Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1870-11-17
Catacombs.

The catacombS OF ParlS are eX-
tensive subterraneous galleries, to
which you descend from the build
ings on the western side of the
bariere d'eRfer. The name itself
which has been given to this laby-
rinth of caverns and galleries, from
its resemblance to the asylums and
places of refuge of the prosecuted
Christians under Naples and Rome,
informs us of the purpose to which
it had been applied since 1886.
These galleries were originally the
quarries from which materials were
excavated for constructing the edi-
fees of the capital. The weight of
the superintendent houses, rem
dered it necessary to prop them;
and when the cemeteries of the de-
molished churches and the burying-
grounds were cleared, in 1856, the
government resolved to deposit the
bones in these quarries, which were
consecrated for that purpose. The
relics of ten generations were here
united, in the repose of the grave.
Eight times as great as the living
tide that rolls over this spot is its
subterranean population. By the
light of wax tapers, you descend
ninety feet to a world of silence,
over which the Partisan police keep
watch as strictly as over the world
of noise and confusion above. You
enter gallery, where two can just
go abreast. A black streak on the
stones of which the walls consist
point out the way, which, from the
great number of interesting by
passages, it would be difficult to re-
trace without this aid or without
guides. The plain of Montrouge
and the great suburb St. Jacques, as
St. German, and according to some,
the channel of the Seine, are thus
undermined. Among the curiosities
of this. part of that lower world is
plan of the harbor of Mahon, which
in his hours of leisure, an ingenious
soldier faithfully copied from mem
ory, in the material of the quarries.
You finally enter the hall, whence
you are ushered into the realms of
death by the inscription which once
stood over the entrance to the
churcn-yard OF st. oulpice. Illus
ultra metas requiescant 5eatam spem
erpectantes." Narrow passages be-
tween walls of skeletons; chambers
in which mausoleums, affairs, candel-
abras, constructed of human bones,
with festoons of skulls and thigh
bones, interspersed occasionally with
inscriptions not always the most
happily selected, from ancient and
modern authors, excite the gloomy
impression which is always pro-
duced even in the most light-minded
by the sight of the dissolution of
the human frame. Fatigued with
these horrible embellishments, you
enter simple chapel, in which there
are no bones, and containing an al
tar of granite. The inscription D.
NJ. II ct III September. MDCCX-
CII, recalls to memory the victims
of those mournful days, and whose
remains are here united. 1t is the
only spot in the whole labyrinth
that speaks Immediately to the heart
of everybody. On leaving these
rooms, consecrated to death, where,
however, the air is always preserved
pure by means of secret passages,
you may visit geological cabinet,
formed by Mr.. Harlcourt de Thury,
the director of the caTrieres Sous
Paris, who also published descrip-
ton of them in 1915. Specimens of
the minerals furnished by the re-
gions you have traversed, and col
lection of diseased bones, in con-
tiguous hall, scientifically arranged,
are the last curiosities which these
excavations offer. In Rome there is
Franciscan church, under which,
for centuries, the bones of the
monks of the convent, and of many
persons who think their eternal hap
piness will be promoted by their
burial there, have been preserved, in
geniously arranged in columns, al
tars, arches, garlands, festoons and
architectural ornaments. Every
wear mass is read there. ...r.