The Crypts of Paris

Jeeeez, this is an intriguing story.  Back in the 1700’s, at death everyone wanted to be buried near the church . . . the closer to the church, the closer to Heaven.  After about a hundred years, these cemeteries began to emit disease and odors.  Napoleon III said enough, no more burying people at the church.  In the future, people must be buried in cemeteries outside the city and the bodies next to the church will be moved.   

The white stone buildings constructed in Paris’ revival led by Haussmann, were built from limestone quarried in Paris and nearby.  Those quaries void of their limestone blocks, left a vast network of underground tunnels . . . a perfect place for the dead.  For health and sanitation purposes, it was decided to move the relics from the churchyards to the tunnels.  Priests routinely supervised the exhumations and the transfer of millions of bodies in prayer and reverence.  Bones from rich and poor, regal and quaint, were placed in the tunnels marked with the date they were transferred and from which church they came.  Today the bones lying in the dark, crypts of Paris, those former limestons quary tunnels,  have been organized and arranged in a more dignified but still eerie manner.  It is not the bones that bother me.  It is knowing that at one time these bones belonged to persons, real people, who thought the world revolved around them.  They raised children, loved them and worked just as we do today.  And here they lie.