The French capital is often called the City of Light. Facades of light stone houses, wide avenues, yellowish waters of the Seine, and now the beautiful night illumination - really create the impression that the city is always filled with light. However, there is no less reason to call Paris and the City of Darkness, as the Parisian darkness hides the treasures of centuries, which can compete with those that are generously illuminated by the sun. Underneath the endless flow of cars and pedestrians of this great city lies another world that few people are aware of. Hundreds of kilometers of mysterious galleries, known as the Paris catacombs, are ancient quarries from which medieval inhabitants of the city took materials for its construction.
Nowadays, a small part of the catacombs, which are located in the Denver Rocheros Square, is open to visitors wishing to see endless rows of neatly laid human bones crowned with skulls, as it was once conceived. And it must be said that after the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris, this is the most visited place in Paris
- Legacy of antiquity
Already in ancient times, limestone and gypsum were extracted from the banks of the Seine openly. The Romans brought with them the traditions of stone construction, which allow to provide a higher level of comfort in the dwelling. Also, the buildings built of stone were much more resistant to the onslaught of time than the wooden buildings. The love of the Romans for the stone is reflected even in the Latin name of Paris - Lutetia, which, according to one version, comes from the Latin leucosis, that is, "whiteness", indicating the color of the stony banks of the Seine. Thanks to this, the name Lucien was strengthened after the geological epoch corresponding to the period of limestone formation. From the 12th century onwards, the development of underground resources began. The increased architectural ambitions of Parisians were materialized in dozens of renovated abbeys, cathedrals and churches. The Romanesque style, and then the Gothic that replaced it, dramatically increased the need for building materials.
The first underground workings of limestone were under the territory of the modern Luxembourg Garden. Around 1200, this was followed by the current Val de Gras Hospital, Gobelin, Saint-Jacques, Voggiard, Saint-Germain-de-Pré. The stone taken from there was used to build the Louvre, Saint-Chappelle and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris at the time of King Philippe Auguste (1180-1223), Louis Saint (1226-1270) and Philippe the Beautiful (1285-1314).
From the XV century began a two-level development of limestone. The quarries, which exhausted their reserves in width, were developed in-depth. Thus, under the already existing network of galleries, the second floor was created. This became possible due to the change in the method of lifting the extracted materials to the surface. If earlier any underground gallery sooner or later went under the open sky, from where the stone was delivered to the destination, now for the extraction of stone blocks began to use wells, on top of which were installed winches. They were driven either by a person walking inside the wheel or by horses.
Currently, there are about 300 km of galleries under Paris, most of which are located on the left bank of the Seine. The fact that there are many more former quarries is not accidental. In the north of the city, gypsum was mined, while limestone was mined in the left and south of the city. The need for limestone has always been higher, so at the beginning of the mining operations on the left bank, there was a much greater need for limestone. Moreover, since the gypsum was easily washed away by water, the empty quarries on the right bank of the river contained a more visible danger. And that is why in the process of strengthening the Parisian dungeons gypsum quarries were almost filled with cement.
- Unfavorable prognosis
Despite the seeming stability and inviolability of the Parisian quarries, their very existence is threatened. And there are several reasons for that. Numerous underground waters, which are very rich in this area and which erode the foundations and fortifications of the catacombs. For example, at the beginning of 1980, for reasons unknown, the level of underground water in some places began to rise, which resulted in flooding not only some galleries but also the lower floors of underground parking lots.
Moreover, while the first architects and engineers of the Quarry Inspectorate fortifications were guided by both practical and aesthetic considerations in order to ensure the stability of the surface and preserve the beauty of the underground galleries, from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day the focus has been on practical and financial considerations only. As a result, the problem of strengthening the alarming sections of the underground network is usually solved most radically - the entire underground space is filled with concrete. As is well known, the gypsum quarries in the north of Paris, which are "responsible" for a particularly large number of landslides and surface failures, have ceased to exist as a result of the filling of concrete. Thus, unique historical monuments disappear from the face of the Earth, or rather from its depths. Moreover, concreting is often only a temporary measure, because if the cause of instability was underground water, sooner or later it will still find bypasses, accumulate again in another place and everything will start anew.
True enthusiasts of preserving the unique complex face a variety of challenges. And above all, the need for significant material support to finance research and implement effective methods of surface stabilization to preserve underground galleries. Meanwhile, the area of Parisian dungeons is decreasing year by year. So if you want to admire the Parisian underground beauties, you need to hurry: who knows, perhaps, in the not so distant future catacombs will become another beautiful, but forever disappeared secret of the City of Light.