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55-454: The ossuary remained largely forgotten until it became a novelty-place for concerts and other private events in the early 19th century; after further renovations and the construction of accesses around Place Denfert-Rochereau , it was opened to public visitation from 1874. Since 2013, the Catacombs have numbered among the fourteen City of Paris Museums managed by Paris Musées . Although

110-744: A prefect titled The "Prefect of Police", who (as are all prefects) is named by the President in the Council of Ministers, and operates under the Minister of the Interior, commands the Prefecture which is responsible for the following: The Prefect of Police can issue arrêtés (local writs ) defining rules pertaining to his field of competency. For instance, the rules of operation and security of Paris public parks are issued as joint arrêtés from

165-483: A burial ground around the 5th-century Notre-Dame-des-Bois church, became the property of the Saint-Opportune parish after the original church was demolished by the 9th-century Norman invasions. When it became its own parish associated with the church of the " Saints Innocents " from 1130, this burial ground, filling the land between the present rue Saint-Denis , rue de la Ferronnerie , rue de la Lingerie and

220-481: A high school in the 6th arrondissement . During 2004, police discovered a fully equipped movie theater in an area of the catacombs underneath the Trocadéro . It was equipped with a giant cinema screen, seats for the audience, projection equipment, film reels of recent thrillers and film noir classics, a fully stocked bar, and a complete restaurant with tables and chairs. The group les UX took responsibility for

275-624: A positive spin on the defeat, the French authorities were looking for heroes to glorify. (At this time, for example, the village of Bitche , located near the German border on the Orne , had a Parisian square named for it because it had put up a spirited defense against the Prussians). Denfert-Rochereau was a courageous man and an authentic hero, but whether his grandiose nickname, "The Lion of Belfort",

330-693: Is composed of Agents with municipal police powers titled inspecteurs de sécurité (Security Inspectors). The DPSP reports to the Mayor of Paris. The jurisdiction of the Prefecture of Police was initially the Seine département . Its jurisdiction also included the communes (municipalities) of Saint-Cloud , Sèvres , Meudon , and Enghien-les-Bains , which were located in the Seine-et-Oise département . These four communes were added in

385-528: Is frequently the place where demonstrations and protest marches in Paris either start or end. The square is also the place depicted on the backdrop at the beginning of the third act of La Bohème by Puccini . This square owes its original official recognition to letters patent dated 9 August 1760, which applied to the part of the site that was located inside the old Wall of the Farmers-General (i.e.

440-493: Is larger than the pre-1968 Seine département . The Prefecture of Police also has limited jurisdiction over the whole Île-de-France région for the coordination of law enforcement, including combatting cybercrime . The Prefect of Police, acting as Prefect of the Defense Zone of Paris ( Préfet de la Zone de Défense de Paris ), is in charge of planning non-military defense measures to keep public order, guarantee

495-542: Is now the Musée de la Libération and Musée Jean Moulin. These two buildings, classified as historical monuments , are the pavilions of the old Barrière d'Enfer, where taxes were collected on goods entering Paris. They are built to the design of the 19th-century architect, Claude Nicolas Ledoux , whose work can be found all over the city. This part of the square has enveloped the site of the Barrière d'Enfer, as well as part of

550-530: The Avenue des Champs-Élysées , and on any street during the organization of demonstrations ). There is also a prefect of Paris , prefect for the Île-de-France region, whose services handle some tasks not devoted to the Police Prefect, such as certain classes of building permits. The PP is headed by a politically appointed prefect who is assisted by the prevote , who is the senior police officer of

605-461: The Count of Artois (later Charles X of France ) in 1787. Public visits began after its renovation into a proper ossuary and the 1814–1815 war. First allowed only a few times a year with the permission of an authorized mines inspector, but later more frequently and permitted by any mine overseer, a flow of visitors degraded the ossuary to a point where the permission-only rule was restored from 1830, and

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660-470: The Lion of Belfort statue by Bartholdi , symbolizing the courage of the resistance raised by Colonel Denfert-Rochereau at Belfort. In the garden to one side is a monument by Jean Boucher commemorating Ludovic Trarieux . The section of the main north–south boulevard running through the centre of the square is named for French Resistance leader Henri Rol-Tanguy . It is just one block in length, and connects

715-509: The Mayor of Paris and the Prefect of Police. Until 1977, Paris had indeed no elected mayor and the police was essentially in the hands of the préfet de police . However, the powers of the mayor of Paris were increased at the expense of those of the Préfet de Police in 2002, notably for traffic and parking decisions (the préfet retains the responsibility on main thoroughfares such as

770-515: The Place d'Enfer , is a public square located in the 14th arrondissement of Paris , France, in the Montparnasse district, at the intersection of the boulevards Raspail , Arago, and Saint-Jacques, and the avenues René Coty, Général Leclerc, and Denfert-Rochereau , as well as the streets Froidevaux , Victor-Considérant and de Grancey . It is one of the largest and most important squares on

825-668: The Police nationale but the Police Prefect reports directly to the Interior Minister , not to the director of the Police nationale ( Directeur général de la Police nationale or DGPN). In Parisian slang, the police were sometimes known as "the archers", a very old slang term in reference to the archers of the long-defunct Royal Watch . Paris also has the " Direction de la Prévention, de la Sécurité et de la Protection " (DPSP) (Prevention, Security and Protection Directorate) which

880-600: The Val-de-Grâce hospital (most of its building expenses were due to its foundations), but a series of mine cave-ins beginning 1774 with the collapse of a house along the "rue d'Enfer" (near today's crossing of the Avenue Denfert-Rochereau and the boulevard Saint-Michel ) caused King Louis XVI to name a commission to investigate the state of the Parisian underground. This resulted in the creation of

935-417: The inspection Générale des Carrières (Inspection of Mines) service. The need to eliminate Les Innocents gained urgency from May 31, 1780, when a basement wall in a property adjoining the cemetery collapsed under the weight of the mass grave behind it. The cemetery was closed to the public and all intra muros (Latin: "within the [city] walls") burials were forbidden after 1780. The problem of what to do with

990-590: The left bank of the Seine . The square is named after Pierre Denfert-Rochereau , the French commander who organized the defense at the siege of Belfort during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). It is dominated by the Lion of Belfort statue (a smaller version of the original in the town of Belfort ) by Frédéric Bartholdi . The square is the location of the Paris Catacombs museum. It

1045-404: The rue Berger , had become the city's principal cemetery. By the end of the same century, Saints Innocents was neighbour to the principal Parisian marketplace Les Halles , and already filled to overflowing. To make room for more burials, the long-dead were exhumed and their bones packed into the roofs and walls of "charnier" galleries built inside the cemetery walls. By the end of the 18th century,

1100-473: The 19th century to the jurisdiction of the Prefecture of Police in order to ensure special protection of the imperial/royal residences located there. The Seine département was disbanded in 1968 and the jurisdiction of the Prefecture of Police is now the city of Paris (which is both a commune and a département ) and the three surrounding départements of Hauts-de-Seine , Seine-Saint-Denis , Val-de-Marne . This territory made up of four départements

1155-613: The 4th century, the first known settlement there was on higher ground around a Saint-Etienne church and burial ground (behind the present Hôtel de Ville ), and urban expansion on the Right Bank began in earnest after other ecclesiastical landowners filled in the marshlands from the late 10th century. Thus, instead of burying its dead away from inhabited areas as usual, the Paris Right Bank settlement began with cemeteries near its centre. The most central of these cemeteries,

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1210-643: The Avenue Denfert-Rochereau in the north to the Avenue General Leclerc in the south. The entrance to the Paris Catacombs is now located within the recently renovated building with handsome romanesque arches across its facade, on the odd-numbered side of Avenue du Colonel-Henri-Rol-Tanguy. This entrance is directly across the street from an identical even-numbered building that used to house the Directorate of Roads and Transport ( Direction de la Voirie et des Déplacements ), but since October 2019

1265-760: The Cabinet (staff) itself, the Gendarmerie Nationale Liaison Office, and 6 Local Directorates: and other agencies: with four Administrative Directorates: with two agencies: Before the French Revolution , the head of the Paris Police was the lieutenant général de police , whose office was created in March 1667 when the first modern police force in the world was set up by the government of King Louis XIV to police

1320-648: The Catacombs were closed to the public during September 2009 and reopened on 19 December of the same year. The Catacombs were reopened to the public on June 16, 2020, with new rules and guidelines for visitors as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic . Visitors are no longer required to wear masks. Because the catacombs are directly under the Paris streets, large foundations cannot be built above them and cave-ins have destroyed buildings. For this reason, there are few tall buildings in this area. Place Denfert-Rochereau The Place Denfert-Rochereau , previously known as

1375-652: The French Ministry of the Interior that provides police , emergency services , and various administrative services to the population of the city of Paris and the surrounding three suburban départements of Hauts-de-Seine , Seine-Saint-Denis , and Val-de-Marne . It is headed by the Paris Prefect of Police ( le Préfet de police de Paris ), officially called the Prefect of Police ( le Préfet de police ). The Paris Police Prefecture supervises

1430-575: The French Revolution were transferred to the Catacombs, including (the date is the date of death): Catacombs in their first years were a disorganized bone repository, but Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury , director of the Paris Mine Inspection Service from 1810, had renovations done that would transform the caverns into a visitable mausoleum . In addition to directing the stacking of skulls, femurs and tibias into

1485-540: The Paris Police force, the Paris Fire Brigade , and various administrative departments in charge of issuing ID cards and driver licenses or monitoring alien residents. The Prefecture of Police also has security duties in the wider Île-de-France région as the Préfet de Police is also Préfet de Zone de Défense (Prefect for the Defense zone). Since 2017, it has acquired direct responsibility for

1540-482: The Place Denfert-Rochereau ever since. The main square, the Place Denfert-Rochereau, is planted with trees, mostly horse chestnuts , maples , and locusts , and there are three named green spaces within it as well: Square Abbé Migne , Square Jacques Antoine , and Square Claude Nicolas Ledoux . At the center of the square, in the midst of the traffic circulation, is a one-third-scale replica of

1595-575: The boulevards d'Enfer and Saint-Jacques, and a part of the boulevards Montrouge and Arcueil , roads which, at one time, led to those two southern suburbs but no longer exist. The Place Denfert-Rochereau is served by lines 4 and 6 of the Paris Metro , from Denfert-Rochereau station . It is also served by the RER Line B commuter train from the old railway station of the Sceaux line ,

1650-614: The catacombs were closed completely from 1833 because of church opposition to exposing human remains to public display. Open again for four visits a year from 1850, public demand caused the government to allow monthly visits from 1867, bi-weekly visits on the first and third Saturday of each month from 1874 (with an extra opening for the November 1 toussaint holiday), and weekly visits during the 1878, 1889 (the most visitors yet that year) and 1900 World's Fair Expositions. Later they opened for regular daily visits. After an incident of vandalism,

1705-590: The central burial ground was a two-metre-high (6.6 ft) mound of earth filled with centuries of Parisian dead, plus the remains from the Hôtel-Dieu hospital and the Morgue; other Parisian parishes had their own burial grounds, but the conditions in Saints Innocents were the worst. A series of ineffective decrees limiting the use of the cemetery did little to remedy the situation, and it was not until

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1760-434: The chance to stay overnight in the Catacombs. In August 2017, thieves broke into a cellar from the catacombs and stole more than €250,000 of wine. Only one death has officially been confirmed in the Catacombs. In 1793, Philibert Aspairt , a door keeper for the Val-de-Grâce hospital, died in the catacombs. It is thought that he had lost his light source, and was left to die in the darkness. In 1804, 11 years later, his body

1815-566: The city of Paris. The office vanished at the start of the French Revolution and police was vested in the hands of the Paris Commune . Reorganized by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1800, the Paris Police has been headed by the préfet de police since that time. Source: Centre historique des Archives nationales, Série Y, Châtelet de Paris , on page 38 of the PDF. Sources: La Grande Encyclopédie , volume 27, page 95, published in 1900. See scan of

1870-453: The creation of a mine inspection service. Lenoir endorsed the idea of moving Parisian dead to the subterranean passageways that were renovated during 1782. After deciding to further renovate the "Tombe-Issoire" passageways for their future role as an underground sepulchre , the idea became law in late 1785. A well within a walled property above one of the principal subterranean passageways was dug to receive Les Innocents' unearthed remains, and

1925-507: The deposit and extracting it horizontally until depletion, many of these (often illicit) mines were uncharted, and when depleted, often abandoned and forgotten. Paris had annexed its suburbs many times over the centuries, and by the 18th century many of its arrondissements (administrative districts) were or included previously mined territories. The undermined state of the Left Bank was known to architects as early 17th-century construction of

1980-485: The entrance to the underworld of the catacombs lies next to the western one of them, the pavilion at the barrière d'Enfer ("barrier of Hell"). Traditionally called by the rather unattractive name of Place d'Enfer ('Hell Square'), the square had the name of Denfert-Rochereau ascribed to it through a sort of "municipal pun". The Franco-Prussian War had demoralized the French populace, and there was widespread damage all over northeastern France and to Paris itself. Anxious to put

2035-526: The entrance to which is to the east of the square. The square is the Paris terminus of Orlybus , the RATP shuttle bus service between the city and Orly Airport . Paris Police Prefecture The Paris Police Prefecture ( French : préfecture de police de Paris [pʁefɛktyʁ də pɔlis də paʁi] ), officially the Police Prefecture ( French : préfecture de police ), is the unit of

2090-808: The force. The Prefecture of Police is divided into three sub-prefectures headed by prefects due to their importance. Because the Police Prefecture provides some services that are normally provided by city governments, its funding partially comes from the City of Paris and other city governments within its jurisdiction. In addition to forces from the National Police, the Police Prefecture has traffic wardens or crossing guards who enforce parking rules; it has recently added some wardens that direct traffic at crossroads and other similar duties, known as circulation , with specific uniforms . Consists of

2145-402: The installation. The film As Above, So Below , released in 2014, was the first production that secured permission from the French government to film in the catacombs. They aimed to use no alterations to the environment with the exception of a piano and a car which were hauled into the catacombs and set on fire. During 2015, Airbnb paid €350,000 as part of a publicity stunt offering customers

2200-458: The late 18th century that it was decided to create three new large-scale suburban burial grounds on the outskirts of the city, and to condemn all existing parish cemeteries within city limits. Much of the Left Bank area rests upon rich Lutetian limestone deposits. This stone built much of the city, but it was extracted in suburban locations away from any habitation. Because of the post 12th-century haphazard mining technique of digging wells down to

2255-435: The majority of Paris's cemeteries. Cemeteries whose remains were moved to the Catacombs include Saints-Innocents (the largest by far with about 2 million buried over 600 years of operation), Saint-Étienne-des-Grès (one of the oldest), Madeleine Cemetery , Errancis Cemetery (used for the victims of the French Revolution ), and Notre-Dame-des-Blancs-Manteaux . By this way the skeletal remains of several notable victims of

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2310-580: The municipal police is to "make neighbourhoods safer and more peaceful and ensure that public space is shared," for example by enforcing laws on parking, littering, breaking up quarrels, and assisting homeless or elderly residents. The préfecture is a large building located in the Place Louis Lépine on the Île de la Cité . This building was built as a barracks for the Garde républicaine from 1863 to 1867 (architect Pierre-Victor Calliat ) and

2365-577: The nature of the ossuary, and to ensure the safety of eventual visitors, it was walled from the rest of Paris's Left Bank 's already-extensive tunnel network . During World War II , Parisian members of the French Resistance used the tunnel system and established the headquarters from where Colonel Rol-Tanguy led the insurrection for the liberation of Paris in June 1944. The Wehrmacht established an underground bunker below Lycée Montaigne ,

2420-502: The northeastern portion of the present Place Denfert-Rochereau). The Wall of the Farmers-General, built under the ancien régime to prevent the evasion of excise taxes, separated Paris from the suburb of Montrouge . An ordinance of the Bureau of Finances, dated 16 January 1789, recognized the southwestern portion of the square, the part outside the wall, as part of Paris. The opening in the wall itself, which permitted entry or exit from Paris,

2475-567: The ossuary comprises only a small section of the underground mines of Paris , Parisians often refer to the entire tunnel network as the catacombs. Paris 's earliest burial grounds were to the southern outskirts of the Roman-era Left Bank city. In ruins after the Western Roman Empire 's 5th-century end and the ensuing Frankish invasions, Parisians eventually abandoned this settlement for the marshy Right Bank: from

2530-629: The patterns seen in the catacombs today he used the cemetery decorations he could find (formerly stored on the Tombe-Issoire property; many had disappeared after the 1789 Revolution ) to complement the walls of bones. Also created was a room dedicated to the display of the various minerals found under Paris, and another showing various skeletal deformities found during the catacombs' creation and renovation. He also added monumental tablets and archways bearing ominous warning inscriptions, and added stone tablets bearing descriptions or other comments about

2585-410: The property itself was transformed into a sort of museum for all the headstones, sculptures and other artifacts recuperated from the former cemetery. Beginning from an opening ceremony on 7 April the same year, the route between Les Innocents and the "clos de la Tombe-Issoire" became a nightly procession of black cloth-covered wagons carrying the millions of Parisian dead. It would take two years to empty

2640-610: The remains crowding intra muros cemeteries was still unresolved. Mine consolidations were still occurring and the underground around the site of the 1777 collapse that had initiated the project had already become a series of stone and masonry inspection passageways that reinforced the streets above. The mine renovation and cemetery closures were both issues within the jurisdiction of the Police Prefect Police Lieutenant-General Alexandre Lenoir, who had been directly involved in

2695-425: The security of public services, and organize rescue operations (in case of natural disaster) for the whole Île-de-France région (which is made up of eight départements , the four inner ones being the regular jurisdiction of the Prefecture of Police, and the four outer ones being outside of its regular jurisdiction). As such, he coordinates the work of the departmental préfets of Île-de-France. Headed by

2750-469: The start of the French Revolution in 1789, it was replaced by the current Prefecture of Police created by Napoléon I on February 17, 1800. This means that, up until 2021, Paris did not have its own police municipale and that the Police Nationale provided all of these services directly as a subdivision of France's Ministry of the Interior . Policemen assigned to " la PP " are part of

2805-691: The three main airports of the Paris area ( Charles de Gaulle , Orly and Le Bourget ). In addition to the Préfecture de Police , the French government created the Paris Municipal Police ( French : Police municipale de Paris ) in 2021. In contrast with the Préfecture, the municipal police report to the city government, rather than to the national government. Municipal police officers began patrolling city streets on foot, bicycle, and by car starting on October 18, 2021. The goal of

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2860-529: Was commonly called the Barrière d’Enfer . It is mentioned in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo : Here, astride the opening in the wall, the architect Claude Nicolas Ledoux constructed two tollhouses to be used for the collection of the octroi , a local tariff levied on products entering Paris. At the center of the present square, these two pavilions once framed the opening in the wall, and now, oddly,

2915-452: Was deserved is a matter of some debate. Nonetheless, since "Denfert" (of Denfert-Rochereau) is pronounced exactly the same as "d'Enfer" (of the Place d'Enfer), this coincidence was too perfect for the mairie (city hall) to ignore. They renamed the square the Place Denfert-Rochereau, and they could plausibly deny that they were ignoring Paris's ancient traditions in so doing. The name has remained

2970-412: Was found, only a few metres away from a staircase that would have led to an exit. He was only identified by his hospital key ring, and the buttons on his jacket. As one visits the catacombs, a sign above reads Arrête! C'est ici l'empire de la Mort ("Stop! The empire of Death lies here"). The Catacombs of Paris became a curiosity for more privileged Parisians from their creation, an early visitor being

3025-518: Was occupied by the Prefecture in 1871. As it is the capital of France , with government assemblies and offices and foreign embassies, Paris poses special issues of security and public order. Consequently, the national government has been responsible for providing law enforcement and emergency services since the creation of the Lieutenancy General of Police ( lieutenance générale de police ) by Louis XIV on March 15, 1667. Disbanded at

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