The Holy Innocents' Cemetery (French: Cimetière des Saints-Innocents or Cimetière des Innocents) is a defunct cemetery in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
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 grave
A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...
s.
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
Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse has bee ...
known as the
Catacombs
Catacombs are man-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place is a catacomb, although the word is most commonly associated with the Roman Empire.
Etymology and history
The first place to be referred ...
. The
place Joachim-du-Bellay
Place Joachim-du-Bellay is a square near the center of Paris, France, in the 1st arrondissement, near Les Halles and the Pompidou Center. It is named after Joachim du Bellay, a French poet and literary critic (1522–1560).
The place Joachim-d ...
in the
Les Halles district now covers the site of the cemetery.
The cemetery took its name (referring to the
Biblical
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
Massacre of the Innocents) from the attached church of the Holy Innocents that was demolished at the same time as the cemetery was cleared.
History
Sources describe the burial ground, then called ''Champeaux'', and the associated church in the 12th century.
[ It was located next to the central market (the original location of ''Les Halles'').
Under the reign of ]Philip II Philip II may refer to:
* Philip II of Macedon (382–336 BC)
* Philip II (emperor) (238–249), Roman emperor
* Philip II, Prince of Taranto (1329–1374)
* Philip II, Duke of Burgundy (1342–1404)
* Philip II, Duke of Savoy (1438-1497)
* Philip ...
, (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. 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 house
A charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves. The term can also be used more generally as a description of a pla ...
s 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 Anglo-Burgundian alliance
The dual monarchy of England and France existed during the latter phase of the Hundred Years' War when Charles VII of France and Henry VI of England disputed the succession to the throne of France. It commenced on 21 October 1422 upon the death of ...
when John Duke of Bedford
John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford Order of the Garter, KG (20 June 138914 September 1435) was a medieval English prince, general and statesman who commanded England's armies in France during a critical phase of the Hundred Years' War. Bedford w ...
ruled Paris as Regent after the deaths of Henry V of England
Henry V (16 September 1386 – 31 August 1422), also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1413 until his death in 1422. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the ...
and Charles VI of France
Charles VI (3 December 136821 October 1422), nicknamed the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé) and later the Mad (french: le Fol or ''le Fou''), was King of France from 1380 until his death in 1422. He is known for his mental illness and psychotic ...
, a mural of the Danse Macabre
The ''Danse Macabre'' (; ) (from the French language), also called the Dance of Death, is an artistic genre of allegory of the Late Middle Ages on the universality of death.
The ''Danse Macabre'' consists of the dead, or a personification of ...
was painted on the back wall of the arcade below the charnel house on the south side of the cemetery. It was one of the earliest and best-known depictions of this theme. It was destroyed in 1669 when this wall was demolished to allow the narrow road behind it to be widened.[
]
The well known anatomist, Andreas Vesalius
Andreas Vesalius (Latinized from Andries van Wezel) () was a 16th-century anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, ''De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem'' (''On the fabric of the human body'' ' ...
made several night visits in the cemetery (and the Gibbet of Montfaucon
The Gibbet of Montfaucon (french: Gibet de Montfaucon) was the main gallows and gibbet of the Kings of France until the time of Louis XIII of France. It was used to execute criminals, often traitors, by hanging and to display their dead bodies as ...
) to study the bones there and bring it home with him.
During the reign of Louis XV
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...
, 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
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...
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. Many bodies had incompletely decomposed and had reduced into large deposits of fat ("corpse wax", or adipocere), chiefly in the form of palmitic acid
Palmitic acid (hexadecanoic acid in IUPAC nomenclature) is a fatty acid with a 16-carbon chain. It is the most common saturated fatty acid found in animals, plants and microorganisms.Gunstone, F. D., John L. Harwood, and Albert J. Dijkstra. The Li ...
. During the exhumation, this fat was collected and subsequently turned into candles and soap made from human corpses
During the 20th century, there were various alleged instances of soap being made from human body fat. During World War I the British press claimed that the Germans operated a corpse factory in which they made glycerine and soap from the bodies of ...
.
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 "Fountain of Innocents
The Fontaine des Innocents is a monumental public fountain located on the place Joachim-du-Bellay in the Les Halles district in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Originally called the ''Fountain of the Nym ...
", it still stands on Joachim-du-Bellay Square.[
At its closure, it was estimated that from the ]Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
until the eighteenth century the Holy Innocents' Cemetery had been the repository of corpses from 22 parishes in Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, including the remains of those who died at the Hôtel-Dieu In French-speaking countries, a hôtel-Dieu ( en, hostel of God) was originally a hospital for the poor and needy, run by the Catholic Church. Nowadays these buildings or institutions have either kept their function as a hospital, the one in Paris b ...
, plague
Plague or The Plague may refer to:
Agriculture, fauna, and medicine
*Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis''
* An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural)
* A pandemic caused by such a disease
* A swarm of pe ...
victims, and various unknowns who drowned in the Seine
)
, mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur
, mouth_coordinates =
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, progression =
, river_system = Seine basin
, basin_size =
, tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle
, tributarie ...
, died on the roads, or were crippled at the nearby crossroads of the "Court of miracles
''Cour des miracles'' ("court of miracles") was a French language, French term which referred to slum districts of Paris, France where the unemployed migrants from rural areas resided. They held "the usual refuge of all those wretches who came to ...
", for a total of about two million Parisians.
There are no signs of the charnel house
A charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves. The term can also be used more generally as a description of a pla ...
today as the present location contains buildings, arcades, and shops.
In modern fiction
The destruction of the church and removal of the cemetery at Les Innocents is the subject of Andrew Miller's Costa prize
The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then ...
winning 2011 novel ''Pure
Pure may refer to:
Computing
* A pure function
* A pure virtual function
* PureSystems, a family of computer systems introduced by IBM in 2012
* Pure Software, a company founded in 1991 by Reed Hastings to support the Purify tool
* Pure-FTPd, F ...
''.
In Anne Rice
Anne Rice (born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien; October 4, 1941 – December 11, 2021) was an American author of gothic fiction, erotic literature, and Christian literature.
She was best known for her series of novels ''The Vampire Chronicles''. B ...
's ''The Vampire Lestat
''The Vampire Lestat'' (1985) is a vampire novel by American writer Anne Rice, the second in her ''Vampire Chronicles'', following ''Interview with the Vampire'' (1976). The story is told from the point of view of the vampire Lestat de Lioncour ...
'', Armand's coven of vampires resides in the Cimetière des Innocents when Lestat de Lioncourt
Lestat de Lioncourt () is a fictional character appearing in several novels by Anne Rice, including ''The Vampire Lestat'' (1985). He is a vampire and an antihero in the majority of '' The Vampire Chronicles''.
Publication history
Lestat is in ...
first encounters them, and they remain there until shortly before the cemetery is finally destroyed.
The cemetery and the Catacombs to which the remains were relocated play an important part in Barbara Hambly
Barbara Hambly (born August 28, 1951) is an American novelist and screenwriter within the genres of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction. She is the author of the bestselling Benjamin January mystery series featuring a fre ...
's novel ''Those Who Hunt the Night
''Those Who Hunt the Night'' is a 1988 horror/mystery novel by American writer Barbara Hambly. It was first published in paperback by the British publisher Unwin Paperbacks in November 1988 under the title ''Immortal Blood''. The first American e ...
''.
In Patrick Süskind
Patrick Süskind (; born 26 March 1949) is a German writer and screenwriter, known best for his novel '' Perfume: The Story of a Murderer'', first published in 1985.
Early life
Süskind was born in Ambach, Bavaria. His father was writer and jo ...
's novel ''Perfume
Perfume (, ; french: parfum) is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agreeable scent. Th ...
'', the main character Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born here on 17 July 1738.
The cemetery and its environs appear prominently in the Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Assassin's Creed'', ''Far Cry'', '' ...
''Assassin's Creed Unity
''Assassin's Creed Unity'' is an Action-adventure game, action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released in November 2014 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and in December 2020 ...
'' computer game, set in 1789–94, as the cemetery is being closed down and the bodies moved to the catacombs.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Cemeteries in Paris
Roman Catholic cemeteries in France
History of Paris
12th-century establishments in France
1780s disestablishments in France