Paris Catacombs - A World Beneath the City
There is a world beneath the city of Paris and it includes the Paris Catacombs which houses one of the world's largest ossuaries. An ossuary can be a small chest or box, a building, or a dedicated site used as the final resting place for human skeletal remains. The Paris Catacombs are just part of the underground world of Paris which includes subterranean Métro tunnels, sewers, and the deepest of all, a network of abandoned quarries. It is part of the these underground quarries that contain the famous ossuary, Le Catacombes de Paris (the Paris Catacombs).
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"And so everything passes on earth: spirit, beauty, grace, talent. Such is a fleeting flower, blown over by the slightest breeze."
The Origins of the Paris Catacombs
The origins of Le Catacombes de Paris go back to a rather dramatic incident that happened in 1774. A sinkhole engulfed houses on a street that is near today's Place Denfert-Rochereau. This brought the unstable and dangerous conditions of the ground, due to the massive underground quarry network, to everyone's attention. Something must be done.
So King Louis XVI appointed architect Charles-Axel Guillaumot Inspector of Quarries to map and secure the network in 1777. His team reinforced pillars and added signage that reflected the street names aboveground. The network has been described as the second underground city of Paris. The engineers who worked on the pillars carved their initials and the date into them.
Another further development that contributed to the creation of the Paris Catacombs was the collapse of a mass grave in the Cimetière des Innocents (Cemetery of the Innocents), into a cellar on the Rue de la Lingerie. This, together with the congestion of Parisian cemeteries on the then city outskirts of Passy, Montparnasse, Montmartre and Père Lachaise, lead to the decision to use the former quarries as a large ossuary.
The final resting place of the bodies from Cimetière des Innocents and other Parisian cemeteries in the underground galleries and catacombs became the Ossuaire Géneral de la Ville de Paris. Priests led nightly processions of funerary carts laden with bones that were then dropped into a shaft to the new ossuary. Underground the inspector general's workers organised the skulls, tibias and femurs into neatly arranged walls, and now the galleries hold neatly stacked skulls and tibias in endless rows.
Bones are carefully arranged in the tunnels
The masses of bones can be confronting
Some tunnels have lower head height than others. They are lit by small lamps.
What to Expect When Visiting the Paris Catacombs
The catacombs are estimated to hold the remains of around six million Parisians. I found visiting the catacombs a very different type of Parisian experience, but one that I nonetheless enjoyed. I'd read about this famous site for years and found the historical side of climbing down the steep spiral metal stairs, through the layers of the earth's strata until I reached the limestone bed and galleries of bones, deeply fascinating.
The signage in the entry area and in the tunnels is in French and English which means there is no shortage of fabulous information about the site you can read. Underground in the tunnels it is cool and dark, but the air is clean and fresh. Your paths are lit but it's important to watch where you place your feet as it's not perfectly flat.
The initial descent into the tunnels and the climb out requires some level of fitness. You'll need to climb down 131 steps to view the catacombs and then climb up 112 steps to the ground level exit. When I visited the Paris Catacombs the staircases were one person wide at all times, so some patience might be needed if the climbers before you are a little slower. The circuit is 1.5 kilometres long and takes the average visitor one hour.
My photos show the enormous amount of bones in the tunnels and the sometimes narrowness and limited light along the visitors route.
Plan Your Visit to the Paris Catacombs
Purchasing a ticket is highly recommended as the Paris Catacombs are very popular. If you already hold a ticket you can join the ticket holders express entry lane. This saved me a lot of time and waiting in the hot sunshine at the street level entry point. The official Paris Catacomb website states it welcomes nearly 550,000 visitors every year with about 85% of visitors coming from outside of France.
Paris Guide Books to help you plan your trip
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Paris Catacombs Practical Information
Official website: Le Catacombes de Paris
Address: 1 avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy 75014 Paris
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 9:45 - 20:30. Last admission at 19:30
Métro: Denfert-Rochereau (lignes 4 et 6)
RER : Denfert-Rochereau (ligne B)
Bus: 38, 68
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