Spooky Paris

Last week, Le Chef and our new friend, Pomegrenade, and I had picnic, and since it was a beautiful day and we had nowhere to be, (Class was cancelled due to the grèves, it's getting to be a Thursday routine.) we decided to head over to the Catacombs. Apparently, in peak tourist season and on the weekends, the line to get in is epouvantable (horrific), but we got there right before it closed and I guess everyone else was at the manifestation. We paid our student price of 4euro and waltzed right in. We were just about the only ones down there, and it might have been the first time I missed the tourist hoard.

After paying, you are directed to a staircase. Imagine how spacious it would be if someone decided to put a spiral staircase in a manhole. Now imagine that said manhole goes at least five stories down. Now imagine that you and your two friends are the only ones down there. Once you reach the bottom of the staircase and recover from the vertigo, there are a couple kilometers (yeah, I just went metric) of chalky, strangely lit, unmarked corridors. My friends took this opportunity to make up tag lines for the horror movie that would be made of our story: "In October 2010, three exchange students in Paris went sightseeing...their bodies will remain in the tunnels forever," etc.

Finally, we arrived at the entrance:

(STOP! THIS IS THE EMPIRE OF DEATH)

The French government has always had a flair for the dramatic, no? The Catacombs were created in the 1750's (I believe) to ameliorate the public health problems caused by overcrowded cemeteries in Paris. Ew. Thousands of disgusting old corpses were dug up as part of what has to be the worst temp job ever. The last bodies were moved in around 1820. The bones are stacked in extremely compact, orderly rows that give the distinct impression that when French people die, they disintegrate until nothing remains but skulls and femurs.



The most interesting part of the visit to me was the signage. Apart from lots of Latin and crosses and signs indicating where particular femurs had first been laid to rest, there was a lot of poetry:


(Come people of the world, come into these silent dwellings and you soul, now tranquil, will be struck by the voice that rises from their interior. "It is here that the greatest of teachers, the tomb, holds his school of truth.")

Happy Halloween!