That mighty charnel-house is not without its tragic history. A number of persons have been lost there in spite of all the precautions against accidents; but these have been very rare of late, because so few persons could obtain admission.
A few years ago, a newly-married couple arrived in Paris from the provinces, having gone to the city on their bridal tour. It was their first visit to the capital, and they were naturally desirous to see its lions. The bride had heard a great deal of the Catacombs, and would not be satisfied without exploring them, albeit her husband endeavored to dissuade her from such a dismal enterprise. She was bent on going, and so they went together. He kept close to her side, constantly fearing she might be lost. He admitted that he had a presentiment respecting her, and sure enough it was realized.
AN UNHAPPY HONEYMOON.
They had been in the Catacombs something more than an hour, when, having stopped to examine a curious skull, he called for her to look at it, and discovered, to his horror, that she was missing. There were nearly two hundred in the party, and nobody had observed when or where she had disappeared. They all retraced their steps, entered the adjoining passages, and shouted themselves hoarse to attract her attention; but all in vain. Not the least vestige of her could be discovered. The bridegroom was beside himself with grief, declaring that he knew she would never be found, and calling upon the rocks to fall, and relieve him of his misery. It became necessary to drag him from the sepulchral vault, and when this was done, he proved to be a raving maniac. He was sent to an asylum, where such was the violence of his paroxysms night and day, that he died of exhaustion in less than a fortnight. Diligent search was made for the missing bride, though to no purpose. Not the slightest clew was obtained to her fate, and it was finally conjectured that she must have wandered into some tortuous avenue, and fallen into one of the pits which I have described. Such was the melancholy ending of a honeymoon before it had fairly begun.
Another couple, who had been married a number of years, and who had long lived so inharmoniously that they had gone apart several times, entered the Catacombs in the spring of 1853. The wife was missing when the party came out,—it is always the custom to count the number at the beginning and end of the journey, so as to see that none are lost,—and the husband asserted that he had seen her only a few seconds before. Still, she could not be found on that day or the next; but about a fortnight after, a body answering to her description was discovered in one of the narrow passages into which excursionists are never taken. She had evidently been dead some time, and a deep wound on her temple indicated that she might have perished from violence. Her husband was not free from suspicion of having murdered her; but as she might have been so injured by a fall, he was never openly accused of the crime. The story was generally circulated, and the anti-matrimonial jesters of the capital insinuated that more than a thousand unhappy husbands immediately applied for permission to make the subterranean tour with their wives, in the hope that they might be as fortunate as the ungrieving widower.
IMPRISONED FOR THREE HOURS.
Walking one day on the Boulevards, my companion pointed out to me a well-dressed man, who had a certain prematurely old look, and whose hair was perfectly white. I was told he was only thirty-five, and that, five years before, he had gone into the Catacombs with a young lady to whom he was engaged, and had hidden himself away from the sepulchral pilgrims for a few minutes, that he might learn how his supposed loss would affect his betrothed. He hid himself so very effectually, that three hours elapsed before he could be found. He had in that time entirely surrendered all hope of release, and the physical changes of years had fallen upon him. He has often described his sensations during those hours, and has represented them as the most terrible he could conceive of. (I can imagine, yes, even understand, what they must have been by my own experience.) The revolution in his mental was as great as the revolution in his physical nature; and after his distressing sensations, all his freshness and buoyancy of feeling departed. With a strange morbidity, he associated the young lady on whom he had wished to try the sentimental experiment with the agony he had endured, and though she was as wretched as any woman ought to be when he was missed, he broke off his engagement, and refused to see her again after that eventful day. The gentleman may be living still; for, in spite of appearances, he had an excellent constitution and vigorous health. He was in good circumstances, and went to dine regularly at the Café Anglais, where he had told his story so often, that he had received the name of “Catacombes” Beaudinet. Nothing remarkable except that had ever happened to him, and as he was a Frenchman, and fond of prattle, his one adventure filled him, and rendered him a bore of the first water.
A MANIA FOR SUICIDE.
As is well known, the French not only have a passion for suicide, but a passion for committing it at certain places, and in certain ways, that seems to be contagious. Forty years ago, a young journalist, while exploring the Catacombs in company with many of his acquaintances, naturally fell to talking on the subject of death, and expressed his opinion that there was nothing awful in it, or even unwelcome. Some of his friends rallied him on this position, and told him he would think very differently if he were conscious that death was near at hand. He stoutly denied that it would change his sentiments in the least, and when nobody appeared to believe him, he suddenly drew a small knife from his pocket, and before any one was aware of his intention, he thrust it into his heart. His suicide, in such a place too, filled his friends with horror, and the press, as he had been a member of the guild, gave detailed accounts of the tragedy, accompanied by strange theories and analyses of the causes that must have led to it. For several weeks, the Paris journals were full of communications on the subject; and they so aroused public attention and curiosity, that in less than six months nearly twenty men stabbed themselves to death in the Catacombs—all of them unquestionably the effect of example.
The Catacombs are the reverse side of the fair picture of Paris. Never since my journey through them have I been able to forget that they lie black and yawning under some of the most beautiful quarters of the capital. When the sunshine is brightest along the Seine, I think of the darkness below. When the city smiles fairest, I recall the millions of grinning skeletons underneath. When the music from the gardens, and the concerts, and the operas sounds sweetest, I fancy mingling among the strains a mournful dirge for the departed and forgotten, so confusedly heaped together in the awful dreariness of the Catacombs.