In the spring of 1984 I was invited to by a colleague to partake in a clandestine exploration of the Catacombs of Paris.

Layered between the famous Parisian metro and the infamous Parisian sewers is an immense network of underground passageways know as the Catacombs. Originally, the Catacombs were quarries. From as far back as the middle ages, Parisian masons dug their stones out of the ground to build their grand chateaux and cathedrals as well as their more modest little houses thus creating an expansive system of tunnels. The quarries were worked for centuries without supervision until the authorities banned their operation in 1810 after a series of catastrophic cave-ins. In 1785, the city officials decided to use the quarries as burial grounds. The bones of some six million skeletons were moved there from overcrowded cemeteries considered to be health hazards. Among their ranks were the rattled bones of Rabelais, Pascal, Montesquieu, and the Mansard Brothers. The ossuary workers had a bizarre artistic temperament. They amused themselves by stacking the bones in macabre skull-and crossbones arrangements. Technically, the term "Catacombs" refers to the 11,000 square meters of ossuary known as the Empire of the Dead. However, in the folklore of the people, all 300 kilometers of tunnels from the original quarries also carry the appellation "The Catacombs of Paris".

There are many wondrous rumors about the sights of the Catacombs. There is talk of magnificent underground lakes of crystal clear water. Some of the sights are said to be more ghoulish. Under the cemetery of Montparnasse, they say there is a large cavern in the center of which you will find a huge pile of old bones thrown down from a hole above. Under the Centre Psychiatrique de Sainte Anne, you may find the bones of lunatics still in the tiny cells where they had been put by the authorities under the Nazi occupation. I have heard that it is possible to go from the castle of Versaille to Paris (a distance of some 25 kilometers) completely underground. Perhaps Louis XVI and his family could have averted their sordid fate at the blade of France's harshest mistress, la guillotine, had they made use of this fact.

Not that many years ago it was a popular thing for groups of adventurers to go down into the tunnels at night in search of booty. The authorities took a dim view of these proceedings. They sealed off all the entrances and forbade entry without a permit. Yet, as they couldn't very well patrol 300 kilometers of underground passages 24 hours a day, small parties of adventurers continue to surreptitiously penetrate this subterranean empire under the cloak of nightfall. Although the hazards are great, they are only a fraction of the rewards in treasure and fame that is to be had.

I was advised by my host to come prepared with some knee-high boots, a flashlight and a helmet. I bought and borrowed these materials and packed a knapsack with provisions. I asked Eusibio Garate, an American physicist of Spanish/Italian heritage if he would accompany me in the journey. He was a handy man in a pinch and a good friend (until he later became my arch enemy, but that's another story). We were told to rendez-vous at La Place de Rungis in the 13th arrondissement at half past 11 at night. It was there that our host and guide knew of an unsealed entrance.

I arrived at La Place de Rungis at 11:30 sharp. Garate had already arrived, but there was hardly another soul in sight. He reported that a car had just driven by, given him the once over and then drove down the street and parked. We sought out the car and found a group of 3 or 4 Frenchies standing around the car. "Are you friends of Bruno?" I queried. "You are ze Americans?", replied an attractive French brunette. Bruno, it seemed, had gone off to find the entrance. The people had already arrived and split up into small groups to avoid attracting attention. I took a second look at La Place de Rungis and noticed that there were indeed several small groups of people standing in the shadows where before I had seen none.

In time, Bruno materialized. He had found an access to the entrance. The group quickly mobilized and geared up. Garate had borrowed a couple pairs of overalls from his lab which we put on. I put on the helmet and boots which I had borrowed. The boots were too tight, but I decided to wear them anyway as I was warned that it would be wet down there. Garate, poor soul, had neither helmet nor boots. He wore a pair of old shoes. We both brought flashlights.

Among the others, many wore big boots, but some simply wore beat-up all shoes like Garate. Most wore old clothes. Someone had brought a whole trunk full of helmets so there were almost enough helmets to go around. These helmets had little gas jets attached to them to provide light. Just about everyone had either a flashlight or a gaslight helmet. We were ready.

Although Bruno knew where the entrance was, it was unfortunately locked within a privately owned lumber yard. By careful inspection of the circumference of the lumber yard, he was able to find a hole in the huge fence. Once again we broke into small groups. We climbed thorough some dense shrubbery on the hillside until we arrived at the hole. Within minutes we were all on the inside. On the interior of the lumber yard there was a railroad track which we followed through various train tunnels silently in the darkness for several kilometers. There we assembled before an entrance to the underworld.

Before we descended, we did a head count: there were nineteen people and two Americans. We climbed down, single file, into a hole with rungs on the side that formed a ladder as in a manhole. At the front of the line was our guide, Bruno. Bringing up the rear were his two lieutenants. Garate and I held to the back of the line, just before the lieutenants.

There were two copies of the map: one in the front and one at the rear of the party. The map was invaluable. Without it we would have surely gotten lost in the myriad paths of the labyrinth for hours if not days or weeks. The map had been compiled by first year architecture students at the University of Paris. Architects and contractors can buy very detailed maps of the city's subterranean networks, but each map only covers a small portion of the city (about a city block) as the architects need only know about the ground under which they are building. Each of these little maps are quite expensive and to collect all the maps for the whole city of Paris would cost a small fortune. Our map was the result of countless hours the students had poured over the library copies of the city maps. There were many errors and omissions that were to later haunt us, but still the map was a veritable treasure in itself.

Despite the map, it was only minutes before our fearless leader had marched us straight into a dead-end passage. He called out an "demi-tour" (about face). The two lieutenants were now leading the pack. They were rather impatient young men and they ran off to scout ahead. To our surprise, this left Garate and myself at the head of the expedition, leading with neither experience nor the map. We took the challenge bravely and courageously led the expedition onward.

The walls were made of various kinds of stone bricks. Different tunnels were made of different materials. Among them were white chalk, clay, limestone, marl, sand and plaster. The walls were covered with various markings left behind by adventurers of times long forgotten. Many of the tunnels had street signs on them indicating the names of corresponding surface streets. Some of the streets still exist today (rue d'AlŽsia, rue Bezout, rue de la Tombe, Montrouge). Other street names were unfamiliar and did not sustain the ravishes of time. Each sign had a date under the name. The dates ranged from 1740's to the late 1800's. There were some empty wine bottles and Marlboro cigarette cartons showing signs of recent visitors.

Sometimes the tunnels were big enough to stand in, but at other times we were obligated to crouch down to avoid bumping our heads. Each time we entered a passage with a particularly low roof, it was our practice for each person to turn and warn the person behind him. Garate would turn and warn me and I would in turn warn the person behind me. Naturally, since I continued to walk forward while facing the person behind me, I would often then crack my head on the ceiling as if to illustrate and punctuate my warnings. (from this I concluded that the helmet was a necessary and important piece of equipment.)

Now and again, as we dropped below the water table, the ground would get wet and slippery. We would see stalactites hanging from the cave ceiling. Sometimes the water would rise up to our ankles and we would have to wade through it. At these times, I greatly appreciated my boots (tight as they were) and I sympathized with poor Garate's cold, soaked feet.

By this time our guide had already retaken the lead after lecturing us not to lead everyone off again. We took another head count and came up with eighteen people and two Americans. This discrepancy with the previous count (which did not seem to disturb anyone) was attributed to an error in tabulation occurring during the original count. Bruno and his two lieutenants were having a difference in option as to exactly how to interpret the map. Garate's suggestion that a compass would be helpful, was met by icy stares. The result of the discussion was that we did several more "demi-tours" before reaching a consensus. Finally, they were agreed as to our position. They picked a destination and preceded towards it with gusto. Each time we came to a fork, they piled stones in front of the path not taken in order to facilitate our return.

Soon, we were in a passage where the water was up to our ankles. I took comfort in the fact that my feet which hurt like the dickens in those tight boots were at least dry. As we progressed, so did the water level. Soon it was up to our knees, but we continued onward. Soon it was up to our thighs, but we continued bravely. It was at this point that I felt an icy shudder go up my spine as my boots filled up with cold water. How the life of an adventurer is perilous! A few yards further and our leader announced that the situation was grave and would only get worse. After a quick discussion, it was suggested that we explore an alternative route. "Demi-tour." I grumbled in my water-filled boots as I would have greatly preferred that we did this about-face five minutes earlier. I felt like I was walking in fishbowls. To our profound dismay, we found the alternative passage also filled with water. (it had rained that day and the water table was high.) We marched on courageously when our leader asked who knew how to swim. Up ahead we could see that the water continued to rise until there remained only a few centimeters of air at the top of the tunnel. Bruno wanted to continue anyway, but acquiesced as there was mutiny in the ranks. "Demi-tour". What were we to do now? The only two passages on the map to the great treasure Bruno knew of were submerged with water.

For a while we staggered around, stunned by profound disappointment. We wandered into many a dead end hardly consulting the map. We were lost again when we heard a deafening thunder. I consulted my watch. It was 1:20AM. That was the last metro roaring away. Burno's leadership was awakened by the noise and he charged off leading the party in the direction of the bellowing sound. Garate and I were once again at the end of the party followed by the two lieutenants. After marching for a while, I looked behind me and was startled to see three people instead of two following us. Nonplused, I tapped Garate on the should and requested his analysis of the situation. Had we been joined by another party? Were my senses already beginning to fail me in these infernal tunnels? As we continued our forward march, there were soon more behind us. Garate, who had been studying the markings on the wall, purported having an eerie sense of dŽjˆ vu. We had seen these markings before and recently at that!

While we were puzzling over our discovery, Bruno, our fearless leader, came up from the rear of the party laughing hardily grinning from ear to ear.

"What's so damn funny?" I demanded.
"We are going in circles."
"Yes, we were beginning to suspect as much."
"Yes, I know that and you know that, but how long till the others figure it out?"

It was indeed another ten minutes before those in the middle of the party discovered Bruno's trickery and stopped circling. By then Bruno had disappeared with the maps. A massive search party was organized. The whole party hunted and called out to him endlessly until a seeming eternity later, Bruno was found cowering in a side corridor

There was talk of a lynching, but just then we heard a terrible rumbling, stomping din coming towards us. I thought our number was up and that the metro control must have heard us making all that noise while they were locking up for the night. Much to our surprise, a group of fierce looking pirates appeared out of nowhere. They wore bandannas and their faces were covered in soot. Actually, there were only three or four of them and, to tell the truth, they looked rather young and hardly menacing. They were lost and desperate to look at our map.

Not far from there we came upon a large pile of old bones which we feared to be the unfortunate remains of past adventurers. There were hip bones, thigh bones, knee bones - you name it. Garate wanted a skull as a souvenir, but failed to find a suitable Yorrick to adorn his mantle.

As we continued on our exploration, we found ourselves a little cramped as a good part of many tunnels were taken up by the telephone cables. Occasionally, we would pass by a deep pit. Some thoughtful guardian had put chains in front of the pits to keep unsuspecting adventurers from falling to a grisly death. Each time we passed such a pit, I would shine my flashlight down half expecting to see skeletons at the bottom. The pits dropped down a good fifteen meters where they would connect with another level of tunnels. The side of the pits were lined with rungs for climbing. If you looked carefully, you would usually see one or two openings along the side of the pit which lead to yet other levels.

From time to time we would stumble across an exit to the outside world. Some of the exits were tunnels lined with rungs leading straight up, perhaps to street manholes. Others were nicely carved circular stair cases leading up to metro stations. When we found such a staircase, we would all scamper up it only to get three quarters of the way up when someone at the top would yell down that it was sealed off. Then we would all shuffle down the stairs and continue on our merry way. We practiced this little fire drill many times throughout the evening without it ever occurring to anyone that it would have been more efficient to send a single scout up the manhole to see if the exit were sealed.

We once found a beautifully carved staircase which we descended down to another level. We explored the lower level for a little while when we were seized by that peculiar sensation of dŽjˆ vu already so familiar to us that evening. Then, all of the sudden, we found ourselves once again at the top of the staircase. By what strange principle of Escheresque architecture had we ended up back where we started by climbing only down without ever climbing back up, I shall never understand.

Every now and again, we would stop momentarily to get our bearings. I would profit from these occasions to attempt to empty the water from my boots. They were so tight that I could not take them off without considerable difficulty. I found that I could drain at least part of the water from by boots by bending my knee while lifting my foot up to my belt. The icy water would then stream down my leg and drip from my knee. It was to the great amusement of my companions that my boots contained a seemingly endless supply of liquid rather like those flacons of wines given as gifts by gods posing as humans in Greek mythology.

We had been exploring for many hours and it was now near three o'clock in the morning. Despite the excitement, the group was starting to get tired & restless. Garate express it well for us all when he remarked that when you've seen one tunnel, you've see them all. Of course, since we were probably walking in circles again by then, the tunnels may have all looked the same because they were the same!

Nevertheless, the general consensus was that we should now embark on a destination more daring and different. Someone suggest that we go off and visit the cemetery Montrouge, but Bruno insisted that we were under the cemetery right now and had been for the past two hours! He was at a loss to explain why we only came upon a paltry handful of bones.

Nonetheless, he came up with an alternative proposal and led us off through a maze of tiny, twisty, little passages all alike. When we were all ready to drop from exhaustion, we came upon our destination: the bomb shelter at Denfer Rochereau. There we found a long metallic staircase leading straight up to the metro station Denfert Rochereau. We scampered up this staircase, but it was sealed tighter than a drum.

We descended and examined the bomb shelter. After the fall of France to the Nazi occupation forces in WWII, this bomb shelter became the underground headquarters famous French Resistance. There were no more than a dozen rooms made of steel and, of course, there were no windows. Some of the rooms were completely empty, leaving no clue to how they were used. Others had stencil titles painted above the doorways: "toilettes", "administration". One room had a rusty old generator in it. In the middle of the room was a table with curious holes in the center of it vaguely suggestive of strange tribal rites.

How it must have felt to live underground, crowded into little tin boxes with no natural light, one can scarcely image. Filled with anger, fear and hunger, these people led an eerie existence. Prisoners of the world gone made, they found self-expression in the macabre graffiti that blanketed the metallic walls. There were of course some new additions from the New York school of obscene graffiti, but Resistance graffiti dominated the desperate mood of the shelter.

The most striking one was the ghastly figure of a man that was drawn on many of the walls. It was the vignette of a man standing upright with a rigid woody tension. The thin sinewy shape seemed to exude a pitiable character of suffering and determination. Its faceless figure added an element of frightening anonymity.

In one room there were three such figures lined up on a wall. The first two were standing in ridged attention. The third, also rigid, was at a diagonal as if it were a tin soldier falling over. On the adjacent wall there was a fourth figure, like the first three except this one was holding a rifle which was aimed at the other. It was shooting them down like targets at an amusement park.

What a terrifying picture of cold impersonal world is seen through this artist eyes. I thought how lucky we are to live in better times. Lost in contemplation of times past, I failed to notice that the others had left. Alone, deep in the heart of the Catacombs, lost without a map, fear clutched at my stomach. I scampered after my companions who, happily, were not too far ahead.

The trip back from the underworld was as discouraging as it was long. At 4:30AM, we no longer had the stamina nor the esprit de corps necessary for the seemingly endless obstacles that confronted us. The shortcut Bruno proposed was inundated with water. Alternative paths were blocked by cave-ins. We found one tunnel leading straight up to a manhole near Denfert Rochereau, but it was blocked. My feet were by now in excruciating pain. After seemingly endless passages, the man two people ahead of me turned around to announce yet another dead end. As the woman directly in front of me squeezed her fingers tightly around his neck, he was barely able to squeak out that he was joking. Not a very funny joke at that, I quite agree. At long last, we begun to recognize the stones we had put in front of the passages that we had not taken. Before we knew it, we were climbing the rungs of the passage at the entrance to the Catacombs at the railway tracks. We had made it back safely from the underworld!

We parted company amicably at La Place de Rungis at 5:30AM. Garate went home, took a shower, went to bed, woke up and took another shower and still smelled of sewer crud. I went home, recounted my adventure to my lover and went to sleep for a long, long time. When I woke up, my lover told me that all through my heavy slumber, I had been tossing and turning and crying "watch your head" in my sleep.

Paul Linhardt
Paris, le 1 juin 1984

(c) 1996 Paul Linhardt

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