The New York herald., 1922-10-08


Skip across Paris
The walls of Louis XIV and much of
the old boulevard quarter were built from
stone of the Montmartre catacombs, about
which they are talking in connection with
the Black Bands at this moment.
Here for the first time the subway goes
under certain of the catacombs. And all
the Paris Tenderloin is built above them.
Montmartre is a hill. you see, and galleries
running into it and through it for nearly
three miles, they say. in one case are
being utilized by business" organization
handling merchandise obtained on fraudu-
lent credit. Drayloads of boxed goods en-
ter certain courtyards in plain daylight
and disappear. No search can find them.
They have gone down concealed lifts to a
little railroad track that runs through one
of these catacombs, five blocks, ten blocks
away below the deepest cellars-to an
other ward division. Some honest COM
mission merchant hoists them up and min
ready for shipment.
The Prefect of Police, asked to investi-
gate these injuries to commerce. replies
that the catacombs are unexplorable. No
body knows their extent, he says. In
built up Paris such search would be i'm
possibly complicated. The police would
waste their time penetrating to unknown
labyrinths.
No map of subterranean Paris exists,
apart from the book of Dunkel. incomplete
and reduced. In Dunkel's book sixty
three entrances to explored catacombs are
marked, apart from the bone pit" in
fiicted on tourists. The stairways leading
down to them have regularly from so to
100 steps.
What do tourists see to-day? 1t is an
outrageous sight. It is more lugubrious
and melancholy even than the Catacombs
of Rome! Here tourists see human bones
AN incaaculable mass of human bones
from ancient Paris cemeteries. stored in
this section of the catacombs to get them
out of the way. In fact. they have nothing
to do with the historic Paris catacombs,
The thing is grandiose. but horrid. Down
there sleep the dead of Paris of all ages;
vague multitudes and great men; canonized
saints and robbers hanged at Montfaucon.
Meroving1an kings keep silence beside
victims of the Commune. Valois. Bourbons,
| Orleans and Huguenots mix with a thou
sand beggars from the Cour des Miracles.
the pell-mell victims Of the massacre of
st. Bartholomew and tranquil Paris family
folk who died in their beds.
But 1t is not the catacombs.
How exploit this vast subterranean city
beneath Paris for tourists?
Tourists have an instructive craving to
go poking underground. The romance of
the catacombs is notorious. In the uncer-
tainty and violence of the Middle Ages
and the turmoil of the Renaissance the
possession OF subterranean routes assured
mysterious impunity to rich families
Joseph Merry in his Salons ct Souterrains"
says that the religious wars caused Paris
property owners to excavate more into the
earth than they built above it,
There were always the catacombs to
dig to.
When they reached them they had part
access to the subterranean city.
Here is something which know of my
own knowledge: a widow. friend Of my
mothers, has a house In the Boulevard st.
Michel which dates from the Renaissance.
1t has a small. ancient garden with ven
cradle carved stone benches, and a great
stone we'll whose carved curb, breast high.
surmounted by valuable old ironwork. has
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