Secrets of the Paris Catacombs

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Hundreds of kilometers of galleries stretch under the pavements of Paris. In ancient times, they served as quarries, from where later, in the Middle Ages, they mined limestone and gypsum for the construction of the city. These underground tunnels have a rich history.

Limestone and gypsum have been mined on the banks of the Parisian Seine since antiquity. And by the 12th century, the development of underground resources was one of the most important areas of the economy. The fact is that new fashion trends required completely different architectural solutions. In just a few centuries, dozens of abbeys, cathedrals, churches, castles were erected in Paris, including the well-known Louvre palace complex and the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral.

By the 15th century, development was already carried out on two levels. It turned out that the network of quarries now had a second floor, located much lower. Special wells equipped with winches were installed near the exits. It was they who raised huge stone blocks to the surface. If in the 12th century, mining was carried out on the outskirts of the city, then by the 17th century the territories allotted for quarries had increased so much that almost all of Paris was literally above the void.

All this led to the fact that the collapse of underground galleries became more frequent. At the beginning of the 18th century, long underground corridors began to be fortified, and the mining of gypsum and limestone was prohibited. Today, a network of catacombs is located under the entire territory of Paris. The total length of the underground galleries is about 300 kilometers, but still most of them are located on the left bank of the Seine.

However, the former Parisian quarries, after the cessation of further development of limestone, found a new use. In 1763, the Parliament of Paris decided to transfer all cemeteries within the fortress wall to the catacombs. The state was pushed to this by the catastrophic overcrowding of the final resting places. Sometimes 1,500 people were buried in the graves, and huge mounds towered over the sidewalks at a height of up to 6 meters. In addition, robbers, sorcerers and other dangerous people settled in the cemeteries en masse.

In addition, in 1780, the wall that separated the cemetery of the Innocents from the residential buildings on the neighboring rue de la Lingerie collapsed. The cellars of the houses were filled with the remains of the dead, mixed with sewage. And then the Parisian authorities decided to move the burials to the former quarries of Tomb Issoire outside the city limits.

The underground necropolis was opened to visitors. Although it was supposed to bury here only ancient bones from the cemetery of the Innocents, over the years of revolutions, many bodies of the dead and executed were thrown into the catacombs. Remains that had previously been buried in other city cemeteries were also reburied here. As a rule, this was due to the changing political environment. This is how the relics of the ministers of Louis XIV - Colbert and Fouquet, the leaders of the revolution Danton, Lavoisier, Robespierre and Marat - found themselves in the catacombs. The famous French writers - Francois Rabelais, Charles Perrault, Jacques Racine, physicist Blaise Pascal, whose remains were brought here from closed city cemeteries … also found refuge in the former quarries …

During the entire existence of the Parisian catacombs, there have been many unexplained mysterious cases. One of them was described in the Gazette de Tribuneau in the section of the court chronicle dated March 2, 1846. The note read: “Not far from the demolition site, where a new street will soon pass between the Sorbonne and the Pantheon (Rue Cujas), is the construction site of a wood merchant named Leribl. The site is bordered by a residential building set aside from other buildings. Every night a real stone rain falls on him. Moreover, the stones are so large, and an unknown hand throws them with such force that they cause visible damage to the building - windows are knocked out, window frames are broken, doors and walls are broken, as if the house had endured a siege. It is clearly beyond the power of an ordinary person to do this. A police patrol was set up at the merchant's house, chain dogs were lowered at the construction site at night, but it was not possible to establish the identity of the destroyer. The mystics assured: it's all about the disturbed peace of the dead from the catacombs. However, there was no opportunity to test this theory - the mysterious rockfalls stopped as suddenly as they began.

“Later it became known that Eric just found this secret corridor, and for a long time only he alone knew about its existence. This passage was dug during the time of the Paris Commune, so that the jailers could take their prisoners directly to the casemates equipped in the basements, because the Communards seized the building shortly after March 18, 1871 and set up a platform above for launching balloons that carried their inflammatory proclamations, and at the very bottom they made a state prison."

Charles Garnier, who won the competition for the best design for an opera house, did not suspect that construction would take nearly fifteen years: starting during the empire, it would be completed under the republic. He also did not anticipate the events that his brainchild would endure.

The year is 1861. The place for construction has been determined. And the first task: a solid, deeply laid foundation capable of withstanding the stage frame structure weighing 10 thousand tons and lowered 15 meters underground. In addition, water should not have penetrated into the basements, since they were going to store theatrical props there. They began to dig a pit, and from March 2 to October 13, eight steam engines pumped water around the clock - from the Place de la Republique to the Palais de Chaillot, groundwater ran, fed by streams that flow into the Seine. To make sure the basements are safe, Garnier decides to build double walls.

At the very beginning of the construction, when there was still nothing but this dungeon, one new worker came to the construction site, and, carefully examining the dungeon, enthusiastically shared with Garnier, not knowing who he was: “How beautiful! Just like a prison! Garnier wondered what kind of life this guy should have had if prison was a model of beauty for him. The worker's words, as it turned out later, were prophetic.

An unfinished opera in 1896

“So the Viscount and I… turned the stone and jumped into Eric's dwelling, which he had built between the double walls of the theater foundation. (By the way, Eric was one of the first masters of masonry under Charles Garnier, the architect of the Opera, and continued to work in secret, alone when construction was officially suspended for the period of the war, the siege of Paris and the Commune.)"

"The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux [trans. with fr. V. Novikov].

- SPb.: Red Fish TID Amphora, 2004

On July 19, 1870, France declared war on Prussia. Bismarck's troops inflicted defeat after defeat on the French army, and in September Paris found itself in a state of siege. There could be no question of any continuation of the construction. The unfinished building of the Opera was located not far from the Place Vendôme, the theater of military operations, and the troops took advantage of the huge premises of the future theater. Food warehouses were set up here, supplying food to the military and civilians, and there was also a camp hospital and an ammunition depot. In addition, apparently, an air defense complex (or a platform for balloons) was located on the roof.

In January 1871, the siege of Paris was lifted. Charles Garnier became seriously ill due to the hardships of the state of siege and left for Liguria in March to receive medical treatment. In his place, he left an assistant to Louis Louvet, who regularly informed Garnier about the state of affairs at the Opera.

The architect left Paris on time, because at the same time unrest began in the city, resulting in a revolution. The leaders of the Commune planned to replace Garnier with another architect, but did not have time - a 130,000-strong army, led by the future President of France, Marshal MacMahon, approached Paris.

Commune. The battle in the catacombs. Photo from modern. exposition of the catacombs.

There are no direct indications of this, but it is likely that in the Opera, underground, the Communards set up a prison, the basements looked too tempting. It is known that at the end of the Commune in 1871, executions of monarchists were carried out in the catacombs of Paris. Who knows, maybe it was just under the Grand Opera.

In general, the Paris catacombs are a fairly well-known place - no joke, their length is over 300 kilometers! (A small part of the tunnels is officially open for visitors). Moreover, the catacombs occupy only one eight hundredth of all the underground structures of modern Paris!

In 1809, the catacombs took on a modern look: corridors full of even rows of bones and skulls - to impress visitors as much as possible. About six million Parisians are buried here - almost three times the current population of the city. The latest burials belong to the era of the French Revolution, the earliest - to the Merovingian era, they are more than 1200 years old. The catacombs were built in former limestone quarries, the local stone was used by the ancient Romans, Notre Dame and the Louvre were built from these stones.

Republican troops drove the Communards out of the Opera on May 23, and on May 28 the Commune ceased to exist. And in June Charles Garnier returned to Paris. On September 30, 1871, construction work at the theater resumed, and on January 5, 1875, the grand opening took place.

"Soon I began to instill such confidence in him that he took me for a walk to the shore of the lake - he jokingly called him Avernsky - and we rode in a boat on its leaden waters."

There is no lake under the theater building. There is a water reservoir 55 meters long and 3.5 meters deep. Catfish live in it, which are fed by the staff of the Opera. You cannot swim in the tank on a boat- and has never been possible due to too low ceilings. Only diving enthusiasts can get into it.

The cellars are electrified and well-lit as required by safety regulations. Nevertheless … nevertheless, the Parisian network of tunnels is so ramified and varied that it leaves room for the imagination. And who said that giving free rein to the imagination and inventing an underground lake, Gaston Leroux deceived us in the main thing - in the reality of Eric. It is best to hide the secret in plain sight - in the first lines of the novel, in which the author claims that the Phantom of the Opera really existed.

And in November 2012, the French TV channel "TF1" showed a new five-minute reportage dedicated to the underground lake Grand Opera. This reportage includes rare footage of an underground reservoir, tells about its history and structure, about how and for what it is used now … Of course, there was a mention of the Phantom of the Opera. Excerpts from this report were shown by news channels in other countries, including in Russia - our First TV Channel reported about it.

During the Second World War, in one of the quarries, a bunker was equipped, where the secret headquarters of the invaders was located, and just 500 meters from it - the headquarters of the leaders of the Resistance movement. During the Cold War, bomb shelters were also placed there, where it was supposed to evacuate Parisians in the event of a nuclear attack.

Today the catacombs are one of the most popular places for excursions, but only a small part of them is open for viewing. The entrance is located in the Place Denfert Rochereau. On the walls of the galleries there are plaques with the names of the streets at the top. Under the most significant buildings, images of a lily flower, a symbol of the French monarchy, were previously carved. But after the revolution, most of these drawings were destroyed.

On either side of the long tunnels lie endless rows of human bones topped with skulls. Since the air is dry here, the remains are not too decomposable. The rest are said to be controlled by special underground police. Rumor has it that ghosts, or even the living dead, are found in these secret tunnels.

One of the legends about the Paris Catacombs tells of a fantastic creature that lives in the galleries under the Parc Montsouris. They say that it has amazing mobility, but only moves in the dark. In 1777, Parisians often encountered him, and these meetings, as a rule, foreshadowed the death or loss of someone close.

Another legend is associated with the disappearance of people without a trace. So, in 1792, the caretaker of the Val-de-Gras church, taking advantage of the revolutionary confusion, got into the habit of making raids for bottles of wine stored in the dungeon under the abbey located nearby. Once he went for another "catch" and never returned. Only 11 years later, his skeleton was found in the dungeon …

Rumor has it that today the catacombs have chosen numerous sects for their rituals. In addition, the so-called cataphiles (people who are fascinated by the history of underground Paris) and "underground tourists" are the regulars of these places.

Another mystical dungeon in Paris lies under the Grand Opera. The building has a complicated history. The construction of the theater almost collapsed due to underground waters that accumulated under the foundation. Because of this, they could not lay the facade in any way. In the end, the architect Charles Garnier came up with a way out - to fence off the basement with a double wall. It was there that the writer Gaston Leroux, the author of the famous novel The Phantom of the Paris Opera, placed his fictional "torture room", after which several films and one musical were staged … In 1871, Communards were executed in the local cellars, and a year later there was a terrible fire …

The phantom at the Grand Opera is by no means an author's fiction. According to legend, a mysterious ghost appears to this day in one of the boxes. Moreover, in the contracts of directors of the opera house there is always a clause prohibiting spectators from renting box No. 5 in the first tier.

Once, in 1896, the opera was performing Faust. When the actress, the prima donna Caron, who played the role of Margarita, uttered the line: “Oh, silence! Oh, happiness! An impenetrable mystery! - a massive bronze and crystal chandelier suddenly fell from the ceiling. For some unknown reason, one of the counterweights that supported this colossus broke. The seven-ton building collapsed on the heads of the audience. Many were wounded, but by some happy accident only one concierge died … In the incident, everyone saw a certain mystical sign. Until now, he is credited with the antics of the Phantom of the Opera.

What is an ossuary?

OSSUARY (from Latin os, genus ossis - bone), a receptacle for ashes, dust, bone remains remaining after cremations. Burning corpses was widely practiced among the Turkic and Middle Eastern peoples in various historical periods as the main action in preparing the deceased for burial, but ossuaries were especially widespread among the Zoroastrians. In the ossuary, ashes were collected from a cooled funeral pyre.

The ossuaries themselves, mostly made of clay (also made of stone or alabaster), had the shape of a vessel covered with a lid, on which the "face" of the deceased was sometimes symbolically depicted in sculpture or relief. Sometimes, signatures of a well-wishing memorial were scratched on the walls of the vessel. Could have been made in the form of a chest, rectangular or square boxes. On the walls and on the lid, inlays of stone, tiles and other materials could be performed. Ossuaries were either collected in family ashes-burial vaults, or buried in the ground.

Diagram of the GRS catacombs. The initial origin of the workings is dated 1260 due to frequent landslides in 1813.a decree was issued banning the further development of the system.