Bones beneath the Stones

When you find yourself with an avalanche of human bones in your basement, you know it’s time for change.

Which is what the city of Paris did when exactly that happened to neighbors of the Cimetière des Innocents in 1774. Looking for a place to store the bones from the overflowing inner-city cemetery, they came up with the idea to put them in the decommissioned stone quarries underneath the city.

After arrangements had been made, bones from the various cemeteries of Paris, Les Innocents included, were carted to a chute in the avenue René Coty (near Place Denfert-Rochereau) to be stored underground. The name Catacombes was borrowed from Ancient Rome, even though there were no graves and funerary monuments. At first, the bones were stacked along the tunnels over hundreds of meters. It was only after the first VIP visits at the beginning of the 19th century that the bones were somewhat organized. More cemeteries had to be closed as the city grew, and their bones were added to the ones already in residence.

Signs were added to indicate the cemetery of origin, and the gravediggers arranged skulls and bones in patterns that can still be seen today.

In 1809, the Catacombes became a museum that today is part of the Musée Carnavalet and gives visitors access to a small fraction of the tunnel network of Paris’ ancient stone quarries.

In one of the first sections of the visit, sculptures made by a quarryman in the late 18th century can be seen. They represent sites from Port-Mahon on the Spanish island of Minorca where he was said to have been a POW.

There used to be a long line of visitors starting out from the old entrance and winding back around the square behind the eastern lodge of the barriére d’Enfer (entry point of the General Farmers’ Tax Wall), but recently, it was closed in favor of a new entrance, and the ticket sale has shifted online, so now visitors can book their spot in advance and don’t need to queue any longer.

signage in the métro station Denfert-Rocherreau
N° 2: Catacombes entrance, n° 5: Catacombes exit
Location of the Catacombes entrances on a map of Paris
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Denfert-Rochereau intersection

The Denfert-Rochereau intersection in the 14th arrondissement is known by tourists mainly for the entrance to the catacombs and for the departure of the airport buses to Orly airport. There is, however, a whole lot more. Let’s have a look at the intersection.

No fewer than seven streets intersect here. First, the north-south axis:

  • Avenue Denfert Rochereau to the north, it leads to Port Royal.
  • Avenue du Général Leclerc to the south, it leads to Porte d’Orléans (see also La Libération).
  • To the west, rue Froidevaux, which runs alongside Montparnasse cemetery in the direction of Montparnasse.
  • To the east, boulevard Saint Jacques which turns into boulevard Auguste Blanqui and runs towards Place d’Italie, with a partially overground stretch of metro line 6.
  • To the northeast, boulevard Arago, and to the southeast, along the train line, avenue René Coty, leading to the Parc Montsouris.

Now for the intersection itself. At its center thrones the Belfort Lion of Paris (3). It is a one-third size copper replica of the Belfort Lion, both of which were created by Auguste Bartholdi. It looks in the direction of the Statue of Liberty, also created by Bartholdi.
The Belfort Lion in the city of Belfort, in eastern France, is a red sandstone monumental sculpture commemorating the heroic French resistance during the siege of Belfort during the Franco-Prussian war.

A view of the northern side of the intersection

On the east side of the intersection, between Saint Jacques and René Coty, is the Denfert Rochereau station, served by metro lines 4 and 6 and the RER B which leads to both Paris airports, Roissy-Charles de Gaulle in the north and Orly in the south. Outside the station, there’s the Orly airport bus station (4).

Denfert station, currently undergoing works

At the center of the intersection, south of the lion, the lodges of the barrière d’Enfer, an entry point of the General Farmers tax wall house two museums: the Paris catacombs on the east side (2) and the Museum of the liberation of Paris on the west side (1).

Denfert tax lodge with entrance to the Catacombs
Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, tax lodges and Denfert station

The lower part of the Place Denfert was renamed in 2004 to Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy to honor this communist resistant (1908-2002) who led the insurrection of the capital in August 1944 from his command post in the catacombs underneath the intersection.

The Paris Catacombs
Location of the Denfert Rochereau intersection
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