Stolen from their graves, these disturbed souls now slumber uneasily in the dark, damp runnels that spread like tentacles beneath the City of Romance.
The tunnels are known as the catacombs or the Empire of Death, and all visitors are disquieted by their ghastly contents. The Empire of Death is a network of tunnels and caves that run for almost 180 miles beneath the city. They date back to Roman times, when limestone was quarried to begin building the Paris we know. The quarried provided centuries of building materials until the threat of collapse forced them to be abandoned.
During the eighteenth century the cemeteries of Paris were suffering from a crisis of overcrowding. The graveyards were so full that bodies were buried one on top of each other, and mass graves were created to help ease the problem. The ground within the graveyards rose higher and higher, in some cases reaching more than twenty feet above the road. Eventually the cemetery walls began to collapse, spilling decayed corpses out onto the pavements. Putrid liquids oozed down the streets, spreading death and disease, and the air was filled with the repugnant smell of rotting fish.
A solution had to be found, and in 1785 a decision was made to empty the cemeteries and move the bones into the catacombs. Disturbing the dead is not a task to be undertaken lightly. Pity the workers who loaded the carts in the sickly light of dawn and made the eerie procession to the mouth of the catacombs every day for two years.
Initially, three million bodies were moved, the combined dead of four hundred years. How the emptied graveyards would have echoed in their absence. The movement of bones continued sporadically for at least seven decades, and the catacombs now hold the remains of at least seven million people.
The mountain of bones was not dumped haphazardly, but where built into the most ghoulish of walls. Femurs were piled onto femurs and tibias stacked in neat rows. Skulls were built into columns and formed into intricate patterns of hearts and crosses. The walls are deep and about four feet high. They run for miles along the length of the tunnels.
Part of the catacombs is now open to the public so the stout of heart can view the wall of death and stare into the black eyes of the empty skulls. Down in the darkness of the tunnels it is utterly silent save for the drip of oily water falling from the ceilings. The cold and damp hugs your chest, causing you to shiver involuntarily. There is the prevailing sense of the passage of time, the tunnels having borne witness to important events throughout history.
In 1847, the members of the Paris orchestra descended into the gloom to perform a clandestine recital. The author Balzac is said to have escaped his creditors by hiding out in the tunnels. During the Second World War partisans hid in the deep recesses of the caves, and prostitutes chased from the streets conducted their business against the seeping walls.
The catacombs exert a morbid fascination over the citizens of Paris. They have become the haunt of a group of people known as cataphiles. These lovers of the netherworld hunt out secret entrances to the catacombs and explore the miles upon miles of uncharted tunnels. It has been known for the tunnels to swallow these foolhardy explorers and never to spit them out.
In 1961, a young Parisian named Henry discovered a hidden entrance to the catacombs, and along with six of his friends went deep underground to explore the unknown. After walking through the dust of centuries for a couple of hours, the group's lamps and torches suddenly went out. They were plunged into utter darkness knowing there was nothing worse, for when the lights go out it was said the tunnels change and move.
The group huddled together and prayer hard. Suddenly, Henry's torch flickered back on and they heaved a collective sigh of relief. As Henry knew the tunnels better than anyone, the group held hands with Henry leading their way. All the way back to the surface Henry could feel his friend Louis gripping his hand hard. As he approached the entrance, Henry turned to his friends with a whoop of triumph. His whoop turned to a scream of terror when he saw they were not there; only a black shadow which left his hand and drifted back down the tunnel. He never saw his friends again.
A more recent story concerns a female “cataphile” who became separated from her friends while exploring the tunnels. She had seen a light glimmering in the distance and had followed it thinking someone was lost. The light always moved ahead of her, no matter how fast she went. She began to call to her friends for help, but could only hear her own cries echoing back. She ran faster until she eventually came to a dead-end where the most gruesome sight met her eyes. Propped against the wall was a skeleton in ragged clothes wearing modern day trainers. The young girl turned and ran, blind with terror, a dark shadow following her through the twists and turns of the tunnels. She was lucky and managed to find her way out. She was later found huddled in the corner of a café, smeared in blood and dust with a vacant stare in her eyes.
A multitude of angry spirits roam the winding tunnels, seeking someone or something to blame. The catacombs are no respecter of peace, and it would be impossible for these civilians of the past to rest while crushed and crammed, suffocating amongst another's bones. There are no noblemen's bones intermingled with those of peasants and generations of families separated in death as they were not in life.
Many people are gripped by a sharp terror when descending the spiral staircase that leads to the main bone depository. They hear voices and whispers and muffled cries of anguish, maybe the souls of mothers searching through the piles of bones for their infants so cruelly ripped from their arms. Their bones meant to rest together, are now scattered far and wide.
Cameras and camcorders stop working, or if a picture is developed it is usually filled with odd mists and lights. When the clamor of modern day Paris rattling above their heads and the unwelcome arrival of tourists, it is any wonder the generations of deceased wish to vent their indignation.
