Montparnasse cemetery and catacombs of Paris. Parisian burials II

Montparnasse cemetery and surrounding area At the Montparnasse cemetery located near the station (the main entrance is from Boulevard Edgar-Quinet) many Parisian celebrities are buried: Baudelaire, Bourdelle, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Soutine, Tzara, Man Ray, Gainsbourg. Rue Emile Richard (rue

On Sundays, the market is occupied by representatives of various professions, and it turns into a clothing market: fashion designers crowd with artists, so there is something to see here.

On the south side of Boulevard Edgard-Quinet is the main entrance to Montparnasse cemetery- a city of the dead full of sadness, with a string of miniature temples, bleak and bizarre, and many illustrious names, from Baudelaire to Beckett and from Saint-Beuve to Saint-Saens.

A booklet with a map of the cemetery can be obtained from the security guard at the entrance. To the right of the entrance on Boulevard Edgard-Quinet there is a grave where the couple Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir(the last decades of his life Sartre lived on Boulevard Raspail). Down along Avenue West, which runs along the inner western wall of the cemetery, are buried Baudelaire (who, in addition to the monument on this grave, also has an even more impressive monument in the same cemetery near the Rue Émile-Richard, on the Avenue Transversal) and the sculptor Ossip Zadkine.

Pierre Laval, a member of the Pétain government who, at the end of the war, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, was executed for treason, is also buried nearby. You can pay tribute to Prudhon, the anarchist who made the famous saying “Property is theft!”, His grave is located in sector No. 2, near the central ring road, and next to him is buried the photographer of Hungarian origin Brassai. In the southwest corner of the cemetery there is an old watermill, where one of the 17th-century taverns was located; it is loved by the riotous, poetry-writing students who are believed to have given the name to this quarter.

The eastern end of the cemetery runs across the road: in its northern corner is a grave topped by a version of Brancusi's The Kiss, a poignant expression of sadness. Fans of exotic tombstones can head to the cemetery's inner wall along Avenue Boulevard (parallel to Boulevard Raspail). Here lies the inventor of the safe gas lamp, Charles Pigeon: on the tombstone he lies in bed next to his sleeping wife and reads a book in the light of his invention.

If you are ready to spend some more time in the kingdom of the dead, you have the opportunity to descend into the deep Paris catacombs, the entrance to which is located next to the cemetery on Place Denfert-Rochereau, which was formerly called Place Enfer ("Hell Square").

Initially, the Parisian catacombs were simply part of a huge limestone underground quarry, where, due to a lack of space for new burials, the remains of a huge number of citizens from the old Parisian cemeteries were transported by decision of the municipality between 1785 and 1871 (the main one of the cemeteries was once located in the very city ​​center, near the crowded Central Market).

According to a rough estimate, the remains of over 6 million people are buried here - this is twice the current population of Paris, not counting the suburbs. Along a long passage in the catacombs, femurs are stacked end to end, forming a wall into which, a little further, small bones are randomly piled.

These high makeshift walls also house skulls and tablets, on which you can sometimes read funny inscriptions like the following: “Happy is the one who always has the hour of his own death before his eyes and who prepares for it every day.” Older children usually show interest in this journey, although you have to walk a lot, about 2 kilometers. At worst, you may develop claustrophobia, especially in the afternoon when the dungeon is crowded and, God forbid, you find yourself squeezed on both sides by screaming teenagers.

The catacombs can be quite cool and dirty underfoot, so think about how you should dress: you won’t feel comfortable here in a T-shirt and flip-flops. Also pay attention to the uniformed employees (gardien) - their duties include stopping the attempts of trophy hunters to steal some bones, as well as monitoring the actions of young people who try to quietly slip away to arrange a midnight Sabbath in the dungeon at night in the Gothic style .

The area located to the west of Place Denfert-Rochereau is also worthy of attention. On Rue Dugger you'll see a bustling food market, as well as some interesting architecture near the Montparnasse Cemetery.

Underground Paris

In September 2004, while exploring the underground galleries under Chaillot Palace, Parisian police stumbled upon a secret underground room. It was a huge hall with an area of ​​400 square meters, equipped as a cinema hall and run by a club for fans of “black films”.

Once this information was leaked to the press, a certain group of slum dwellers became the focus of media attention. It turned out that, starting in the 1980s, hundreds of French cataphile diggers held a variety of events in the dungeon, from parties and art exhibitions to festivals, including, as they say, orgies. Experienced experts in underground galleries spoke about skillfully painted walls and a huge hall with columns called “The Beach”.

In fact, the underground galleries under the Chaillot Palace are only part of an extensive system of tunnels dating back to the Middle Ages, when gypsum and limestone for the construction of buildings were mined directly from the ground under the feet of the townspeople, so we can say that Paris was built as a reflection of what was underground. Today, more than 300 kilometers of such underground tunnels lie under the city, there are especially many of them on the Left Bank in the 5th, 6th, 14th and 15th arrondissement, where the Great Southern Quarry stretches for 100 kilometers.

Another such separate quarry is hidden under the 13th arrondissement, and about the 16th arrondissement it is usually said that its soil is similar to the French Gruyère cheese. In the 1770s, a royal commission, which discovered that many of the city's quarry buildings were tottering and even collapsing, decided to draw up a list of quarries and strengthen the most dangerous ones.

Large underground galleries were laid along the main city roads, and the voids in them were filled with soil. Today, some of these “underground streets” have been preserved, but those that ran above them have already disappeared. Some believe that the small number of high-rise buildings in Paris is due to the insufficient reliability of the city's soil.

In the 19th century, many of the underground galleries were used for growing champignons (called "Parisian mushrooms" in the markets), sometimes also for growing endive (a type of bitter lettuce) and brewing beer, and where it is located today