When it comes to Paris, I have always been drawn to “what lies underneath.” When I was 24 and living in a 17th century building in the Marais, the basement had an ancient set of stone stairs that lead down into the pitch black darkness. I would tiptoe down three or four steps, then chicken out. Because visiting my storage space down there I had seen rats. Big rats that scuttled around with supernatural speed. Rats were a deal-breaker for me.
I enjoyed visiting the official Paris Catacombs (the Ossuary, where all the bones are) enough to return four times. But I had heard tell of the non-tourist catacombs of Paris, the ones that stretched for miles beneath the city, and I wanted to go. All the stories I had heard of parties down there…even movies…were from the ‘80s, though, and I didn’t know anyone who had been since then.
It was when I decided that for my 50th birthday I would do something I’d never done, that I remembered my desire to see the unauthorized catacombs. I contacted a guide I’d used for private tours to ask if he would take me. He declined, but said he knew someone who could. He wouldn't give me the guy's name, saying he would contact me.
"The guy" turned out to be Gilles Thomas. He offered to take me and some author friends on a two-hour tour of the abandoned tunnels beneath Cochin Hospital. He said there were lights and we wouldn’t need any special equipment. I said that sounded wonderful, but what I really wanted was…you know…The Other Tour. Gilles kind of waffled about it and said I should come to his office to clarify what I was looking for.
This was obviously a test. He wanted to meet me in person and make sure I wasn't a complete wimp. Once I was sitting there in front of him, in real life, he had me define very specifically what I wanted.
"The illegal parts...yes, in the dark...yes, in the water...yes, for hours and hours...yes, I understand we could be caught by the police and given a fine." He warned me that if I was in the least bit claustrophobic, I shouldn't go. We might stay nine hours underground, and if I freaked out in the middle of the tour, it could be hours back to an entrance. I put on my brave face and told him that's exactly what I wanted. He got a little gleam in his eye and I knew I’d passed the test.
I asked him what his fee was. He said, "Homemade chocolate cake."
"For a nine-hour tour?"
"It has to be homemade," he repeated.
"But can't I give you something else? I could translate one of your articles. I translate historical documents, t.v. shows, books..."
He looked hurt. "My fee is chocolate cake."
"Chocolate cake. Fine!" I accepted before he changed his mind.
He gave me a time and a place to meet him—on a street corner in the south of Paris—told me to wear a head-lamp and shoes I didn't care about ruining...but not rain boots because they would just fill up with water. And that was that.
Now that I knew his name, I went home and looked him up. And I discovered I was getting a tour from The Expert of All Experts. The guy who, for the past thirty years, has held a mythical role in the hierarchy of cataphiles. (Those whose passion is exploring the off-limits catacombs.) The guy who has written eight books on the topic, including:
Les Catacombs: Histoire du Paris Souterrain, which the Académie française awarded with the Ève Delacroix Prize in 2016. (!!) Which kind of says it all, right?
Not to mention that he is the go-to guy whenever anyone important wants a visit. Including George R. R. Martin. And Pixar's team planning Ratatouille. And the makers of As Above, So Below. And every other important thing that is written or filmed about the catacombs. I thanked my lucky stars that I had somehow stumbled into this chance of a lifetime, and began getting my ducks in a row: buy headlamp, get dogsitter, plan a chocolate cake that would be worthy of a Gilles Thomas tour.
Gilles phoned me the night before my tour wondering if I had decided to back out. I told him the cake was baked and iced and I was ready to go.
I woke up the next day with full-blown jitters, after having a series of complicated nightmares where Gilles had given me a list of supplies that I couldn’t find, that the cake wasn't good enough, that my kids came along and I had to protect them. I choked down my breakfast, drank about four cups of coffee, and got together this:
(I opted for buttermilk brownies instead of cake.)
Then packed a bag with this:
Towel in a plastic bag (because Douglas Adams), apple, sandwich with 10 euros and a metro ticket sealed in the bag with it in case I dropped everything in the water, my identity card in case someone needed to identify my corpse, scrunchie to tie back hair, and no bottles of water because I knew there wasn't a bathroom down there.
I waited nervously on the appointed corner until I saw Gilles walking toward me in thigh-high green waders. Within minutes, an artist friend of his joined us, and we were off. Through a gate, down a hill, along a very long, dark passage (Gilles asked me not to be more specific) until we reached this hole:
"Here we are!" Gilles said.
"Where?" I asked. "In the gutter?"
"The hole's right there." The artist pointed to a crack in the wall.
"I'm going to have to squash the cake," I said, trying not to hyperventilate.
"That's fine," Gilles said, and promptly squeezed his 6'2" body through the crack.
I mashed the bag I had using to hold the cake upright into my backpack, got on my hands and knees, and followed Gilles and the artist through the crack in the wall and down into the darkness of the catacombs. After a few yards of crouching, we were able to move standing up. Most passages are like this:
...wide enough to walk through, but not to stretch your arms out. I was slightly stooping most of the time. And about 1/4 of the passages ceilings so low we had to fold over double to scramble forward.
Let’s take a history break so I can tell you what these tunnels are.
Before Paris even existed as the city is now, there were mines on the outskirts of town...mainly for the limestone used to build the buildings you see in Paris today. At the time, the mines were under farmland. But as Paris expanded, homes were built on top of the hollowed out land, and the more heavy buildings perched atop these holes, the more dangerous it got.
This oblivious co-habitation of city and deep holes continued until 1774, when a whole street of apartment buildings and homes fell through the ground. Louis XVI ordered a commission to inspect, chart, and reinforce the mines. (The Inspection générale des carrières or IGC.) So Charles-Axel Guillaumot (the chief inspector) and his crew went around to all of the individual mines and dug tunnels to connect them. They raised the ceilings from the crouching height miners were forced to work in to a height that allowed for men pushing wheelbarrows. They reinforced the walls and ceilings and labeled them as they went.
So several individual mines were connected, thus creating the network of catacombs we have today. (I am simplifying greatly, but you get the idea.)
Having given you the context, let’s go back to our tour.
As we made our way through the tunnels, Gilles pointed out Guillaumot's handiwork and the system of labeling he had established. Markers were drawn on the walls in pencil/charcoal. Afterward, stone-carvers (those who carved gravestones) came through and carved the pencil markings into the wall. (Because of the humidity, most pencil marks are still visible.)
Here is one example:
Beneath the inscription “Caveau des Lazarists” (Graves of the Lazarists) is the number 12 (the marker identifying the reinforcement or pillar) F. (the initial of the IGC inspector currently in charge) and the date (in this case 1866).
Most of the markers in the catacombs follow this formula, except when the stone carver got confused like here:
and put the date first, the initial, and a 2 after. Then he scratched out the 2 and put “No2.” beneath. (And for those of you who can guess what the tiny drawing is beneath the numbers, it dates from the same year. More on that topic later.)
Besides the IGC markings all over the place, there are other official markings: street names and sometimes numbers of houses or names of important buildings directly overhead.
As for street names, they can be either on plaques (many of which have been stolen):
Or carved into the wall:
like "Dle ENTRE LA Gde ET LA Pte AVENUE DU MIDI”. (Diagonal between the Big and Little Avenue of Midi.)
End of history lesson (for the moment) and back to the tour.
Soon after crawling through the hole, we began walking through puddles of very cold water. It soaked through my hiking boots and chilled me right through. Gilles said it was because we were still near the entrance, and the water wouldn't be that cold throughout.
Which I soon discovered when we hit an area of waist-high water. Gilles showed the artist and me how to straddle the tunnel, putting our feet on a ledge at the base of either wall so as not to step in the deep bit. At one point, my right foot slipped, and I stepped down to the center of the floor, soaking myself up to my butt. (I'm 5'9", BTW.) I quickly regained my footing, and that was the deepest I went for the rest of the tour.
The water in the cave was usually crystal clear. When it appeared muddy, Gilles explained that it was because someone had recently walked through and stirred up the silt. Meaning we weren't down there alone. There was no odor besides humid rock except when we came across other cataphiles who were smoking (smoke smell), drinking (booze smell), burning candles (wax) or using some kind of lantern that had a chemical smell. This was rare, though, since we probably only saw 15 people in the 10 hours we ended up staying down there.
One note about smell, though. At one point I smelled a cigar, and even saw smoke hanging there in the air, as if it had no where else to go. I asked Gilles how long it would last before it diffused in the 90% humidity. "Three hours," he told me. "Like a woman's perfume."
It was also around the time that I was wading through thigh-high water that I asked Gilles about the fauna of the catacombs. There are no animals, he told me. Not even rats, because there is no food for them. The artist who was with us said she had heard about animals, like a fox, getting lost down there, but that was rare. And the whole time we were underground I saw only 2 spider webs (no food for spiders either?) and this:
oh...and this guy taking a nap...
who also counts as fauna, I suppose.
One last thing for today: depth.
This is how deep we were. (The ladder goes way up above where it disappears at the top of the photo.) Gilles said we were 20 meters (66 feet) below street-level in most places, and as high as 7 meters in others. Once we even climbed all the way to the surface, up a staircase and behind a locked metal door, and peeked out of this keyhole:
to see a sculpture across the street, and unsuspecting people walking just a few feet away from three very muddy and wet people wearing head-lamps.
Note on this particular locked door: Many years ago, two Nazi uniforms were found just behind it. Which means, unless they were ambling naked through the streets of Paris, two Nazis changed out of their uniforms into civilian clothes, walked through the door, and never made it back for their uniforms.
Alternate scenario...non-Nazis acquired Nazi uniforms, wore them underground to the Nazi bunker (coming later), then changed into their regular clothes before going out in the world. Since the uniforms are all we've got, the story is up to you. And trust me, there are a million stories lurking below the streets of Paris.
Part 2 to come!
(A longer, chattier, version of this article was first published on my author blog in 2017.)
And welcome to those who are joining us from my Amy Plum mailing list. This is my alter-ego’s new substack all about Paris (or the parts you don’t usually see).
I have only ever done the "official" tour, and I don't think Gilles would approve me for more, but I loved reading this!
Love this story! Glad to travel the catacombs vicariously with you, since I’ll never be down in them.