Hidden Cities: Travels to the Secret Corners of the World's Great Metropolises; A Memoir of Urban Exploration

by Gates, Moses

  The remains of these departed souls didn’t get the nice, neat treatment of the ones you pay to see. Instead of being neatly stacked along the wall, they’re flung haphazardly into small rooms and tunnels. In one tunnel, the shaft that the bones were thrown down was never fully sealed up, and they reach from the tunnel back up into the shaft, somehow stuck to the wall. The result is eerie: crawling in the tunnel and looking up the shaft, it seems like you’re about to be buried in an avalanche of centuries-old dry bones. There are almost no skulls—we were later told that pretty much all of them had been taken for souvenirs.

  It’s easy to forget the humanity involved in these tombs when the bones are all that’s left of the people they belonged to, just random Parisians from centuries past. I imagine that this isn’t what most people would want with their remains—to be buried with thousands of others, dug up as a public health hazard, and randomly thrown underground without even being stacked up nicely like some others. But there are other, more specific resting places in the catacombs, ones for people whose individual stories are pressed into service as stand-ins for the countless others who’ve been forgotten.

  After leaving the ossuaries behind, we decide to seek out one of these, the tomb of the aforementioned Philibert Aspairt. Philibert is a legend, often referred to as one of the first cataphiles. When he disappeared in 1793, it was rumored he had entered the catacombs underneath the Val-de-Grâce military hospital, one of the oldest parts of the tunnels, and was looking for the wine cellars of the monks of Chartreux when his torch went out. When his body, reduced to a skeleton, was found in 1804, it was gripping a ring of keys, minutes from an exit. After hearing this story, I didn’t feel silly for carrying three extra flashlights around with me.

  After our time navigating around the catas, I can’t imagine how Philibert ever had a chance at that wine. Even with the benefits of LED lights and an annotated map, it takes us hours to wind our way over to his tomb. The catacombs are incredibly mazy, with myriad dead ends, offshoots, intersections, and splits. It’s not difficult to walk in most of the tunnels: they’re a comfortable height, or close to it. But there are times the height of the tunnels suddenly lowers and we find ourselves crawling or doing what we deem the “cata walk,” a quick crouching stride through tunnels about five feet in height. After about fifty feet of this, your ass and thighs feel like they’ve been lit on fire, but it’s better than crawling. I’m a little concerned about Steve during these stretches, remembering his broken hip and limp after the tunnel run. I’m worried I sound like his mother when I bring it up, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

  “Yeah, the hip thing kind of comes and goes,” he tells me. “Sometimes it really bothers me, sometimes it’s totally fine. A lot of it depends on if I’m doing a lot of climbing and my leg muscles get really strong. That seems to help a lot. And of course this doesn’t hurt,” he adds, holding up our half-drunk bottle of whiskey.

  FLOODED CATA TUNNEL.

  The variety of rooms we pass seems endless, ranging from little more than caves to elaborate multilevel structures that wouldn’t be out of place in your average nineteenth-century Parisian aboveground building. But the variety of tunnels is even greater: two feet high to ten feet high; lined with concrete, brick, neatly stacked blocks of stone, and rough, naked limestone; boasting graffiti, carvings, and disused utility cables. These tunnels are the backbone of the catas—all of the different types forming an interconnected network.

  That’s what the catacombs are: a network. About the same time poor Philibert disappeared, what used to be an unrelated collection of quarries—mostly limestone and gypsum—was slowly and systematically being discovered, mapped, and stabilized in a process known as “the consolidations.” Belowground uncertainty affected aboveground development: you never knew when you might start excavating for your dream house and hit a sinkhole caused by an improperly stabilized, long-forgotten limestone mine. When large-scale development started above what today is the XIVe arrondissement, these “consolidations” became needed. The result is a comprehensive network of stabilized tunnels dug mostly in the pursuit of these abandoned quarries. To this day it’s overseen and maintained by the Inspection Générale des Carrières (IGC), the municipal agency that was first charged with the task of the consolidations. The IGC is actually the oldest government agency in France, surviving two empires, three monarchies, five republics, a Nazi-run military administration, and the seventy-one days of the socialist Paris Commune in 1871. Making sure the city doesn’t fall into a hole in the ground is a fairly nonpolitical function.

  Another result of this consolidation is the map we’re using, which is essentially a version of one developed two centuries ago by the IGC, annotated and updated by various cataphiles over the years. And finally we make our way into a small room in the upper right-hand section of this map marked “Tombe de Philibert,” where poor Philibert is memorialized by a tombstone set into a wall, with a short inscription telling his story. It reads:

  À la mémoire de Philibert Aspairt perdu dans cette carrière le III novbre MDCCXCIII retrouvé onze ans après et inhumé en la même place le XXX avril MDCCCIV

  (In memory of Philibert Aspairt, lost in this quarry on November 3, 1793, found eleven years later and buried in the same place on April 30, 1804)

  LA TOMBE DE PHILIBERT.

  © Eric Ruggiero 2012 –

  www.ericruggiero.com

  Nobody really knows if his bones are actually buried behind the wall with the tombstone set into it. Cataphiles aren’t shy about breaking through walls; they do it all the time to create the chatières. We later learn the wall behind the tombstone has been dug through twice. But nobody has ever found Philibert’s remains.

  By the time we make our way over to Philibert, we’re exhausted. We thought we had prepped correctly for the trip but didn’t count on the sheer amount of time we’d be down there. It’s not my fault. I’ve done a great job navigating, with Steve’s impromptu half-hour photo sessions the main culprit. After a quick hello to the remains of our predecessor (and another twenty minutes taking photos), we start heading back south to the entrance. We still have plenty of time in Paris. We can afford to leave further exploration for another day.

  Steve says: Moe did not do a “great job” navigating. We definitely got lost a couple times. Moe is actually one of the most annoying people to travel with because he is absolutely sure he always knows the way to wherever we’re going. And he thinks that because we always eventually get to our destination, it means he is always right about his sense of direction. This is entirely false, an utter misconception. And the fact of the matter is, when he is dead wrong with his directions, fortunately I am there, and can normally figure out how to get us back on track. Then, one hour, two hours later, when we finally get to where we’re going, he’ll look around with a pleased smile and say, “See? We got here. I knew where we were going. We just took a roundabout way.”

  Steve and I emerge from the same hole we went in about twelve hours earlier. What I really want to do is crawl up out of the abandoned railroad tracks, hail the nearest cab, and say, “To the Louvre!” Crawling out of the tracks is accomplished without incident. Then I try to hail a cab. The driver takes one look at us, covered in dirt from our twelve hours underground, mumbles a few words, and continues on his way. I catch the eye of another cabdriver. This one doesn’t even slow down. Defeated, we take the subway, arriving thirty minutes later down the street from the Louvre. I walk in wearing the same clothes that I’ve just tried to hail the cab in, although I do ditch the helmet with the carbide torch attached and send it back to the hotel with Steve, who wants to head back rather than go see an art museum. The ticket taker doesn’t look at me twice.

  This is the best idea I’ve had in Paris so far. There are two juxtapositions that make this so. The first is that during the entire time in the catas, the foremost thing on my mind was: “Don’t get lost.” At
almost every turn we were stopping to check the map and make sure that we knew where we were. When I get to the Louvre, I don’t even glance at a map. After twelve hours of pinpoint navigation, I want to just wander and see what I run into.

  The second is the fact that in one day I can see the best of what two vastly different cultural worlds have to offer. In order to truly get to know a city, you have to try to obtain the broadest experience possible. We have a great opportunity to visit a side of Paris few get to see, and I am determined to make the most of it. But I also want to spend some time visiting the highbrow side of Paris, the side everybody gets to see. Both kinds of excursions have equal importance in my mind: they’re flip sides of the same coin. And when I think about it, I realize this interpretation could quite possibly be literal, just substituting “ground” for “coin.” Much of the underground world we were in had been created as an effect of excavating the stone used in constructing the world on the surface. I wonder if some of the walls of the Louvre are made of the stone that used to fill some of the hollow spaces of the world that I had walked through a short time ago—the world that’s the side effect of the creation of buildings like this one, one that houses such incredible works of art and beauty. But that underground world also has art; much of it has been turned into something beautiful too. We’ve only just started our exploration of the catacombs, haven’t yet seen any of this beauty firsthand. But we’re about to.

  SEVEN

  The more we saw of the catacombs, the more we wanted to see. The main attraction that we had missed on our first trip was the “Times Square” of the catacombs: the main rooms not too far from the entrance where most of the young Parisians will go to meet up for parties or longer excursions. It’s also the only part of the catas that’s regularly patrolled by police, although getting caught in the catacombs is not a huge deal, with a civil fine—along the lines of a parking violation—and perhaps an escort to the surface being the only real consequences.

  We meet up with Rosie and her friends again the next day to get some pointers. This time they have us meet them at another squat, this one an abandoned bank. A young, well-dressed guy greets us at the door.

  “So how are you able to live here?” I ask. The bank is right in the middle of the city, in a tony neighborhood that did not seem like it would easily let real estate go for free to a bunch of squatters.

  “Oh,” he tells us in English, “so it is like this. There is a bank, yes? And the bank does not want to be in the building here anymore. So they sell the building to a man to do condo. But instead of condo, we come do squat.” This sentence is said with a certain finality to it—similar to how you might end a story about renting your last apartment with “So then I signed the lease.”

  Later I ask Rosie how long they’ve been there, thinking it’s a temporary crash pad until the developer’s ready to get going.

  “Hmm, maybe six months?” she replies. It turns out that not only are the laws on squatting incredibly liberal in Paris, the whole can’t-be-bothered attitude extends well beyond recreational trespassing to that of the more permanent variety as well. Later on, we’d meet another guy who would manage to live rent-free, complete with electricity, running water, and Wi-Fi, in his own two-bedroom house on the Left Bank for almost a year before the city caught on and politely asked him to move.

  We start to talk about the catacombs again: what there is to see and where to see it. It’s now Friday. Rosie tells us that there are usually more people—and therefore more cops—on the weekends, so we decide to take Saturday off and prep for a longer trip starting Sunday afternoon.

  Our previous trip seemed short, like we didn’t really see much but still took twelve hours. We know that if we want to do a truly comprehensive excursion, we are going to have to sleep down there. I tried to take a nap once on our earlier trip. But no matter where I lay down, whether on limestone, dirt, or the solid stone benches that line some of the rooms, it was like the floor was sucking the heat right out of my body. I need a sleeping bag anyway, so we hit a camping store to pick up some gear.

  Steve does not get a sleeping bag. “The dollar’s at 1.40 to the euro. This is way too expensive,” he says. He instead opts for a cheap emergency foil blanket and a sleeping pad.

  We set out from the hotel mid-afternoon. The trip doesn’t start out so good; we try to get to the abandoned tracks that lead to the entrance a different way from usual. A couple hours, a locked gate, and several confused passersby later, we decide to forget our bright idea, walk about a mile to the entrance we know, and go from there. By the time we get down onto the tracks, it’s dark already. Still, despite this false start, we’re determined to spend as much time as it takes to see what we want to see.

  Most of the noteworthy areas in the catacombs are specifically indicated on the map, using the names for the places that the cataphiles have come up with. The general area we’re headed to on the map is dense with these annotations, with rooms bearing names like “Salle Marie Rose,” “Le Cellier,” “La Plage,” and “La Chambre Egyptienne.” It takes about thirty minutes of walking to get from the entrance to this “Times Square” area. And like the real Times Square, when you first arrive, the visual overload is stunning. Entire underground caverns are covered with murals, sculptures, and art—works of incredible quality despite being done on a stone surface, in 98 percent humidity, and completely without the benefit of natural light. It takes a special kind of artistic vision, one Miru would no doubt appreciate, to spend this kind of time, energy, and skill for an audience of pretty much yourself and some random people who happen to enjoy going into tunnels. Just for starters, you have to spend at least an hour getting there before you even reach your potential canvas, first lugging your paint, lighting, and provisions down some abandoned train tracks and into a hole in the ground, and then winding your way through a tunnel network to your destination.

  But the art isn’t the only thing covering the walls in the catacombs. Much more frequently found throughout the tunnels are graffiti tags. It’s interesting: a stretch of tunnel or cavern wall will generally be either spotless or completely covered in tags. There seems to be a certain social agreement down in the catas: people get to enjoy the freedom to paint and write graffiti to their hearts’ content, yet some of the tunnels are left to be enjoyed in their natural state.

  It’s not just the catacombs that the cataphiles graffiti, though. For instance, when we went up the Tour Saint-Jacques, it was tough to miss the seventy-foot-high letters on the netting surrounding the scaffolding reading: “Sexe, Drogues et Catas. F.C.” F.C. stands for Frotte Connard, which translated literally is “Rub, asshole,” but which Rosie told us should be read as something more like “Erase this, you asshole!” It’s a challenge to the anti-graffiti crowd to try to erase their stuff. Still, as rude as that message on the scaffolding might be, the tower itself is untouched—again, a nice balance of expression and respect.

  Steve spends hours taking photos of the art in these rooms, but I don’t mind at all. It would take days for me to get bored in here. Finally, we pack up the photo gear and get going. We’re off to our bedroom: the bunker used by the Germans during the Nazi occupation of Paris.

  • • •

  There were actually numerous bunkers used in Paris during World War II. A few connect to the catacombs, including a large one used by the Nazis, and another, slightly smaller one that was used by the French Resistance. We couldn’t get into the French Resistance bunker: the entrances had all been sealed up by the IGC. Rosie told us that about a week ago there was a way in, but it had just been filled up with concrete. That’s the way the catas are: parts are sealed up by the IGC and (less often, unfortunately) parts are opened back up by the cataphiles. For tourists like us, what we get to see is pretty much just the luck of the draw.

  The German bunker is in the northernmost part of the catacombs, with the “Times Square” area, where we currently are, near the s
outh. We have a better idea of how to get around the catas than on our last trip, but it still takes us hours of navigating before we get there. This bunker is open—but just barely. The only way in involves squeezing through a tiny chatière, which scrapes both of my shoulders at once. Despite being thoroughly exhausted at this point, I refuse to make the place our bedroom. I just can’t handle the thought of three inches being the difference between waking up tomorrow and enjoying a nice meal and a glass of wine after finishing our trip, and being buried alive.

  We take a while to check out the bunker. There’s nothing to indicate it was ever a Nazi quarters, with the only things even being German the words Notausgang (“Emergency Exit”), which is written on the metal doors, and Rauchen Verboten (“No Smoking”) and Ruhe (“Quiet”), which are stenciled on the wall in several places. I wonder what happened to the Nazi symbols or relics: if the Free French or the IGC or even the cataphiles destroyed them, or if there even were any to begin with.

  After leaving the bunker, we head to a nice-looking room not too far away. It’s strangely reminiscent of an old bathroom, with what looks like a stone sink filled with water. Unfortunately, while nice and roomy, it smells like an old bathroom as well. We decide not to sleep there, either, and end up bedding down in a humble sanctuary a short distance away.

  You would think after several hours of trekking, it would not be too difficult to fall asleep in a cave with no natural light. But there’s a problem: it is absolutely freezing. Even with the sleeping bag, which is supposedly good for temperatures down to just above the freezing point, after about ten minutes I feel like I’m Harry Potter having my soul sucked out by a Dementor. I end up wearing my coat, hat, and two pairs of socks to bed. Steve shivers all night, wrapped in his pitiful-looking foil blanket. I know it’s fifty-five degrees, and am pretty sure there’s no real danger of hypothermia or anything, but I still feel kind of bad. Not bad enough to offer to share my sleeping bag, though. Later we learn the trick is to bring a hammock; there are several places where the cataphiles have set up hammock hooks. As long as your body isn’t actually making contact with the ground, it’s not so bad.