Year: 1874

The MOrgue.


From Harpers Weekly


"One more unfortunate,


Weary OF breath,


Rashly mportunate,


Gone to her DEATH"


At the commencement of the Second
Empire there stood facing the Hotel
Dieu a gloomy building known as the
most melancholy monument i'm Paris.
The form of this edifice united i'm sombre
Doric outlines the threatening gloom of
a malefactor's cell with the profound sad
ness of tomb. It's double aspect of in
carceration suggested for it a name once
used technically to describe "the en-
trance of prison." But in its new as
sociation Of the term, La Morgue" ac-
quired an emphasis of tragedy.


If the exterior of this building was
sad, its interior was appalling. A CHAINS
ber inclOsed in glass contained tables of
black marble, upon whose inclined planes
were stretched before the public gaze the
CHASTITY forms of suicides or of unf0rtu-
mates found drowned in the Seine. The
institution was begun in 1904, and had
as its design the exposure of all victims
of violence, accident or suicide, whose
corpses should be found in the streets,
or waters of Paris. There they were
held for a time for the purpose of iden-
tification or of recognition by friends.


Appalling as the place was, a morbid
fascination made it the central attrac-
ton of its neighborhood it was actually
courted as place of rendezvous, and a
noted end Of the promenade. People
rushed there daily las to morning gazette
or exciting bulletin, and the scenes of
its real grief were mocked by brutal
curiosity, and sometimes by revolving
levity.


There came day Mt last when the
most hardened habitutes of the Morgue
could no longer look upon ..it without a
shudder.


TO obliterate all traces of that bloody
time, Napoleon iii. transferred the site
of this melancholy institution, and
changed the character of its architecture
to plan more in accord with his similar
revOvotions. Built upon the little arm
of the Seine that separates the isle of
st. Louis from the city, and the new
MOrgue occupies a miniature desert, and
conceals in decent isolation the details of
its work. Staircases of stone descend
III vi cNtIy SiuC, uliu SCINC w
tate the reception of the drowned, who,
excepting in the heat of revolution,
when cannon sweep the Streets consti-
tute in major part the patronage of this
funeral hostelry.


The Morgue is composed of two cham
bers or saloons, the largest of which is
divided in two spaces by partition of
glass 1t is not always this larger saloon
that bears testimony of the most terrible
tragedies There is a secret hall devoted
to the dead who have been withdrawn
from the public gaze, or those already
recognized, who await their enshrOuding.
Here the process of autopsy takes place,
and conlrOntations are made of accused
murderers with their victims


1t was i'm this lesser chamber that
the murderer Traupmann recognized
with horror the Kaupt family, who had
been miraculously removed from ditch
i'm which he had buried them. The
popular excitement was at that time so
furious that La Morgue had to he closed
and guarded by soldiers to prevent the
abhorred wretch from falling into the
hands of an avenging mob. :.


The revolution of September made few
contributions to the new MOrgue, nor
was it crowded during the seige, for they
who fell as heroes were registered among
the battalions; but i'm the time of the
bombardment there were mangled bodies
brought there hourly, chiefly of gamins
who had been collecting shells to sell as
curiosities, or of old people overtaken by
unforeseen explosions, parents killed with
children whom their arms vainly sought
20
through the breast where her babes
lips were still pressed.


During the Commune it became inn
possible to centralize the disposition of
the killed, and temporary morgues were
established in the chapels of the ceme-
teries. AS there were no conveniences
there for suspending the clothing to
view, the dead were left in the habil-
iments in which they fell, and whatever
objects had been found in their pockets
were laid upon their breasts to assist
Identification. When the insurrection
reached its climax even these provis-
ions ceased; the bodies were placed i'm
the trenches where they were to be
buried, and the trenches left open for
short time to allow inspection of
those who sought their missing friends.
When the Versaillais took possession
of Paris the dead were stretched at the
foot of the wall where they had fallen,
and the pavements of the streets became
the morgue.


The Seine is always the principal re-
source of those unfortunates of Paris
who would escape from life. So COM
mon is this mode of self-destruction
that when there is brought into the
Morgue corpse taken from the river,
the spectator exclaims, without interest,
" All, it is only one drowned!" Unless
the victim happens to be young and
pretty woman, and not disfgured by
death, the connoisseurs scarcely look
at the pitiful form, upon whose head
q slender jet of water falls. The object
that draw crowds are the victims of
assassinations, or of suicide that haunt
the imagination by narrowing assscia-
ton.