The Paris Catacombs are Deeply Misunderstood

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]This might be controversial to say for some reason, but Paris truly is a city that is not overexaggerating its merits.

[00:00:07]The streets are beautiful, full of life and hidden treasures, a wealth of diverse people and things to experience.

[00:00:14]I've now been to Paris twice, and I feel like I could go a million more times and never fully experience everything it has to offer.

[00:00:25]bagu.

[00:00:28]>> But deep beneath these lively streets and cute shops and buleries and cafes and museums lies a dark labyrinthine kingdom of the dead. The Paris catacombs have captivated people's imaginations for hundreds of years. And for good reason. largely obscure or hard to navigate, narrow, short, and claustrophobic. Stories abound of people who got lost in the tunnels, never to be seen again. People being attacked by tunnel dwellers or random villains, satanic rituals, human sacrifice, secret society gatherings, and the wandering ghosts of the millions of people who are laid to rest in the oscillaries. Most videos on YouTube about the catacombs are either ghost hunter videos or people insinuating that something terrifying is or has happened down there. And the catacombs feature in a number of TV shows and movies like As Above So Below in mainly a horror context. Although I had to be fair, we did watch As Above So Below when I was researching this video and they clearly did their research on the catacombs. Although they got a lot of things wrong too, probably in the name of plot. I actually enjoyed it. So, I don't really blame them, but I wanted to see for myself when I was in Paris earlier this month, and well, I have a lot of thoughts. The Paris catacombs have an incredibly strange and fascinating history. Some parts of it terrifying, but it may not be exactly what you think. Come learn with me.

[00:01:56]Quick note, this video will feature some footage of the bones in the catacombs.

[00:02:01]These are real human remains. if that will visually disturb you. Just please take note of that and you could probably just listen to this video like podcast style or something. Anyway, that said, just wanted to give you a heads up even though I feel like it's fairly obvious about a video about the catacombs. But let's get into it. But first, a quick word from today's sponsor, Flexispot. My wife and I have been slowly working through some home improvement projects, and that includes finally replacing our busted old furniture that really wasn't working for us. One of the biggest things that I wanted to get was a nice standing desk and a recliner. And having used furniture from Flexispot for years, I knew that they would have what I needed. First, I got the E7 Pro standing desk for the office space that we're working on. So, it's definitely in progress. Please ignore the background.

[00:02:47]And I'm so impressed by how smooth the movement is. Nothing gets jostled or spilled when I raise it or lower it. I'm able to adjust the height for any task that I need to do or how my body feels, helping me ease my chronic back pain and also get more active standing time while I work. It's super customizable, so it can fit a variety of needs based on what you're working on. And it has a load capacity of over 400 lb, so fit a lot of stuff on this bad boy. I also got the Lotus recliner for the den, which has turned out to be the most wonderful and comfy reading spot. It comes in a variety of colors to suit any aesthetic preference. I chose this beautiful leather style for a vintage feel. It recines much farther than I thought it would and rocks and spins around so it has a ton of adjustability. My friends love to come over and sit on it doing crafts like crochet. Seriously, it's such a good crafting chair with its side storage and charging phone holster for looking up instructions or video tutorials or scrolling or whatever. I also love that the seat is really spacious because, you know, sometimes I like to sit cross-legged or sideways or something. Chase your bliss. Flexispot is having a mega sale right now. So, shop now and use my codes YT730 or Lotus30 to save an extra $30 off and get your own E7 or E7 Pro standing desk or the Lotus recliner. Click the link in the description to learn more. Thank you so much to Flexispot for sponsoring this video. And now, let's get back to learning about the catacombs.

[00:04:19]While many cities are built from materials mined from quaries miles away, Paris was built on top of its own quaries. The earth beneath the city is rich in limestone, gypsum, and clay. The gypsum being particularly rich beneath what is now Mat, the home of Lasakur and Lemulan Rouge, and Belleville, the city's diverse artsy enclave. These quaries began building the city as far back as the Roman era. constantly expanding and creating new enormous caverns underground, including the digging of wells. Basically, whenever a new large building or some city project was happening, a new massive quarry to extract limestone and gypsum was dug.

[00:05:01]They'd finish the project and then abandon the quarry and forget about it, leaving the earth underneath Paris basically like a big sponge or Swiss cheese type situation for centuries.

[00:05:13]Fabitio De Janearo writes in the Paris Catacombs, A Secret History of Underground Paris. One can therefore say that for every building in the city, there corresponds an identical mass void in the underground. Beneath the profile of Paris, there is its reverse. Now, I know what you're thinking. Wo, that sounds pretty unstable and dangerous.

[00:05:34]Well, yes. It actually took longer than expected, but by the 18th century, catastrophic collapses due to the unstable vacuous tunnels and the reckless overdigging made people realize that they probably needed a solution, lest the city cave in on itself. By 1779, the police ordered the end of quarry mining and the consolidation of the existing ones, and a number of pillars were erected in the tunnels to try and stop the imminent collapses.

[00:06:04]There were probably other motives to restructure and occupy the quaries as well. For centuries, the tunnels had also been used as a thievery and smuggling trade system, most famously by the well-known king of bandits, cartou, in the late 17th and early 18th century.

[00:06:20]It would have been extremely easy to use the tunnels for crime because it was common and very simple for anyone to build their own entrance by simply digging one on their property. Dozens of taverns, inns, and even monasteries and abbies simply connected their own sellers to the quaries, allowing anyone to have access. To this day, hundreds of buildings in Paris have recently discovered long-forgotten passages leading to the catacombs below. People committing crimes down there were more often than not simply smuggling goods into Paris to avoid customs and taxes, in particular wine, which had the highest tax rate of all. In 1777, the General Inspection of Quarries or the IGC was formed following the pre-existing efforts a century prior to exact some regulation on the digging.

[00:07:13]New quaries were banned. Digging was forbidden anywhere nearer to the surface than 29 m, expanded to 39 m beneath roads and public property. 1754 saw the beginning of a massive quarry survey, a brave and perhaps too grand attempt to map the full extent of the ancient tunnels. The formation of the IGC came after a catastrophic collapse three years before where the ground beneath Route Dolan sank into the depths and inspector general of the quaries Ericard deuri wrote in his 1815 book leak de Perry certainty was acquired as tradition had long narrated that the temples palaces and most of the streets of Paris were ready to collapse into immense abysses that the danger was all the greater because it presented itself at all points finally that it was necessary to move simultaneously on each of them. And unfortunately, no data was yet possessed on the conduct to take to remedy the most frightening evil or even to stop its progress. Literally the same day the IGC was created, another collapse happened on Rudon Fe. The people of Paris were officially terrified and something needed to be done fast.

[00:08:28]Lieutenant General of Police Lenoir was the one largely first in charge of the redevelopment of the quaries into what we now know as the catacombs. Lenoir was the one who had the idea to transform the ancient cemetery of the innocence into the oawary that exists today.

[00:08:44]Historically, as late as the 10th century, the people of Paris followed the Roman tradition of burying people outside the city in a massive necropolis. This necropolis on Ru Santine eventually morphed into the church of the holy innocence which had to be contained by a huge wall because apparently the cemetery had become a hot spot for delinquency and prostitution.

[00:09:07]Despite this, the cemetery had to be expanded several times due to plagues and epidemics. the city overflowing with dead from disease, as well as those who died in prisons and workhouses or in massacres or simply couldn't be identified. Into the mass burial pits they went. Bodies stacked haphazardly on top of each other, miserably wrapped in shrouds and allowed to rot in the partially open air as the pit was slowly filled up until it couldn't fit anymore.

[00:09:37]And a new burial pit was dug or an old one was reopened after the soil had consumed the bodies within. The bones left behind were taken and kept in vaults, usually once the cemetery was so full that the bones began to pop out of the ground. In the 1770s, around the time that the catacombs were being surveyed, people who lived and worked around the cemetery of the innocents started noticing um a problem. The massive population of rotting bodies in the earth was beginning to seep detritus and corpse goo and fluids into surrounding cellars, especially when it rained, causing dangerous contamination to stored food and wine. Sometimes with the walls collapsing entirely and causing numerous corpses to spill into the sellers. In 1786, after much public outcry, a decree was issued to suppress, demolish, and evacuate the cemetery.

[00:10:33]Inspector General of Cory's Kiomo was tasked with handling the relocation of the bones of over six or seven mill, let's just say 6 million dead Parisians.

[00:10:45]And he chose the new location in the tunnels under M Rouge. It was as thoughtful and respectful a ceremony as could be done up to a point with the bones being transported under lamplight by funeral carriages and overseen by abbotts. But then once they got to the tunnel shaft, I guess everyone gave up on being respectful and they just started dumping the bones down the hole crazy style. The workers below then began stacking the bones near the walls of the vaults. This would be a process that had to last at least several decades. through the French Revolution in 1789 to 1793. And 1793 was an especially bloody year of the revolution with countless nobles, military men, and the king and queen themselves being killed and guillotined. Almost all of the revolution's dead, whether noble or scholar or commoner or revolutionary were buried together in the catacombs, their bones mixed indiscriminately together. A true and final grim testament to the plight for equality.

[00:11:45]Many men, both revolutionaries and their targets, took turns going into hiding in the catacombs. At one point, there was even a commune down there. It was frequently used as a secret base for various insurgent groups, criminal organizations, and especially famously as a hidden bunker for the Nazis during the German occupation of World War II.

[00:12:06]Funnily enough, the French resistance also used the catacombs as a base or travel system, their center being mere feet from the Nazis. And apparently the two groups often passed each other in the darkness, sort of ignoring each other. What happens in the underground stays in the underground. The catacombs during World War II is honestly so storied and interesting, it could frankly be its own video, so I'm not even going to get into that today. By the mid-9th century though, the pervasive legends about the catacombs were already being cemented by various popular books like Alexander Duma's 1858 book moakans pari which painted the catacombs as the gathering spot for anarchists or an even earlier novel that portrayed the tunnels as the secret hideaway for templars. People were ever increasingly fascinated by the catacombs and sought to visit the newly completed ouary. Of course, on our visit to Paris, my wife and I were eager to visit the newly reopened catacombs ourselves. Side note, I know I keep saying my wife and I've made no mention of a wedding.

[00:13:07]That's because we technically got legally married last October in the courthouse and our wedding isn't until later this year. So, no, you didn't miss anything. The wedding actually hasn't happened yet. So, but saying my fiance doesn't count because we're married.

[00:13:22]Anyway, moving on. Upon entering the catacombs in M Paras, you descend many, many, many, many, many stairs. It feels like you go down forever. The air grows colder, denser, quieter. It then leads you down the more open and spacious tunnels, which slowly become more claustrophobic. It's a long trek before finally reaching the oawary, the empire of the dead, with the carefully stacked remains of 6 million Parisians who were relocated from the cemetery of the innocents. It brought to mind the passage written in 1823 by John Griscom when he visited the catacombs. Could anything on earth be more like passing through the valley of the shadow of death? I found it to be so beautifully arranged and honestly not frightening at all. If anything, looking at the piles of ancient bones, I felt the profound and overwhelming feeling of being directly connected to the past. These bones were real living, laughing, crying, suffering, loving people. They all individually had their own fears, interests, mistakes, and reasons for living. Too many parts of the Oswuary bear gaping holes where some person's skull or tibia was snatched and smuggled out of the tunnels, kept perhaps in a box in someone's attic or sold online.

[00:14:42]Other skulls were very tragically graffitied, carrying on the longestablished tradition of theft and smuggling in the catacombs, not to mention the disrespect of the dead. Many of these bones have visible marks of the illness or injury that took this person's life before they were tossed into the mass burial pit on top of countless other rotting bodies and then tossed again down a well into these tunnels. It's momento mory in its most pure form. Most of us will not spend eternity having our remains gawkked at by tourists. These people had no choice.

[00:15:17]As I stood there, I honestly began feeling guilty that I'm one of the gawkers. But on the other hand, it's just as valuable a fate to be eternally remembered. We have no idea of the identities of any of these people, but they have all collectively become part of a grand and powerful history that's right at our fingertips. They can only hope that we learn something from it to make it worth it. Technically speaking, there are likely numerous cases of people dying in the catacombs over the years. But one of the only actually recorded and seemingly confirmed cases is the infamous case of Filib Espair. In 1804, the IGC engineers discovered a skeleton in the catacombs under Rudon.

[00:16:01]It was too decomposed to identify except for a belt or maybe his buttons depending on what story you're reading and a set of keys that could be traced back to a Valdras doorkeeper named Filibbear Esper who had gone missing a decade prior. The legend goes that he had entered the catacombs in search of the famous treasure allegedly hidden there in antiquity by the Carthusian monks who had long dug and controlled many of the tunnels. And if not the treasure, mused IGC Inspector Emil Gerard, then perhaps the monk's wine.

[00:16:32]Both equally valuable to a Frenchman, I guess. Sadly, the skeleton was reportedly only a few feet from a staircase that would have led him to the surface. Well, apparently a spare was buried down there with a tombstone and everything. But the perplexing part of it all is that the incident isn't really mentioned by any contemporary source and is mostly documented by Emil Gerard who was IGC inspector around the Bell Epipac era publishing his book in 1905 over a 100 years later. So there's a lot of unanswered questions and maybe some skepticism about the case of our friend Filibar and to some catacombs wanderers he has become something of an unofficial traveler saint. People obviously argue back and forth over this topic. But it really is hard to say that a spare was the only confirmed death in the catacombs given the fact that we have records showing that a bunch of dudes from the affforementioned commune did die down there and apparently got eaten by rats. But then again, that was reported in the Paris Journal as well as many other catacombs tales. And it's hard to say just how true that was. The papers frequently reported on deaths in the catacombs. One being an 1845 case where the bodies of a mother and her three-year-old daughter were discovered down there, apparently murdered by her boyfriend who sought to steal her jewelry. This one is more than likely true and is really sad. What is also true is that there have been a ton of near deaths in the catacombs. For centuries, people have gotten lost down there. But they often do find their way out or get rescued by other tunnel crawlers or cataphiles. Up until recently, this was happening, or tourists would go inside only to get mugged. It's not impossible to navigate the catacombs if you have a passing knowledge of Paris streets. After all, the tunnels themselves mirror the streets, and you can find numerous street signs to know where you are.

[00:18:26]There's also this longused black line on the ceiling in some parts that serves as a guide originally stained there by candle smoke. Guides like this likely led people to secret events like the spooky concert that was held in the catacombs in 1897. Concerts are the most tame of the alleged events held in tunnels. Rumors abound of Satanists and witches holding black mass or other damned and bloody rituals. Various news articles over the years have breathlessly reported on this, further emboldened by the apparent discoveries of satanic graffiti and relics and ritual leftovers, most of which are almost certainly left there by vandals, people joking around, or perhaps people actually trying to hold some sort of ritual and don't really know what they're doing. Basically, the equivalent of teenagers using a Ouija board. Anyone with a basic passing knowledge of witchcraft and modern witchcraft spiritualist practices can tell that these pieces of evidence are funky. And if you know anything about the genuine Satanist movement these days, you'll know that these claims are too. So, no, you don't need to worry about people summoning demons in the catacombs. They're too busy doing that at Gydenord. Even back when the catacombs first opened to tourists for exploration, people were becoming disillusioned to it being full of terrors, an idea that has only become extremely pervasive in the last several decades. The catacombs aren't truly unknown territory anymore after all. In an 1815 edition of the New Reagazine, one anonymous author wrote, "Death nevertheless loses some of his terrors in the bosom of the catacombs. His work here is accomplished. Worms have consumed the forsaken tenement of the spirit. Its remains are only consigned to the ravages of time who gradually associates them again with the dust from which they sprang. By the 1970s, a new type of guy had emerged, the cataphiles.

[00:20:21]These are the dedicated catacombs enthusiasts and experts, many of whom spend a great deal of time underground out of love for the place and who frequently act as protectors of the tunnels against rascals or, you know, whatnot. It is strictly illegal to enter most areas of the catacombs without authorization. So, it's like a thrill to sort of invade this secret sacred space and map out its endless hidden pathways.

[00:20:47]Catophiles have set up murals, shrines, hangout spaces. One group even set up a fully functioning movie theater and bar restaurant. A lot of the most wacky stories about scary things that have happened in the catacombs have been deliberately invented either by cataphiles or just tourists having a brief jaunt to the depths. Controlling the narrative of the catacombs and its history is an enticing taste of power for many cataphiles. They see themselves as wardens and carriers of a great history that in its own way is still alive. Why do seemingly normal people with families and successful careers choose to spend their free time underground? I think it is for a lot of reasons. Laurent, for example, has created an entire underground abode in a quarry near where he lives in a suburb.

[00:21:34]After a week of working in the sewers, he escapes to the underground for the weekend. For an introvert like him, I think the isolation is what he seeks.

[00:21:41]Others clearly go down to escape the stresses of family life or work on the surface. When I asked Anjalik why she was a cataphile, she said, "I like the quiet, the calm." She added, "When I come back up, I am not tired. I feel relaxed and refreshed. Not everyone agrees. Horror stories and urban legends about the catacombs persist stubbornly, usually without evidence. One especially famous tale being that of the abandoned video camera in the 1990s found by cataphiles. The footage of the camera is disturbing, showing a person who had gotten lost in the labyrinth, gone mad, dropped the camera, and disappeared.

[00:22:17]Various blogs claim that he was dragged away by demons that had been summoned by Satanists. Others say that the incident inspired the film as above so below, and still others say that it's possible the story was entirely created to promote the movie. There's a long, long history of people acting like fools down there, like it's a Halloween horror night's playground and not a literal grave site.

[00:22:41]Over a century before YouTubers started frolicking the tunnels for clicks, a lady named Edith Kirkwood retold her experience touring the catacombs in the 1880s for Arthur's Home magazine. She recalled, "While our guide is speaking, we regret to observe, but little propriety and less reverence is shown by the visitors. Jokes are made about the poor dead bones. Ah, there's my wife, says one. I used to know that fellow. He looks just the same, laughs another. And irreligious references to the last day pain the serious-minded. Shrieks and groans, imitations of the cries of animals, ring through the narrow passages, to the terror of the nervous, the annoyance of the reverend. Our guide reproves those within his range. We do not come here for a frolic, he remarks gravely. Respect for the departed, solemn thoughts for our own end should occupy our minds and regulate our own conduct, but no one heeds him. I don't really blame people for lashing onto the catacombs as this haunted, spooky horror palace. It genuinely is creepy and disturbing. People are terrified of the unknown, and the catacombs are a very real, physical, tangible example of a dark, wet space that resists being fully known and understood. And man, is it really, really wet. That limestone drips like crazy all over the place. Whether there are ghosts down there, I really can't say. Maybe there are. Personally, I didn't experience anything. It was quiet. I felt exactly the same as the account written by Henry Matthews in his 1822 memoir, Diary of an Invalid. Though a visit to the catacombs leaves a painful impression, the moral effect is wholesome. You return to the world more disposed to be in good humor with yourself and with it. On our way out of the catacombs, we had the opportunity to sign a digital guest book. In a way, leaving our own mark on the catacombs.

[00:24:31]Maybe that's narcissistic, but I guess I don't really think so. History relies on the urge people have to leave their mark somewhere in the world, even if it's somewhere they're not supposed to be.

[00:24:43]Then we climbed all those 10 billion stairs back up into the light of the world again, the living Paris. But the Paris of the dead felt infinitely more present under our feet than before. I think that's part of why I loved the Oscillawary so much. You can feel so much more connected to the city having seen its grim underside. Once you've walked through it, you can understand the beauty in it, too. Thank you for learning with me about the Paris Catacombs. Have you ever visited yourself? Do you know any cataphiles or are you one? Any wacky stories? Let me know in the comments below. Speaking of Paris, don't forget to grab a copy of my graphic novel, Liberated: The Radical Art and Life of Claude Gahun. Don't forget to head to the link in description below and use codes YTE730 or Lotus30 for $30 off the E7 Pro standing desk or the Lotus chair. And until next time, wash thy hands, wear thy mask, and don't go treasure hunting in any tunnels.

[00:25:41]Heat. Heat.