France, Part 4 — Death Day

On Tuesday, some of us had had enough of the museum thing and wanted to change things up a bit, so we decided to pay a visit to Les Catacombes de Paris. This is an underground ossuary housing the remains of over 6 million former Parisians, built into an erstwhile quarry during the late 18th century. The catacombs were created to solve the problems of disease and other unpleasantness associated with the vast numbers of improperly buried corpses resulting from war, famine, and epidemics occurring over the past several centuries. The remains were systematically removed from existing cemeteries and relocated in the catacombs. An interesting history, with sometimes unintended humor in translation, is available here.

The bones are stacked neatly in piles, room after room. I couldn’t help thinking about the logistics of how it was done, and what was going through the minds of the people doing the stacking. It’s amazing to me that you can just go right up and touch them if you are so inclined (I wasn’t). They do check your bag as you come out though, to make sure you don’t take any souvenirs.

As you move throughout the tunnel, you see frequent monuments urging you to reflect upon your own life, because hey, you’ll be here yourself before too long.

And of course, human nature being what it is, the living feel compelled to leave their own mark:

After the Catacombs and lunch, the only remaining excursion appropriate to the day is a visit to Père Lachaise Cemetery. As any self-respecting cemetery afficionado knows, Père Lachaise is one of the most famous cemeteries in the world, and it’s the final resting place of such notables as Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, and Jim Morrison, to name a few. The Wikipedia entry has a good list of the most famous permanent residents.

It is certainly a different approach to cemeteries than I am used to here in the States.