Paris Bone Crypt 2

Let's go down to the crypts...

Beneath the streets of Paris there are hundreds of miles of tunnels and chambers carved into the bedrock. In the southern area of Paris, the Romans dug down to quarry limestone blocks to use as building material. Mining of the “Paris Stone” continued over the centuries and built the city in the distinctive colors of the natural stone.

Tourists first visited the Paris Bone Crypts in the 18^th Century. Since then, the mausoleums have become a popular attraction. Last year, Airbnb, paid 350,000 euro to offer customers the chance to stay overnight in the crypts (source: en.wikipedia.org).

source: wikipedia/commons

There’s a fascinating history connected with the catacombs, and modern day cataphiles are people who love to visit the Paris underground.

What is it like down there beneath the busy city streets, in the grey bowels of the earth? The thick limestone rock has the effect of “silence in the dark”. To have a look and see, I thought I’d share this video of a group of men who visited the underground for twelve hours.

Gates of Hell – Barrière d’Enfer

Why did a group of men risk their safety to climb down an old hole in the floor of a disused railway tunnel and venture into the catacombs? They were hoping to solve a mystery.

Some time ago, a man filmed himself exploring the catacombs. For some reason he became panicked. Was he scared of something? He started running along the passageways and his breathing grew heavy. He dropped his video recorder and he disappeared into the darkness. No one knows what happened to him.

A freelance cameraman enlisted help to retrace the steps of the mystery man, and maybe find him. It's probably illegal and dangerous to do what this group of guys did. They faced the risk of getting disorientated and lost. Or encountering low oxygen levels as they descended to the deeper levels.

In the video, you see the guys walking astride the edges of water-logged tunnels, maybe they were being wary of unknown holes in the floor that they could fall into, drop down and drown. There’s also the risk of running out of batteries in their lights, and not being able to find their way up to the surface.

When the guy leading the search walked on the bones of a mass grave in the warren, I turned queasy. The guy said he found the Gates of Hell in the catacombs. Do you believe him…or not? Here's the video.

Stop! This is the Empire of the Dead – Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la Mort

(words from a stone portal above the entry to the Bone Crypt)

How did areas of the limestone mines become bone crypts?

A cold wind blows through the graveyard…

In days gone by, church cemeteries were the usual destination for the deceased. Some of the graves dated back to Paris’s earliest history of over 1000 years.

There were mass graves for the poor who couldn’t pay much money for their bodies to be buried. Layer upon layers of people were laid to rest in the church pits. By the late 1700’s, there were problems with the Parisian cemeteries, and then crisis struck and a solution had to be found.

Health Scare

The groundwater near the graveyards was contaminated with disease (perhaps an outbreak of cholera???). At least three church cemeteries were condemned by authorities. In 1763, burials were banned in the French capital.

Overcrowding

In 1780, large spring rains caused a wall around the Les Innocents—the largest church cemetery in Paris to collapse and then…the corpses…it’s too gruesome for me to write about.

Collapsing Tunnels

Underground mining of the limestone had been uncontrolled for a long period of time. In 1774, sections of the limestone mines caved in.

source: wikipedia/commons

The Solution

In 1786, a section of the underground quarries had been reinforced, was dedicated and consecrated. The bones from the Les Innocents graveyards were transferred to the catacombs. In the years that followed, other parish cemeteries relocated their deceased.

“…bones were always moved in a quiet parade of carts accompanied by priests, and these movements always took place at night.” source:  www.parislogue.com 

Victims of the French Revolution (1789-1799) were also placed in the catacombs.

By 1859, the final delivery of grave remains was complete. In the following year, the Bone Crypts were renovated by Georges-Eugène Haussmann as part of a greater plan to rebuild Paris. Haussmann was chosen by Emperor Napoleon III to renovate the public spaces of Paris. Both men had ambitious, grand and extravagant plans which were criticized at the time as old buildings were demolished to make Paris into a modern beautiful city.

Meanwhile, below the streets, the bones were stacked in heaps, and arranged into sculptures and monuments. Some grave artifacts were salvaged from the church cemeteries and installed in the crypts.

From 1874, a section of the Bone Crypts was opened to the general public.

A little Haunted.

Are the Bone Crypts haunted? From the youtube videos I’ve watched, visitors have reported being touched by invisible hands and grey shadows moving around the room. A shriek and ghostly words have been found on EVP (electronic voice phenomena) recording equipment. 

The Paris catacombs are the world’s largest graveyard, holding the remains of over six million people or roughly three times the population of Paris. It seems likely that some unsettled spirits wander the caverns. If you’d like to find out for yourself, here’s the link to the catacombs official website. www.catacombes.paris

Excuse me if I stay at home and hug the cat.

Well that’s my brief tour of the Paris Bone Crypt history come to an end.
Peace with you.

♥ Ashlyn 

Some information in this post was sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris