A drive through north-west France

[RooFlyer]

A reminder that the walls merely hold back random piles of millions of bones.









Of course, while the ossuary was being created, the French Revolution was raging above. The Place de Greve was a central staging point for the revolutionaries. Also Paris' major execution site, including the first by guillotine in 1792. The ossuary served as a morgue for those killed in combat.







The Ma(g)deleine cemetery was used to dispose of the bodies of those guillotined in the French Revolution, including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. They were exhumed in 1815 however and their bones are not in the ossuary.

In the middle of the area called the Crypt of the Passion, or the “tibia rotunda”, is a supporting pillar hidden by skulls and tibias that form a barrel shape. On 2 April 1897, a night concert was organized here between midnight and 2am. The information was circulated in the newspaper and the concert drew over one hundred participants to hear Chopin’s Funeral March and the Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens, among other pieces. Already at the time, this place fascinated thrill-seeking Parisians.

And then exit! Now I know more about the place and background, I'd love to go back.