and The Empire of Death below!