Holy Innocents' Cemetery
Holy Innocents' Cemetery | |
---|---|
Details | |
Established | 12th century Closed: 1780 |
Location | |
Country | France |
Coordinates | 48°51′36″N 2°20′56″E / 48.860°N 2.349°E |
Type | Public (not extant) |
Style | churchyard |
The Holy Innocents' Cemetery (French: Cimetière des Saints-Innocents or Cimetière des Innocents) is a defunct cemetery in Paris that was used from the Middle Ages until the late 18th century. It was the oldest and largest cemetery in Paris and had often been used for mass graves.[1] It was closed because of overuse in 1780, and in 1786 the remaining corpses were exhumed and transported to the unused subterranean quarries near Montparnasse known as the Catacombs. The place Joachim-du-Bellay in the Les Halles district now covers the site of the cemetery.
The cemetery took its name (referring to the
History
Sources describe the burial ground, then called Champeaux, and the associated church in the 12th century.[1] It was located next to the central market (the original location of Les Halles).
Under the reign of Philip II, (1180–1223) he commissioned a three-meter-high wall that fully enclosed the cemetery. This was done to limit outsiders coming in and to separate it from market activities located nearby.[3] Les Innocents had begun as a cemetery with individual sepulchers, but by then had become a site for mass graves. People were buried together in the same pit (a pit could hold about 1,500 dead at a time); only when it was full would another be opened.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, citizens constructed arched structures called charniers or charnel houses along the cemetery walls to relieve the overcrowding of the mass graves; bones from the graves were excavated and then deposited here.
Between August 1424 and Lent 1425, during the
The well known anatomist, Andreas Vesalius made several night visits in the cemetery (and the Gibbet of Montfaucon) to study the bones there and bring it home with him.[5]
In the Cemetery, on Sunday, 24 August 1572, at noon, a
During the reign of Louis XV, inspectors recorded accounts of the difficulties in conducting business in the area due to the unsanitary conditions of the cemetery, caused by overuse and incomplete decomposition of bodies.
Two edicts by Louis XVI to move the parish cemeteries out of the city were resisted by the church, which was operating from burial fees. To reduce the number of burials, the price of burials was increased. After a prolonged period of rain in spring 1780, conditions became untenable. On 4 September 1780, an edict forbade burying corpses in Les Innocents and in all other Paris cemeteries.
Bodies were exhumed and the bones were moved to the Catacombs in 1786.[7] Many bodies had incompletely decomposed and had reduced into large deposits of fat ("corpse wax", or adipocere), chiefly in the form of palmitic acid.[8] During the exhumation, this fat was collected and subsequently turned into candles and soap made from human corpses.[9]
The church was destroyed in 1787 and the cemetery was replaced by a herb and vegetable market. The Fountain of the Nymphs, which had been erected in 1549 next to the church, was dismantled and rebuilt in the center of the new market. Now known as the "
At its closure, it was estimated that from the
There are no signs of the charnel house today as the present location contains buildings, arcades, and shops.[10]
In modern fiction
- The cemetery and its environs appear prominently in the Ubisoft's 2014 Assassin's Creed Unity video game, set in 1789–94, as the cemetery is being closed down and the bodies moved to the catacombs.
- The destruction of the church and removal of the cemetery at Les Innocents is the subject of
- The cemetery and the Catacombs to which the remains were relocated play an important part in Barbara Hambly's novel 1988 Those Who Hunt the Night.
- In Anne Rice's 1985 The Vampire Lestat, Armand's coven of vampires resides in the Cimetière des Innocents when Lestat de Lioncourt first encounters them, and they remain there until shortly before the cemetery is finally destroyed.
- In Patrick Süskind's novel 1985 Perfume, the main character Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born here on 17 July 1738.
References
- ^ a b c d Philippe Landru (7 February 2008). "Cimetière des INNOCENTS (disparu)" (in French).
- ^ https://vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=90224 [dead link]
- ^ Meier, Allison C. (2019-07-23). "How the Paris Catacombs Solved a Cemetery Crisis". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved 2022-07-01.
- ^ S2CID 154086960.
- ^ "Vesalius, the father of modern anatomy". Focus on Belgium. 2017-01-24. Retrieved 2022-07-01.
- ^ "Le massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy : l'obsession de la souillure hérétique". Le Monde.fr (in French). 2007-08-03. Retrieved 2022-12-22.
- ^ "Paris' Les Innocents cemetery". Retrieved February 6, 2011.
- .
- ^ "You (posthumously) light up my life". Scientific American blog. 15 April 2011.
- ^ Trouilleux, Rodolphe (1997). Unexplored Paris. Parigramme. p. 11.
- ^ Kyte, Holly (2011-06-16). "Pure by Andrew Miller: review". Telegraph. Retrieved 2012-01-05.
External links
- Media related to Cimetière des Innocents at Wikimedia Commons