Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1910 — Mysteries of the Catacombs of Paris [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Mysteries of the Catacombs of Paris

At 6:30 p. m., recently, the corner of the rue Damremont and the rue de Tourlaque, Paris, sank into the ground. Pedestrians saw a man and woman disappear. The man, twenty feet down, buried to the hips in falling dirt, heard the woman crying: “Monsieur, I a»m the mother of a family, save me!” The hole enlarged. Tons of debris poured in. Two policemen, let down with ropes, disengaged the man. But the woman had disappeared. The hole was fifteen feet long, twelve feet wide and thirty feet deep. Police and troops made a cordon; firemen evacuated the adjoining houses. At a depth of 108 feet they found the body of Mme. Chevalier—on the floor of a gallery of the ancient catacombs! They blame the recent heavy rains, undermining the surface; because, the next day, a spot ten feet square In the quadrangle of the old Louvre Palace, sank knee-deep with a crowd of tourists. Next, two days later, a part of the Place of the Palais Royal went down three feet in the midst of pedestrian traffic. In neither case had the Metropilitan Underground Railway anything to do w-ith the cave-ins. At this hour, the Paris under-realm shelters incredible enterprises; storehouses of criminal bands; vast mushroom plantations of honest underground farmers; stored bones of generations of Parisians, and luxurious secret refuges of rich families. It Is the whole story of old Paris.

The Paris of the middle ages was quarried underground for the stone built above ground. In the days of Joan of Arc there was already a subterranean labyrinth under half Paris, already a mystery, where Satanailost Hardy de Passavant and the Duke of Burgundy met the heads of the trades unions. Fantastic streets, their smooth stone ceilings forty feet beneath the surface, emptied into vast dark halls, turned, intersected, without plan, according to the quality of the stone. Galleries dating from Gallo-Roman times had become forgotten in Gothic times —as tourists know who have stayed at a certain pension near the Pantheon. The known extent of this underground world is astonishing. Up to the twelfth century the palaces, churches, public and larger private buildings were constructed from catacombs quarried under 1,500 acres of the present surface in the three wellknown groups—under the Gobelins; under the Latin quarter, and, on the other side, the whole Trocadero quarter. How Is it that this underworld does not cave in oftener? The weaker surfaces have already caved In. In particular, around the year 1774, the caveins. following prolonged rains and much new building, became so numerous as to alarm the population. At the moment when a commission was examining a house in the Rue de'Enfer went down—entire —twenty-eight yards below the surface —into an abyss. Drayloads of boxed goods enter certain Monmartre courtyards in plain daylight—and disappear. No search could find them. They gave gone down concealed elevators to a primitive little railway that runs through some old quarry gallery, five blocks, ten blocks, ta another part of Paris. Some honest commission merchant hoists them up and mingles them with other goods, all ready for'shipment.

There Is even a persistent Paris rumor of “R. C.”—“the King of ihe Catacombs.” In the version usefl by Gaston Leroux he is chief of a disciplined army of foreigners, counterfeiters, burglars and abductors for ransom, attacking only the very rich and operating without scandal. In the quarter of the Pantheon where superposed galleries exist below the level of the Metro, the King of the Catacombs has a secret chamber. Surrounding it, in a circle, are the headquarters of each of his sections, watched and overheard by “R. C.,” when he pleases, through a circle of peep-holes. This vast conspiracy, which utilizes equally young men of good society as Indicators, clerks of public services as spies, physicians to give false certificates and bands of Apaches to muddle clews of expert burglary, has experts to work its counterfeiting presses, execute its forgeries and frauds on insurance companies. The work is done in leisurely impunity 100 feet beneath Paris. Electric lighting, steam heat, sci'entiflc ventilating, vast underground kitchens, heavy carpets and hangings, luxurious furniture in sleeping-rooms and clubrooms makes this realm of “R. C.” seem like pipe dream romance. But the police know its existence and are powerless. The catacombs are a .maze, a labyrinth, tangled with masonry and cave-ins! r •>

Subterranean Paris! It is a wonderful place, concealing mysteries, honest and dishonest, equally enticing to the imagination. It has been long known, long forgotten. It has enjoyed long Impunity. But now that the Metropolitan Underground Railway is throwing its branches, literally, under the entire capital, the supporting surfaces that were just strong enough are being weakened. A few streets have caved in. There will be more. You will hear lots more of Subterranean Paris! — ...