You’ve probably heard of the vibrant Parisian neighborhood of Les Halles, but I bet you haven’t heard of their history of building local buildings out of human bones or mass-burying unnamed people in unmarked graves.
Welcome to the Cemetery of the Innocents. A horrid cemetery in the heart of medieval Paris that no longer exists.
The Innocents Cemetery was a place for unnamed or unknown people. It was often used for mass graves during revolutions, other uprisings, or sicknesses. It was also the resting place for victims of the great flood.
This was also the spot to dispose of a body. Criminal gangs would use this area at night to kill and bury people at the same time. Evil spirits and vampires were said to dispose of their victims here.
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How the cemetery worked
How did the church bury so many people? Well it was big business back then, and the church needed money. So, they found a way.
They would dig a big hole, wrap the bodies in a thin white cloth, and after about 1,500 bodies were placed inside, fill the hole with a meter (approx 3 feet) of dirt. The church would move clockwise, dig another hole, and do the same thing until it was full of corpses.
The cemetery filled up. They needed more space. So what to do? Dig up the oldest graves and use those bones to build structures. The buildings and bridges looked like this:
Once they removed the bodies to make buildings they still had a mess to clean up. At the bottom of these mass graves, there would be pools of fat–yes fat. The local people would then use this fat to make soap and candles to sell at the market. Of course, they would then refill the hole with new bodies. They did this for over 500 years.
Up until the 17th century, that is.
Moving the corpses across Paris
By the 17th century, the body-filled land was so unstable that the grounds would collapse underneath nearby restaurants and pubs, thus filling the pubs with dead bodies. The smell alone too was awful. It was so bad that if you spent one night in this neighborhood they would say that your breath would be bad for life.
Also, the location. The current Halles location, which is around the corner from the cemetery, was the primary food market of Paris. That means there was an open mass grave with rats and dogs right next to the food market. Naturally, disease ran rampant and the area smelled horrid.
King Louis ordered that the cemetery be closed. Then the church closed, and the city ordered that all the bodies be removed. The site was blessed and consecrated on April 7, 1786.
They dug up the bones and transported them under the cloak of night with a priest and put them in the abandoned limestone quarries–this is the modern-day Catacombs. There are an estimated 6 million bodies in the catacombs, with 2 million from this cemetery alone.
Cemetery of the Innocents Today
The only original structure remaining of the cemetery is the fountain which dates back to year 1550. It is named the Fountain of the Innocents.
You can visit the Fountain, and you’ll see the square visitors aren’t much different today. It is still full of ruffians and gangsters at night. And a few ghosts.
Want to see more? Head to Number 8 Rue de la Ferronnerie and Number 15 Rue des Innocents to spot the arches that once supported two of the mass graves from the cemetery.