As a contrast to the Hôtel-Dieu, the Hôpital Cochin, in the Faubourg
Saint-Jacques, has one of the smallest salles de garde in Paris. In
recompense, its diners have under their feet an immense city, with
streets, open places, and many inhabitants, a city cool in summer and
warm in winter, and which, for a long period of time, the internes of
this hospital had been in the habit of considering as an annex to their
dining-room. It is not every one who would take this view of the
catacombs; but the practice of medicine and surgery does not lend itself
to the cultivation of squeamishness. Every evening, accordingly,
exploring parties were organized to visit these subterranean streets;
underneath the hospital itself is a large open square, from which
radiate, in every direction, lanes and avenues. These the internes at
first explored by means of a compass, but, as a result of some judicious
meditation before the commemorative slab recording the death by
starvation of Philibert Aspaut, concierge of the Val-de-Grâce, lost in
the catacombs in 1793, they took the trouble to unearth an old plan in
the Musée Carnavalet and draw up a new one, probably now one of the best
in existence. In consequence of this prudent conduct, they have never
had any losses to deplore; but the frequency of these unprofessional
rambles finally aroused the administration to action, and the hospital
entrance to the underground city was closed. Since then, the
disconsolate diners have had to seek other distractions;--it is said
that they are greatly given to equitation, but as they have no horses
in their salle de garde, they paint them by squadrons on the walls, as
illustrated on page 259.
The catacombs are those portions of the ancient stone-quarries under the
city which have been used as municipal ossuaries since 1786. As far back
as the Roman epoch, the inhabitants of Lutetia were in the habit of
drawing their building material from these subterranean quarries, of
clay, gypsum, and limestone. The clay, _argile plastique_, is found in
the region of Passy and Grenelle; the zone of gypsum extends from
Montmartre to Bercy, and the limestone, rich in fossils, is found under
Passy and most of the city on the left bank of the river, from the
Jardin des Plantes on the east to the former barrière de Vaugirard on
the west. This stone was largely used in the construction of ancient and
mediæval edifices,--the Palais des Thermes, the portal of
Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, a portion of Notre-Dame, Saint-Germain-des-Prés,
and the old Hôtel-Dieu, were all supplied from the quarries of the
Faubourgs Saint-Jacques and Saint-Michel. As the capital increased,
these excavations were carried farther; those nearer the centre of the
city were gradually filled up after being exhausted of their building
material. By 1774, they had become the refuge of numerous thieves and
vagabonds, and in consequence of the many accidents caused by the
sinking of the earth over them, in the quartiers Saint-Jacques, of the
Observatoire, and of Montrouge, in 1774, 1777, and 1778, an official
inspection was ordered by the government, and a corps of engineers was
directed to carry out all the necessary measures. The credit of the idea
of using the quarries of Montsouris and of Montrouge as a receptacle for
the bones from the ancient cemetery of the Innocents is ascribed to M.
Lenoir, lieutenant général de police, as early as 1780; but it was not
till November, 1785, that M. Guillaumot, inspecteur général of the
quarries, received definite orders to prepare a suitable place for these
relics of mortality.
[Illustration: ANCIENT CEMETERY DES INNOCENTS, IN THE RUE AUX FERS,
1780, SHOWING THE CHARNIERS FULL OF SKULLS. After a design by Bernier.
The accumulation of human remains, during eight or nine centuries, in
this place had become so great and evil that, in 1786, they were all
transferred to the Catacombs, and a market was erected on this spot.]
This officer selected the quarries under the plain of Montsouris in the
locality known as the Tombe-Issoire--it was said from a famous brigand
of the time of Louis VII, who ravaged this neighborhood, because of
their extent and their proximity to the city. It was proposed to deposit
in this ossuary not only the bones from the Innocents, but from all the
other cemeteries, charniers, and sepulchral chapels of Paris. On the 7th
of April, 1786, the quarries were formally blessed by the clergy and
consecrated to their new use, and on the same day the transportation of
the bones from the Innocents was begun. It was carried on constantly, at
the close of each day, in funerary cars covered with a pall and followed
by surpliced priests, chanting the service for the dead. This operation,
interrupted only during the heat of summer, was completed in less than
fifteen months; and the catacombs--so called from this date--have since
received a vast number of bones from other cemeteries and churches, and
also of the victims of the many street revolutions of the capital.
During the Revolution and the Terror, a number of bodies were also
thrown in here, and down to 1810 no attempt was made to arrange the
bones, which were piled up like rubbish. It is estimated that these
subterranean crypts now contain the remains of nearly three millions of
persons,--the guide-books say six.
In 1810, a new organization and rearrangement of the catacombs were
carried out, the falling roofs were propped up, the galleries cleaned
out, ventilated, and dried, and the bones all symmetrically arranged
along the walls--the large bones of the arms and legs piled up like
cord-wood, presenting their ends, and interrupted by occasional rows,
or centre-pieces, or cornices of skulls, and the smaller bones thrown in
behind them, between them and the wall, so as to be out of sight.
Various attempts at grotesque or fanciful designs, wrought out with
craniums and tibias, break the monotony of these grisly corridors.
Between 1792 and 1814, the catacombs permitted the suppression of
sixteen cemeteries, and they still receive the bones that are turned up
in the course of various excavations in the city. Visitors were formerly
admitted to explore them every day, but in consequence of the numerous
accidents which happened, greater restrictions were imposed, and it is
now permitted to make this visit only on the first and third Saturdays
of each month, and when furnished with a permit obtained from the Préfet
of the Seine. The entrance is on the Place Denfert-Rochereau, and the
exit on Rue Dareau; the journey is made under the care of a guide, and
the visitor--who is advised to wear sufficiently thick clothing and
heavy shoes--is furnished with a candle and a holder for which he pays
fifty centimes.
The total number of entrances is sixty-three, many of them outside the
city; these galleries are sufficiently well ventilated by numerous
openings, and dry. The visitors traverse a certain route, in a general
southerly direction, inspecting the various curiosities on the road and
the great _Ossuaire_. In the latter are included several of these,--the
_Fontaine de la Samaritaine_, so called from an inscription which
recalls the words of the Saviour to the Samaritan woman; the _Tombeau de
Gilbert_, which is only a column supporting the roof to which was given
the form of a sepulchral monument; the _Lampe sépulcrale_, the _Crypte
de Saint-Laurent_, similar constructions, and the geological collection
formed by M. Héricart de Thury, chief engineer of mines and
inspector-general of quarries in 1810, which contains specimens of all
the earths and minerals encountered in excavating the quarries.
[Illustration: UNDERGROUND WARD-ROOM OF THE MEDICAL STUDENTS OF THE
HOSPICE COCHIN, IN THE CATACOMBS.