2023Spring Salon Paris - The Paris Catacombs - Set

They are an object of fascination and legends in which the underground joins the unconscious and builds a plural, changing mythology, mixed with stories, whispered names, real and imaginary facts to which literature, films and, more recently, social media posts continued to bring life. Their history has its roots in the geological particularities of a Parisian subsoil rich in sedimentary deposits used for centuries in the construction of buildings and monuments in the capital. But this story took shape especially at the end of the 18th century under the pressure of two concomitant problems: the repeated collapse of underground galleries which threatened the dwellings of the capital and led in 1777 to the creation of the General Inspectorate of Quarries (IGC ), and the overcrowding of communal cemeteries that centuries of use have filled to overflowing. So much so that in 1780 the wall of a cellar adjoining the large cemetery of the Innocents, near our contemporary Halles, collapsed and let heaps of corpses and bones spill out. The decision was then taken to transfer these human remains to the galleries of former quarries specially fitted out under the plain of Montrouge, outside the walls of the then city and near the current Place Denfert-Rochereau.