The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-03-12
A Visit to the Catacombs of Paris.

YANKEES are no match for French
men in practical cleverness. The Paris
ians make even their bones pay. mean
their own bones. When they are through
with them, and they have gone through
the formality of few years burial, they
are dug up, put in the catacombs and
made a show of to visitors. The show
is free, but visit keeps thousands of
strangers day longer in Paris, and this
is where the profit comes in and is wrung
out by these clever people. So the
bones of the grand and great-grand-
parents of the present generation of
Frenchmen, as they lie there in great
heaps under ground, with the rats scut-
ling through them, are still useful. 1
went down among these thousands and
thousands of dead men and women in
company with some 800 living men and
women of all tongues and countries. 1t
was on Thursday visiting day. The
other ''visiting day" is Saturday. The
entrance to these tombs is at the Boule-
ward d'Enfer, or Boulevard of He'll, if
you want the English of it. Prepara-
tory to the descent into the tombs each
one of the awaiting three hundred
bought candle. The end of each cam
die was let into a square bit of paste
board which protected ones dress from
the drippings. There were 200 candles
too many, for one light to every three
visitors is sufficient. But we did not
know this, and the French were not 60
ing to tell us and spoil the sale of 200
candles. Having bought the candles
we, the 500, were in bare yard partly
inclosed by high board fences. We
waited at least two hours. Then we
went down ninety-two steep stone steps
and trayersed long passage-way un-
foreground without meeting any bones
Thus we tramped long time in single
file without seeing bone. On the rocky
ceiling was continuous black mark
This, followed, would lead to either en-,
trance and so afford any laggard sure
guidance. Underneath, the mud in
places was greasy in consistency, tarry
In tenacity and whitsh in color. 1t wa:
the gypsum mud Astounding in Paris. II
jumped on our shoes and gradually over
spread our garments, which broke out
in irregular white patches.
At last the long-wished-for piles Of
disjointed skeletons came into view
They were ''faced up" with skulls and
the larger bones in front, as regularly a:
q pile of bricks. But behind all was
Osseous confusion. Rib bones ant
skulls, tibias and fibulas, backbone
Joints and breast bones, bits of skull
with moldY hair attached, leg bone
and arm bones, all piled together b,
the ton, by the million, all of the dull
Nryht hnnao a do
Slaces. Here were skulls once covered
by the bonnet rouge. Here were flesh
less jaws which had howled at Loui
XVI. and roared the first Marseillaise
rib of aristocrat; leg of canGsIIe, arm o
beauty, foot of ishwoman, and all tn
interstices filled with the little feet ant
finger bones of the thousands of pas
and forgotten Jeans and Jacques, Jean
nettes, Josephines, Paulines, Blanche
and Louises, who lived and suffere
and enjoyed and died generations ag
all flung here, horrible kaleidoscope
mass of disointed skeletons - lik
the rusty wheels and springs of te
thousand old clocks piled ia heaE
These heaps were dated 1892, 1906 an
1914 and upward. The inscription
over the various piles were in som
cases from Scripture, in others frol
Rousseau and other writer's. The oldt
the sepulture the more frequent an
voluminous the epitaphs. For the pre-
ent they seemed content without lin
Perhaps they deem that bones now carr
their own sermon. A man ahead of n
busted himself with pulling out Il
teeth of every skull he could reach I