CIMETIERE LES INNOCENTS

Cimetiere Les Innocents was the first cemetery built in the heart of Paris back in the 17 hundreds.  The area size being only 130 meters by 65, made it a nice little quint graveyard that was well maintained.  I’m shocked to think that as Paris grew, why did they not build another one?  This is a fact and so you can imagine what it was like.  The city was conducting mass burials in one cemetery just to keep up with their dead.  There was never much of a service performed and embalming was considered witch craft.  The pit would be left open until it was brimming with bodies.  Then they would close it and dig another one.  If you know anything about decomposition and what it breeds, (and we are not just talking about smell!!), you can well imagine the sick conditions of it all.  So Cimetiere Les Innocents became a festering dumping ground for bodies and when there was absolutely no more room, they were left outside, leaning up against the wall.  Charnel  houses began popping up in the neighborhood, attempting to make more room in the cemetery.  Chances of being sick from walking past the graveyard were pretty good, and God fore sake if you should fall into a pit!  At night the grave robbers, necromancers, and whores would use the cemetery as a stomping ground until the neighborhood went to hell it a hand cart!  By the 1770′s, bodies were exploding into the neighboring cellars and a fatal out break of disease caused by bad air slayed many in the surrounding area.

Finally in the spring of 1780, Louis the XVI closed The Cimetiere des Innocents for good.  The church was quite upset due to losing the burial fees, but it had to be done.  This was only the first step.  The next step would be to clean the place up which didn’t take place until six years later.  During the exhuming process, the decomposed bodies were cleaned of any margaric acid, or fat which got turned into candles and soap and was a lucrative business in Paris at the time.  The bones of the dead were dug up and carried in large piles by night to Denfert-Rocherau, an abandoned mine which was harboring revolutionaries and political up risers.  The procession was followed by priests as they said prayers for the dead and the bones were arranged in artistic displays inside the mine shafts and “The Catacombs” was born!  New cemeteries were built outside of Paris and the city could breathe once again!  I could never understand the point of the charnel houses, cause as far as I know, it’s unholy to disturb the dead, yet they were being dug up daily, but I can’t say if prayers were being said for them or not.  Did the families know or did they go to visit their relative’s grave only to find someone else buried there.  I realize that this is still practiced in some countries just labeled differently and you pay rent on a burial plot.  This practice does not make me feel secure about burying anyone I love and this kind of business conduct should not exist especially on so called holy ground.  Folks, we are not respecting the dead by turning death into a money pit!