But the other half of my plan for the day worked out okay. When I told Anita last night that today we were going to the sewers and the catacombs, she muttered something about arranging my sock drawer and stayed home. My first stop is called the catacombs, but is really a combo act describing the history of the underground quarries and then taking you through their latest usage, as a giant ossuary (storage container for the bones of the dearly departed).
But first you have to grasp how important this was to me. I don't do tunnels. Anita read something a few days ago about how a good strategy for staving off some undesirable aspects of the aging process is to get out of your comfort zone; I figure after this, I'm good for a few extra years already. I stopped reading the excellent descriptive materials at the beginning of the tunnel when I got to the part about how the quarries began collapsing in the 18th century. I decided they'd probably hold out for another 45 minutes and headed into the depths. I didn't realize until too late that there was no one in sight either ahead of or behind me. And then I reached this sign over one of the gateways in the tunnel:
In case your French isn't up to it, my own translation is "Stop! Here is the kingdom of the dead." Thanks. As if I could turn around and go back.
What had happened over the history of Paris up to the 18th century was that the city's cemeteries had become overrun with corpses. A giant exhumation project began to dig up the bones from cemeteries all over town and collect them in this now-empty quarry space. It's estimated that there are bones from about six million corpses. The workers made no effort to distinguish them individually, but did record which cemetery they had come from. These were collected in October, 1795 from the church of Ste. Croix de la Bretonnerie, which was destroyed in 1797. What you see are skulls and the ends of femurs; the smaller bones generally didn't warrant such attention to neatness.
But there are still a few historically significant cemeteries around town. I took you to Pere Lachaise a few days ago, but today on my way home I stopped off at the Montmartre cemetery, which is only a block from our apartment. Here I found the final resting places for a few musicians.
Since I'm a classical guitarist wannabe, I was attracted to the tomb of Fernando Sor (1778-1839), one of the most prominent names in classical guitar. This is not intended to be a likeness of him, but only of a young man (not unlike your humble blogger) who has fallen under the influence of M. Sor. There was a memorial plaque that had been placed on the 100th anniversary of his death by the parisian "Friends of the Guitar".Continuing my meander around the main street of the cemetary I came to the tomb of Adolphe Sax (1814-1894). Can you guess what instrument he is famous for inventing?
Finally, and no doubt the finest piece in the cemetery. When Anita and I lived in Atlanta, we were lucky enough to hear the Atlanta Symphony orchestra and Chorus (after Robert Shaw's passing) produce the epic Grande Messe des morts, Op. 5, known to the English-speaking world simply as Requiem, by Hector Berlioz (1803-1869). How could I not stop by and say "Thanks"?
Tomorrow I am led to believe that there will be more shopping. Sigh. After bones and tombs, retail. It's hard to keep the momentum up.
