FLORIAN, a gregarious young Swiss student on my French course in Paris, mentioned the other day that he was going to a party later on in the Catacombs. I was tempted to join him, and would apparently have been welcome: all you had to do was bring your own torch. But I had certain misgivings about the idea.
Having to bring your own torch, for one. Not knowing any of the other guests, for another. Being old enough – probably – to be everyone’s father. Oh yes, and the fact that the whole thing was illegal.
Sure, you can visit the Parisian catacombs without breaking any law. There are guided tours of a small section at Denfert-Rochereau, open daily. But Florian’s party was in one of the vast areas now officially off-limits because, among other reasons, they can be dangerous and because people sometimes get lost.
Only last month, a group did just that, their sense of direction perhaps impaired by alcohol. Happily, it took 30 members of the police only two days to locate them and then to hit them with fines of €135 each for being there.
Truth to tell, my biggest reservation about Florian’s expedition was the thought that if the party was boring, it might not be the sort you could leave early. So, fascinating as it sounded, I passed up the chance.
When he got back, eventually, he told me the story, in between complaining that every muscle in his body hurt. For a start, getting to the venue had involved a three-hour walk – overground as far as the hole under a wall in a disused railway station where they entered, and thereafter below.
There were sections where you had to crawl on elbows and knees, or walk hunched over, or tramp through pools of water: hence the aching muscles. But at least there were was no danger of getting lost, because the group leaders were hardcore “cataphiles”, who spend much of their leisure time under the city and knew all the passages as intimately as the streets above.
In some cases, they have jobs and normal lives overground, but take their holidays below. They bring provisions to last a week or two at a time. And apart from eating and drinking, they play music, watch films, make art, and whatever else they fancy.
The more I heard about it, the more my fascination deepened, although certain details – the crawling on elbows, the fact that the party had lasted 24 hours – also deepened my relief at not having attended. “Let me know the next time you’re going down,” I told Florian. “I’ll clear my diary.”
IN FACT, “catacombs” is a misnomer for most of the subterranean spaces, which originated as limestone quarries, first dug by the Romans. In later centuries, the stone used in the Louvre and Notre Dame came from the same source. Thus, by the late 18th century, the city was so undermined that buildings started falling down holes.
Alarmed, the authorities took to mapping the old quarries and where necessary back-filling them. And it was around the same time that human bones, from the overcrowded city cemeteries, were dumped there, including those of Robespierre and other children of the Revolution. During the 20th century, the 3,000km network of pits and tunnels was used variously by Resistance fighters and later the student protesters of 1968. Then in recent decades, they became the focus of a more general kind of freedom seeker.
The extent of the underground culture was highlighted by such discoveries as (in 2004) a cinema – complete with bar, seats, and illegal electricity cables, somewhere far below the Trocadero. So in the past few years the authorities have been sealing up all known entrance points. The access gained by Florian his pals was one of a handful still open.
IN CERTAIN WAYS, the Parisian underground only mirrors what’s above it. Just as the overground city has the Paris Plage, a section of Seine riverbank that, in summer, everybody pretends is the seaside, so the netherworld has a “beach”.
Arguably, it’s more convincing than the one laid on by City Hall. Named for all the sand found there, the underground “beach” is a favourite location of graffiti artists whose work includes a giant Hokusai-style tsunami. Not content with beach-live, however, some cataphiles like to dive in old wells and water-filled pits, the biggest of which is under the Opera Garnier and contains a few fish.
It all sounds extraordinary and I’ll really have to visit some time. But for now, I think I’ll stick to the surface of the city. It is, after all, interesting enough to be going on with, and sometimes murky enough too.
Take the Place de l’Estrapade, around the corner from the old Irish College, where I’ve been staying. It’s a pleasant little triangle, typical of Paris, with tree-shaded benches and a couple of bars. But if you dig a little – or just consult a dictionary – you find that it takes its name from a medieval torture instrument.
The estrapade was a variation on the rack, with added cruelty. Its unfortunate victims were suspended from a frame by their wrists and had heavy weights attached to their feet. Then they were hoisted high in the air and dropped sharply, in instalments. “Torture by dislocation” it was called. And with details like that so near the surface, who needs the Parisian underworld?