Où est elle, la Mort? in the Catacombs of Paris . . .

The Catacombs of Paris was not on my list of places to visit during our ten-day whirlwind excursion, but, as families do, we each put in our wishlist of experiences and endeavored to accomplish them all.

I'm glad I went . . . but agree with the caveat that this is not a pilgrimage for the faint of heart or spirit . . .

I knew that I would see the mortal remains of thousands of Parisians whose bones had been ceremoniously removed, during the 18th and 19th centuries, from church cemeteries and laid to rest in the Empire of the Dead in the tunnels below Paris.  I understood that, given the nature of medical science in that era, these reburials were deemed essential to the prevention of epidemics, the preservation of human life. Indeed, the artistry with which these bones were arranged is itself testimonial to the reverence with which they, and the souls they represented, were treated.

What I was not prepared for was those long ago voices, long-dead poets and philosophers, speaking to me of death . . .

Where is Death? Always future or past. She is hardly present when, already, she is no longer here.

How often have we heard the admonition to live our lives as though each day is our last here on earth?  In the Catacombs of Paris, we are reminded in the language of the ancient Romans and the Catholic faith and in the language of the Parisians entombed there.

The two-mile visitor's walk (of the 200-300 subterranean miles tranversed by these tunnels) is not entirely the domain of the Empire of the Dead.  The catacombs were originally stone quarries. 

Artifacts from that era include the artesian well at left and the sculpture at right, created by M. Dure, a quarry inspector, in the image of the French Port-Mahon fortress where he had once been imprisoned (early 1700's Minorca?).

If you want to know more about the Catacombs of Paris, Heather Munro's special to the Star Tribune, published in October 2009, makes excellent reading!