THE PARIS CATACOMBS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12698, 29 October 1904, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE PARIS CATACOMBS.

A CITY OF THE DEAD.

The history of this vast subterranean cemetery, which is hardly less extensive than the famous Catacombs of Rome, is of great interest. The quarries which form the site of the Catacombs are, no doubt, ancient, as traces of I?.-man -architecture have been discovered; yet as a necropolis they are modern. The Paris Catacombs owe their origin' to the closing of the principal Paris cemetery in the Square des Innocents in 1784. The millions of crumbling 'skeletons and banes; were then removed to the Catacombs with considerable ceremony* The removal was effected, at night by torchlight, and.-proved) a remarkably picturesque and bizarre spectacle, the hundred? of mortuary waggons being escorted by troops and headed by long processions of priests and monks chanting the' Office for the Dead. .The tombstones had been removed some 500 years previously by Charles V. ~.', THREE MILLION CORPSES. * Few tourists are aware when mounting the magnificent grand staircase of the Louvre that they are stepping on the tombstones taken from the churchyard' of the Innocents. The work of transferring • the bones to: the ancient quarries was carried on continuously for fifteen months. The "translation""having been so successfully carried out, the authorities turned their attention to the other urban burial grounds, and between 1792 and 1814 the bones' of no less than sixteen Paris cemeteries were transferred to the Catacombs. - Experts calculate that the remains of some three million persons now lie in this vast burial ground. In the arrangement of the supporting pillars and Avails there has evidently been some attempt at an architectural effect. Most of. the quarries are lined with serried rows of bones, while a weirdly decorative note is suggested by a continuous frieze of grinning skulls. ■ The guides will, of course, point out the burial places of celebrities, and in this pious fraud they are supported by the guide-books, but none of these co-called tombs are really authentic. For instance, the grave of the hapless poet Gilbert is invariably pointed oat to tourists as the actual tomb, .simply because some lines from his well-known poem have been roughly inscribed on the wall. This oft-quoted vers© runs as follows: —

An banquet de la vie, in fortune convive, J'apparus nil jour, et je meurs; Jo meurs, et sur la tombe on lentement ;j'arrivc Nul no viendra verser des pleura!

As a matter of fact there are no tombs, death in this vast' subterranean cemetery being a true leveller, and there is nothing to distinguish the remains. Occasionally, ,no doubt, one comes upon some accidental resemblance to a monument, suggested by some pillar or projection, and this has caused the name of tomb to be applied to it. Though the Catacombs excursion seems a banal and commonplace trip enough as we join the queue of lively sightseers at the entrance in the Place Denfert Rochereau, yet the visit has points of interest, while to the imaginative tourist it is even a weird experience. Through the endless series of ghastly and densely-populated galleries the file ; of sobered sightseers winds steidi'ly, their candles occasionally revealing glimpses of sepulchral mottoes and maxims rudely inscribed on the' walls until the Grand Ossimire is reached.

Hero the mural decorations and designs picked out with skulls and crossbones become more elaborate and complex, the walls are higher, and the recesses and caves assume,, the, form of chapels. Suddenly, perhaps, a curious rustling is heard, and now and them a faint squeak. The guide catches and inquiring eye, and explains, with a wealth of gesture, "des rats!"; It is; indeed, these rats, like the bats in the famous Crocodile Caves on the Upper Nile, which constitute the chief danger, should any visitor be unfortunate enough <to lose his way amidst the labyrinthine mazes of this subterranean charnel-house.

A T.M OF HOHROR. The guides are fond of telling tourists of the awful, fate which befell ; a party of Communists in 1871, who after the fall of Fort Vanves fled to the Catacombs, as the last refuge 'from the avenging troops of Versailles, only to die a horrible and lingering death in this underground necropolis. The weird and 1 picturesque words- of the guide, which lose nothing by the environment, reconstructs the -scene, for his auditors. He takes us with the panic-stricken insurgents into the labyrinth. We feel an overpowering dread of pursuit driving us deeper and deeper into these funereal galleries. But our torches gradually die out. We are lost unless we gain the light of day. Panic seizes us, ,we run blindly and madly, with many a stumble, hither and thither through the dark and ghastly passages. Exhaustion finds us alone, oiir comrades gone. We hear the rats squealing in their hordes outside the pale of kindly, merciful light. • They throw down a skull that rolls heavily at. our feet. . . '..'•' The lugubrious impression of this moving recital is, however, quickly dissipated, and welcome and abrupt is the transition, and sudden the contrast, as we reach the exit in the Rue Dareau, between the bustling, roaring, commonplace life of the Boulevards and the silence, gloom, and gruesome memories of the Paris Catacombs.