“Stop! This is the empire of death. » Engraved in capital letters on a lintel at the entrance to the Paris catacombs, somewhere below the 14thmy district, this Alexandrian taken from The AeneidThe French version of Virgil’s book serves as a warning to visitors. But this has not stopped researchers who, since 2023, have been delving into this dark, cold, almost Plutonian underworld for an annual two-week session, a labyrinth made of walls of bones through which we wander, praying that the magnifying glass that guides our steps remains on. Led by Philippe Charlier, director of the Laboratory of Anthropology, Archaeology and Biology (Paris-Saclay University), these scientists want to make human remains speak, which, better than anyone else, could tell us about the state of health of Parisians in the past.
Let us first go back two and a half centuries in time by following the owner of the place, Isabelle Knafou, administrator of the Paris catacombs. We are under Louis XVI and a convergence of terrifying events is taking place in the Paris of that time. Firstly, the ground opens up under streets and buildings built on underground quarries that have been exploited for centuries. On the Left Bank, much of the subsoil is genuine Gruyère. That is why, in 1777, the king created the general inspection of the quarries, which still exists, in order to map this underground universe and consolidate what needs to be consolidated.
First hygienist ideas
Described by Isabelle Knafou, the second event occurs “In 1780, the Cemetery of the Innocents, located in the Halles district, a gigantic cemetery, collapsed: the decomposing corpses were scattered in the surrounding cellars”. The horror. At a time when the first hygienic ideas were emerging, it seemed urgent to empty the cemeteries. This is what Isabelle Knafou calls it. “the great transhumance” : “The decision was made in 1785 and for fifteen months, at night, with liturgical accompaniment, huge carts pulled by oxen transported the bones from the Parisian cemeteries. »
Where to put them? Precisely in the old quarries, at the southern exit of Paris, which was, at that time, at the present place Denfert-Rochereau. The bones were taken from wells and smashed 20 meters below. During the 19th centurymy During the 19th century, particularly during Haussmann’s work, other “waves” of bones were washed up by the sea into what became the catacombs.
At the bottom, the stonemasons arrange these remains along the cavities, forming walls called “begas” (beams), made up of two parts. In the front part, approximately 50 centimetres thick, which is visible to visitors, long bones (femurs, tibias, humeri) are skilfully and meticulously arranged, mounted like dry stone walls and alternating with layers of skulls. In contrast, the back part, hidden from view, can sink several metres and is an indescribable “lump” of smaller or broken bones.
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