The Catacombs of Paris

By 1780, the cemeteries of Paris were a public health crisis. The Cimetière des Innocents, the largest, had been in continuous use for over six centuries. Bodies were stacked in mass graves. The soil was saturated. In 1780, a cellar wall on the Rue de la Lingerie collapsed, and corpses from the adjacent cemetery spilled into the basement of a residential building.

The Transfer

In 1786, the authorities began transferring remains from the Innocents to the disused limestone quarries beneath the Left Bank. The quarries had been excavated since the Roman period, providing the stone that built the city above. Workers moved bones by night, in carts draped with black cloth, accompanied by priests chanting the Office of the Dead. The process continued for decades. By the time it was finished, the remains of approximately six million people had been transferred.

The Arrangement

The bones are not dumped. They are arranged. Femurs are stacked in rows, forming walls up to two meters high. Skulls are placed at regular intervals, sometimes forming crosses or other patterns. Plaques mark the cemetery of origin and the date of transfer. The arrangement was partly practical (maximizing space), partly decorative (the Enlightenment aesthetic of ordered death), and partly devotional. Someone decided that the dead deserved architecture.

The Cataphiles

The official ossuary open to tourists covers about 1.5 kilometers. The full tunnel network extends over 300 kilometers beneath the city. Unauthorized exploration is illegal and carries a fine. The cataphiles, a subculture of Parisian urban explorers, enter through manholes, maintenance shafts, and secret passages. They hold parties, screenings, and concerts underground. In 2004, police discovered a fully equipped cinema in one chamber, complete with a screen, projection equipment, and a bar.