The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1910-01-27
THE MYSTERIES OF THE
CATACOMBS or PARIS
IN AMERICA
Paris Correspondence Of the Chicago
Record-Heraii.

Paris Correspondence OF the Chicago
Record-Heraid.
The other day the corner of the rue
Damremont and the rue de TourlaQue
sank into the ground.
disappear. The man. 20 feet down.
buried to the hips in falling dirt, heard
the m crying: Monsieur, I am
the mother Of a family, ave met"
The hole enlarged. Tons. Of debris
poured in. Two policemen, let down
with ropes, disengaged the man.. But
the woman had disappeared.
The hole was Is feet long, ~ feet
wide n 80 feet deep. Police and
troops made a Gordon; f1remen vacu-
ated the adjoining houses; today they
are shored up; the hole is boarded and
buttressed. At a depth Of 1O8 feet they
have found the body Of Nine. Chevalier
on the floor of q gallery Of the
ancient catacombs!
They blame the recent heavy rains,
undermining the surface; because, the
next day, a spot 10 feet square in the
quadrangle of the old Louvre palace
sank k~nee-deep with a crowd Of
tourists.
Next, two days later. a part of the
Place OF h Palais Royal went down
three feet in the midst of pedestrian
traffic. In neither case had the Metro
pOlltan Underground railway anything
to do with the cave-ins.
How can rain so undermine a city?
Paris Is ancient, mysterious, with an
other old, forgotten city of wide-open
streets, hidden under her. +.
Only when these periodical cave-ins
occur does the world lee of the dark
realm beneath h capital. greater than
the Roman catacombs-the catacombs
of Paris!
At this hour. the Paris nder realm
shelters incredible enterprises; store
houses OF criminal bands; vast mush-
room plantations of honest under
ground farmers; stored bones of gen.
Grafton OF P~arisians, and luxurious Sc
cret refugees of rich families-as / will
prove by a sensational photograph,
The municipal engineers, to whom
this dark work is a painful subject,
tell the story coldly.
IA. the. corner OF the rue de Tour
laqae." said NJ Lepine, there Is an
ancient quarry, well knOwn to the en-
gtneeTs, actually marked on the maps.
Forty years ago h surface above It
was judged solid enough to support the
opening OF q street n the building of
houses. But in time the infi,tration of
rains has evidently weakened that sur
face"
Paris Of Middle Ages.
It t the whole story Of old Paris.
The Paris Of the middle ages was
II A0%A 0AA0SA AoA AA4S oSOA1C
built above ground. In the days OF
Joan CT Arc there was already a sub
terranean labyrinth under half, Paris,
already q mystery, where SatanailOst
Hardy de Passavant and the Duke of
J Burgundy met the heads of their trades
unions. Fantastic streets, their smooth
stone ceilings 10 feet beneath the sur
face, emptted into vast dark halls,
turned. Interested. without plan. ae-
cording to the quality Of the stone.
Galleries dating from Gallo-Roman
times had become forgotten in Gothic
times-as tourists know who have
stayed at a certain pension ear the
Pantheon.
The subterranean halls are its chief
attraction. They take o to a CELLAR,
In its floor there is q hole; down a secs
ond flight of stone steps go the
lists. candle In hand, 25 steps plus the
120 to the cellar-and we Arrive in what
seems a Gothic crypt, but for two great
fre-places and stone benches around
Now. Observe This square stone fit
ting in h paving. 1t lifts; and a
third flight leads down-to the UNI
Not one tourist in so is conducted to
the bottom chamber, communicating
with the Gallo-Roman catacombs. The
chimneys that gave air toftt are choked.
But those who have been down say the
idea is obvious. The catacombs ex-
listed first, because forgotten, and were
discovered by some dark g noble. We
are in n long. clean gallery. dry and.
smooth, in~tersected by others, mostly
sealed with ancient masonary, leading
who knows where? It was the secret
entrance, escape and storeplace Of the
party who found It and made it COM
municate with his cellar.
An Underground World.
A friend of mine whose mother has a
house In. the Boulevard Saint Michel
tells me how 1t has a small old garden.
with q gre At stone well whose carved
curb. breast high surmounted by valu-
able ancient iron work, caused 1t to be
preserved, though centuries dry.
One day while they were .tunneling
the Metropolitan my friends mother
was seated in her garden. Suddenly
she heard voices underground, and soon
q mans head stuck out of the old well.
He looked around astonished, called
down to his partner and the two
climbed out.
Pardon madame" they sald,, I'VE
are engineers of the Metro. Do YOU
know what you have In that ancient