Under Paris

Day 10: Tues 7th Jan

We took the metro to Denfert - Rochereau  south of he Latin quarter and lined up for the Catacombs.  They are ~20 metres below the ground , 130 steps down and ~2 km in length.

There are a labyrinth of tnnels beneath Paris with the first quarries of the limestone good for building began by the Romans and continued to build the city over the centuries.  As Paris grew a network of sewerage tunnels was also developed and these were extended in the mid 19th century due to significant outbreaks of cholera.  The underwater stream of Paris also provided clean drinking water and many wells existed.  From the 19th century when quarrying was stopped the tunnels became an ideal place to grow mushrooms and the commercial horticulture of mushrooms was originetd by a gardener called Chambre, in the underground quarries of Paris.   For a great website of the geological, quarrying and other aspects of the catacombs see http://exploration.urban.free.fr/carrieres/indexus.htm#menu

After a number of street collapses in the 18th century because of quarry subsidence and a lack of awareness of the underground system by builders the people of Paris began to panic.  On 4 April 1777 Louis XVI established the Quarries Inspectorate responsible for protecting Parisian quarries.  The Chief Inspector was Charles Axel Guillaumot who was asked to "look for all the empty spaces under Paris; to make a map of them; and to reinforce anything under public streets and buildings belonging to the king.” Guillaumot wrote in a 1797 memoir that "Before the year 1777, the temples, palaces, houses and the public streets of several parts of Paris and its surrounding areas, were about to sink into giant pits.”  He did an amazing job of repair , employing large numbers of men and individually supervising the work.  What you begin to see as you travel underground is a whole other city with street names, memorials, chapels, tombs and architectural features. 

Guillaumot is written about as the man who saved Paris in a great book I read by Graham Robb called Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris.  This engineer was imprisoned for a time during the Revolution but was later reinstated.  

 The visit covers a tiny section of the tunnels but it also included the underground ossuary containing the bones of ~6 million Parisians.  After the work of the Quarries inspectorate had begun the Guillomot came up with a solution to the public health risks of many graveyards in Paris.  Hence the bones of many of the graveyards were carefully transferred into the renovated and strengthened tunnels creating a huge ossuary that we visited.  Above the entrance is written in French:'Halt, this is the realm of Death'.  What is interesting is that Guiilaumot was buried in a cemetery that was later transferred to the ossuary that he originated. The bones of most of those executed in the Reign of Terror also ended up here.

The tunnels take about 1 hour to go through but it is an amazing journey.  What is noted in Robb's book is that whilst Guillaumot saved Paris from sinking and also oversaw other projects he is officially unremembered without even a street name.  The fact that revolutionaries and anarchists are remembered through street names and not this amazing engineer says something, I think.

At lunch time we went to the frog restaurant on the left bank called 'Roger la Grenouille'. 'Roger' was a larger than life character who was involved in the French Resistance during WII.  We had a superb plate of 3 Pâté de Foie Gras (duck's liver pate) for an entrée and I had lamb shanks and fried potatoes in olive oil sauce as a main course. I was not brave enough to try one of the ~10 dishes of frogs legs!  

In the evening we were treated to a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet of 'Lost Illusions' at the L'Opera Garnier.  I was able to get  tickets (10 euro, obstructed view) 1 hour before the concert.  You could see about half the stage or more if you stood up.  While the Opera interior is palatial , clearly the side stalls, which are all obstructed, were not built with the audience in mind.  The music, costumes, dancing and choreography were excellent but the story line of the ballet was a little hard to follow.  Unfortunately Maureen was affected by vertigo (we were on 3rd level on edge of seats) and decided to go home after the first intermission. It would be easier to get cheap tickets at this venue for an orchestral piece rather than a visual show like a ballet but , despite the drawbacks, I thoroughly enjoyed it.