Dem Bones

Today's activities included some on the regular tourist track.  We went to Notre Dame and scaled the spiraling stone stairs to its roof.  Proceeding through the small wooden door, we climbed the wooden steps up to the large bell with thoughts of Quasimodo.  The views were breathtaking on a beautiful day.  I even learned the difference between a chimera and a gargoyle (the gargoyle is the head with a spout out of its mouth and the chimera the sculptures that stand atop the building).

We rode an open topped bus around the Latin Quarter and saw many of the sites of the Left Bank.  With the presence of the Sorbonne and having been the home of many artists, it is considered the intellectuals haven (I felt out of place!)  I can I was glad to be on the bus and to not have to worry about the bikes and motorbikes and leave the driving to someone else.

But it was when we left the crowd with cameras and walked to a plain wooden building with a single black door that we saw what will probably be the longest held memory for me of Paris.

Most if not all of the stone in Paris was quarried from Limestone that lies beneath the city.  In order to produce the amount necessary, much of the mining took place in tunnels underground.  These now form what is called the catacombs beneath the city, a vast network of underground tunnels.

A small portion of these are open to the public to tour.  The line outside most of the Paris attractions is hundreds deep, but at the entrance to the catacombs, there were only three people in front of us.  We climbed the stairs underground and began our exploration.  For the first time in Paris, we were wandering about, at times, without anyone else in sight.

The long tunnels came first to a carving done by some of the workers.  A lovely carved depiction of a city where very few will ever see it.

And then we arrived at a black iron gate.  As we went through, the tone of our trip changed immediately.  Suddenly all around us were stacked and arranged human bones.  The empty sockets of skulls silently stared out at us.  Following the outbreak of a deadly disease in the town, all who died were buried in a mass grave.  The bodies later had to be removed and they were place in a giant ossuary that was created in the catacombs.  There were quotes about death and eternity on the walls and even a small chapel as we went through chamber after chamber stacked with human remains.

I wasn't quite sure what I was feeling.  Was it pity for these remains that used to be people who suffered a terrible death only to be placed in a bizarre death hall?  Was it fascination with the people who decided that the proper thing to do with all of these bones was to turn them into what is almost a work of art?  Was it an appreciation of the odd beauty?  Should I appreciate the place or be saddened by it?

As we walked up the stairs to depart and I tried to figure out what I had just seen, we came to the exit room. As we left Janet was called back.  The guard wanted to search her purse.  It took me a minute, but apparently some people try to leave with some of the bones.  I noticed a box behind the guard with three skulls on it--whether that was what had been removed today or over some period, I did not know.  But someone or ones had thought it would be nice to have a souvenir from the site.

It was then I realized what I was feeling.  I was reminded that in death we lose all control over what is left us. We become no longer a life but a physical accident and object to be collected, arranged and perhaps abused.  The bones that give me structure and make me recognizable as me today might be used as anonymous decorations in some wall of the future.  It makes me happy that there is more to me than just my bones.