THE Catacombs of Paris (the “municipal Ossuary”) were created at the end of the 18th century. The cemetery of Innocent (close to Saint-Eustace, in the district of the “Halles“) had been used during nearly ten centuries and had become the origin of infection for all the inhabitants of the district. After multiple complaints, the Council of State, by decision of November 9, 1785, pronounced the removal and the evacuation of the cemetery of the Innocent ones.

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Old Quarries were selected to deposit Parisian bones; Paris indeed had just created the General Inspection of the Quarries charged of the consolidation of the public highways undermined by the Quarries. The Quarries “of Tombe-Issoire” were the object of work including masonry and consolidations of galleries, and by the digging of a flanked staircase.
The removal of the bones began after the blessing of the place on April 7, 1786 and was continued until 1788, always at night and according to a ceremonial made up of a procession of priests who sang the burial service along the way borrowed by the tipcarts charged with bones and covered with a black veil.
Thereafter, this place was used, until 1814, to collect the bones of all the cemeteries of Paris.

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From the first day of their creation, the Catacombs caused curiosity. In 1787, Lord of d’ Artois, who will become Charles 10, went down there, in company of ladies from the Court. The following year, one mentions the visit of Madam de Polignac and Madam de Guiche. In 1814, François 1st, emperor of Austria, residing as a winner in Paris visited them. In 1860, Napoleon III went down there with his son.

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The Catacombs of Paris reopened on June 14, 2005 after several months of closing for work. Lighting was revised, the arches were consolidated and the walls of re-installed bones.
Today some six million Parisians reside here, nearly three times the population of the city above. Some skeletons of the more recent, date from the French Revolution; the oldest may hail from the Merovingian Era, more than 1,200 years ago. All are anonymous, disarticulated. All individuality forgotten.

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I visited the Catacombs on 02nd June, 2013.