Large southern network of Paris – Wikipedia

The Large southern network ( GRS ) is a network of underground galleries located under 14 ^{It is} , 15 ^{It is} , 5 ^{It is} and 6 ^{It is} districts of Paris. It consists of a multitude of old quarries, linked together by the workers of the career inspection XIX ^{It is} century.

All of its galleries measures more than 100 km de long ^{[ first ]} , or two thirds of the quarry galleries still present under the capital. Some of its parts have been set up for very diverse uses, ranging from bunker to brewery, including anti -aircraft shelter or cellar.

This network is now frequented in particular by cataphiles which brave the ban on going there without authorization.

Simplified view of the rock benches that make up the geology of the GRS. In yellow, the benches exploitable for construction.

The free benches, which represent the benches most often visible when visiting the GRS, are subdivided into six kinds:

• The woolen bench, or cliquart, or pebble bench. Little thickness, it contains few fossils. Its consistency varies depending on the case and resembles that of the joists when it is tender, of links when it is hard.
• The Grignard, or shell. Very rich in fossils, this bench is not very exploitable, because it is too constelled with shells to give really solid blocks.
• The Souchet. Very tender, not very compact, he will give his name to the stroke, a technique of extraction of stone. Indeed, to start exploiting the benches located just above, the carriers extract the stack in order to create an empty horizontal space, then dig slots on the side of the block to be extracted (what is called the surge) . Sometimes containing pebbles and fossils, the souchet is easily disintegrated.
• The white bench, or royal bench, or frankly linked, or discount. Fine and tight grain, it gives good quality blocks, which will sell at gold prices during construction sites XVIII ^{It is} A you XIX ^{It is} century.
• The frank, or high bench, or royal, or rustic bench. It looks like the white bench, and also gives quality blocks, but it is distinguished by the fact that it contains much fewer fossils.
• The rock, or career sky. This very hard and very shellfish layer is often left in place to serve as a roof for the career (which is called career) ^{[ 2 ]} .

What can be seen from one gallery to another, in terms of geology, often varies in the network. Sometimes, from one place to another in the same gallery, the visible layer varies. Thus, the gallery located under rue Saint-Jacques, which rises slightly in height when you go from south to north, sinks into the marls. These are not visible in the southern part of the gallery, but make up its upper part when it runs along the Capuchin and Val-de-Grâce quarries, then constitute all a bit before Royer-Collard Street ^{[ 3 ]} .

Another example: at the crossroads of the dead, the galleries of the lower level do not have the same physiology as those of the upper level. Instead of free benches, there is rather royal bench, whose homogeneous and striated mass is distinguished by its whiteness. It is also possible to note, in this GRS sector, that the galleries of the lower level are perfectly dry while those located just above are sometimes flooded. To understand this phenomenon, it is enough to remember that the green bench (see diagram opposite), which separates the two levels, is a clay bench, which makes it waterproof and causes water retention in the galleries of the level superior.

Antiquity and Middle Ages [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

GRS does not exist as a unified network that since the XIX ^{It is} century. Previously, there were only small separate networks. The history of these networks is very old: from the I ^is century apr. J.-C. , the Romans import their construction customs with them and exploit the building stone benches which are rushing to the ground, in what is then called the Bièvre valley. So it was the career that became the lions pit. They exploit limestone, a fine grain stone, ideal for constructions. Quickly, the extraction pits take up an increasingly large place and become annoying for agricultural and living spaces, which is why we start to dig underground galleries, from which the extracted limestone blocks are drawn.

Throughout late antiquity and the Middle Ages, exploitation is under the leadership of various entrepreneurs. These have usable plots, in which carriers, extracting workers work and transporting the blocks to the exit of the career. In the Middle Ages, the extraction of the stone is directly subject to the sovereign law: to have the right to exploit underground resources, entrepreneurs must pay a tax to the great master of the mines of France, in addition to a tenth of the product of exploitation, directly deducted by royal power ^{[ 4 ]} . The different operations are of course not linked to each other: no overall plan exists and the royal authority does not worry, the operators have no interest in identifying and uniting their respective networks. Even if they would like, they could not, insofar as their exploitable plot is limited by property limits and that they are prohibited to them, from the XVII ^{It is} century, to dig under the public highway.

The careers of the Bièvre Valley are exploited according to the so -called Pillar Method. This is the only operating method known at the time (if exploitation excluded by extraction pit, that is to say in the open air, long abandoned due to the Size of pits and oxidation of limestone benches). It consists in extracting half of the usable mass, and leaving the rest unexploited, so that the remaining mass plays a role of supporting the upper layers, like natural pillars. These pillars are said to be turned because the quarryers take the stone by turning around the pillar they leave in place. Their appearance is often winding, because the quarryers follow the most promising rock veins by causing themselves little about the shape they give to the galleries. Some of these operating galleries are still visible, especially in the Val-de-Grâce network.

This mode of exploitation has the immense drawback of let Unspected a large part of the mass, and to force the carriers to go and find further (and to transport accordingly) the blocks which are already near them. Consequently, the pillars were gradually crossed out over the centuries, especially since the demand for stone to be built constantly. Thus, the career sky is less and less maintained and the ground on the surface is becoming more and more fragile. Fontis are formed and collapses take place. At XVII ^{It is} century, a cart is engulfed by a fontis who came to the day ^{[ 5 ]} . Several decrees of the Council of State restrict the exploitable areas, without this being followed by effect.

XVIII ^{It is} And XIX ^{It is} centuries [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The September 7, 1755 , a judgment orders the census of all underground careers. However, it appears that identifying is not enough: many farms, formerly active, have been abandoned for a long time and forgotten. In the absence of inspection and maintenance, the sky deteriorates there, fontis appear, without being able to stop them, for lack of access to the career in question. Between 1774 and 1776, a series of collapses took place in the under-chosen districts. The most serious of them happens rue d’Enfer, the December 17, 1774 , at the height of the current boulevard Saint-Michel ^{[ 6 ]} . It is therefore in an atmosphere of concern that Louis XVI appoints a commission dependent on the finance office in order to solve the problem. Subsequently, the commission is detached from the case and gives way to the general career inspection, led by Charles-Axel Guillaumot, who will take care of the full-time careers.

The known careers are systematically comforted, then mapped. A carelessness of several centuries has made many places extremely fragile and the inspection works in an emergency. The first reinforced sector was that of rue Saint-Jacques, whose inspection gallery quickly becomes rich in indicative plaques, testifying to the intense activity of IGC workers. But Guillaumot does not limit his task to the comfort of the already identified sectors. Even more than these, the multiple small operations of previous centuries, abandoned and often forgotten, have not been maintained for decades. The inspection is therefore responsible for to regain These old networks, and when it is possible to connect them to the single network which is being set up. While some workers backfildered the gaps already known or comfort them, others are digging new galleries, sometimes directly in the mass, in order to find possible networks that have become inaccessible.

At the same time, Guillaumot, then his successor Hécart de Thury, created the catacombs of Paris. For several centuries, Parisian cemeteries have started to pose health problems: too full, already filled by the corpses of dozens of generations of Parisians, they continue to be filled and contaminate the surroundings. In 1785, on the suggestion of a police lieutenant, we decided to get rid of the overflow of bones (the corpses remain in common pits) by putting them in the career located under the location of the tomb- Issoire. Little by little, cemeteries are removed and replaced by other larger cemeteries, located outside the city and disgorging it from its countless supernumerary corpses, while bones are systematically placed in careers.

Under the Guillaumot inspectorate, we just store the bones in heaps. It is Hécart de Thury who has the idea of ​​transforming into an ossuary visitable which was so far only an annex to cemetery; The bones are stored by cemetery of origin, we make hagues (small walls), we use the skulls to make decorative patterns and we add some cut plates, on which are engraved worms (chosen by Thury) intended to make the visitor think about the brevity of life.

Closed in 1833 and reopened in 1874, the general ossuary of the city of Paris has remained officially visitable to the present day. He was technically part of the GRS whose central sector he occupied. To prevent visitors from getting lost by venturing into any gallery, a line on the ceiling was traced, black of smoke, which visitors had to follow. It is only towards the end of XX ^{It is} century that the ossuary was separated from the GRS; The inspection has indeed injected concrete into all the galleries which connected them to each other, with a thickness of 1 to 10 m , to prevent cataphile intrusions.

Throughout the XIX ^{It is} A century, the GRS was created by aggregation of all the small already existing networks, this allowing faster and easy access to the areas to be inspected. Nearly three hundred access is dug or built, as well as ventilation wells, to ensure air renewal. The career gaps are almost systematically backfilled and/or masonry, the IGC generally leaving only an inspection gallery to check the state of the career of the career.

The GRS as it exists today was not done in a day: it will have taken almost a century and a half, more than the total of all the work carried out in XIX ^{It is} century, to properly consolidate the (almost) all network ^{[ 7 ]} .

Of XX ^{It is} century to the present day [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

While the considerable work started in 1776 ends with the XIX ^{It is} A century, the work of the metropolitan then the Second War and the development of the telephone at the Liberation will (re) shape the large network for the last time.

From the end of XIX ^{It is} A century, the career gaps of the large southern network interest those above. Brasseries Gallia and Dumesnil buy a right of use at the IGC on voids, for the first under the rue de la Voie Verte, for the second under Dareau rue. These gaps will be fitted out in breweries and cellariers: we make beer and keep it. The conditions lend themselves ideally to this: the career temperature is constant ( 15 °C Summer and winter) and ambient humidity promotes the fermentation of barley. For water, we used well dug in the water table. With the increase in demand and production of breweries, the number of wells available is insufficient, and we do not hesitate to dig any new people. Thus, the Brasserie Dumesnil, which extended on a double floor (located 13 meters for the first and 19 meters for the second), was powered by a well drilled 95 meters deep ^{[ 15 ]} . These breweries will not disappear until late, Dumesnil continuing to use the places until the 1960s. Even today, it is possible to see metallic beams and specific support pillars, which testify to the activity of the .

After a few galleries created or modified at the plumb of the seal line in the sectors of Montsouris and Denfert, the work of the metro will lead to reshuffle the GRS plan: if certain historical galleries disappear unfortunately (boulevard Saint-Jacques), a Large double and rectilinear gallery on two levels of careers in certain places is created under the boulevard Raspail which supports line 12. The Montparnasse sector is also strongly altered. These galleries have the distinction of being made of millstone, more economical and considered to be better supporting the vibrations of the metro.

We find in these “rail” achievements the last consolidations dated from the network and marked in the stencil: 1906.

Other places in the GRS were arranged as shelters, with a purpose of passive defense. During the First World War, various services are thinking of using the career gaps located under Paris for this purpose: the inspection issues negative opinions (empty too small, too deep, too heavy development work, etc.). The project is abandoned at the end of the war. It was taken over in the 1930s, during the rise of Nazi Germany. The metro, the cellars, begin to be arranged in order to serve as a shelter, but this is also the case for certain areas of the GRS that the inspection agrees this time to take care of. The biggest shelter built in career will be the command post n ^O 2, built under the cold square, near the Place Denfert-Rochereau. The characteristics of the place lend themselves ideally to such an arrangement: “Depth of 19 meters, height under the sky of 2.40 meters, surface furnished of 600 m ² likely to accommodate a thousand two hundred people ” ^{[ 16 ]} . In November 1937 , the structural work of the shelter is completed, and the shelter itself is completed in mars 1938 .

In 1943, under the occupation, the Germans prohibited the career inspection from making its rounds in certain areas of the network. Under the Lycée Montaigne, near the Senate, they build a bunker in galleries which they isolate from the network by concrete walls. A large part of the walls are reinforced, concrete or mortar; We install armored doors, electricity, water and telephone. Contrary to what his qualification as a bunker could suggest, this German shelter did not serve as a arms depot, nor a fortress, but seems to have been used only for passive defense purposes.

At the same time, in January 1944 , the head of government of Vichy Pierre Laval requests the inspection services (with the authorization of the Ambassador of the Reich Otto Abetz) to build a shelter under the rue des Feuillantines. Although Laval has never specified the exact use he intended to make it, the magnitude of the work carried out seems to indicate that he planned to take refuge in it, possibly for a long time; The existing consolidations are reinforced, certain spaces transformed into rooms (kitchen, office, living room, bathroom, etc.) whose ceilings are coated with asbestos leaves, while the floor is covered with variable paving depending on the function provided for each part. Electricity, telephone and water is installed, as well as central heating, sanitary facilities and a ventilation system. Such work required significant means: to provide, the inspection installed a generator under the Val-de-Grâce, using an old ventilation well as fireplace in order to evacuate the exhaust gases ^{[ 17 ]} . Finished in the month of August 1944 , just before the release, the shelter was never used as a refuge. Just imprisoned some collaborators there, for a few weeks, after which he was definitively abandoned.

The command post n ^O 2 Not having been postponed to the plates of the inspection, any more than it had been revealed to the public, he had remained unknown to the Germans. Always used by the Technical Directorate of Water and Sanitation of Paris, he communicated with the quarries by corridors with armored doors. There was also a telephone standard, not likely to be spied on by the occupier, by the semi-circlendstin character of the shelter. One of the engineers who knew his existence, Mr. Tavès, belonged to the resistance since December 1942 . It is thanks to him that Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, as well as the FFI staff, were able to settle there, the August 20, 1944 . From 20 to August 25 , the shelter experienced the activity of a military command post. THE August 24 In the evening, Rol-Tanguy was warned of the arrival of allied troops at the town hall, where he immediately went; THE August 25 , Paris was completely released, and the staff, no longer needing to hide in a clandestine shelter, left the scene ^{[ 18 ]} .

The development of the telephone network throughout the XX ^{It is} century will also change the aspect of the GRS for almost a century! The telephone cables present at the beginning of the centuries will invade the galleries on the main traffic axes. With passive defense, it will be the last useful assignment of careers under Paris: PTTs run new wells of careers and cables, build large interconnection staircases for telephone infrastructure located under the streets. The wolfling of the GRS ends at the beginning of 2000s And the telephone past of the catacombs enters history.

In addition to the construction of shelters, reflecting the new need to take refuge massively under Paris to escape the fire from the sky, the XX ^{It is} century has seen the network are reduced and fragmented. When the metropolitan was built, in the 1900s, several inspection galleries were destroyed (because they are on the route of the metro). They are replaced by millstone galleries, located under the Delambre streets, Huyghens and Boulevard Edgar-Quinet. This replacement of galleries disappeared by other galleries is the latest. Since then, the inspection has particularly attached to filling, walls and injecting. When the Montparnasse tower is built, the galleries located below are for some transformed into a cellar (and concreted), the others are injected or crossed by the immense metal rods which serve as foundations for the tower. The municipal ossuary, the cellars of the Paris Observatory, the Capuchin career is isolated from the rest of the network, by the injection of the galleries located at their limits. It is generally a question of preventing intrusions, in particular clandestine explorers, or of strengthening the stability of the soil due to the constructions of new buildings.

During the 1980s, cataphilia was born in the GRS. Holidays are organized in places large enough to welcome people (notably the Z Val-de-Grâce), then more and more explorers, venture into the galleries they see beyond places of festivities.

In 1985, Anne Lauvergeon, was appointed assistant to the Inspector General of Careers, his mission is to thwart this cataphile phenomenon by making a share of access on the one hand and on the other hand by fragmenting the large southern network by Concrete caps obstructing the galleries to prevent a walk. The design of Charles-Axel Guillaumot to make a unitary network is betrayed.

The cataphiles will not remain passive to this action and will widen by bypassing pussies of all these “large dams” of concrete to restore the unit of the network. The general inspection project to break out the GRS is a failure but the network is irreversibly disfigured, more difficult to inspect and poorly ventilated due to the obstruction of wells and galleries, which undoubtedly causes an acceleration of the deterioration of masonry.

Nowadays, despite the many measures taken to end it, cataphilia still exists, and it is in the largest network in Paris and France that the underground explorators accustomed to the places regularly.

Rue Saint-Jacques [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The crypt and its rosettes, just below the Saint-Jacques gallery.

Exhausting in more than 2 kilometers, this gallery is the first to have been reinforced when the authorities took the problems posed by the careers. It was reinforced in 1776, even before the creation of the General Carrières Inspectorate, under the mandate of Antoine Dupont. Its walls abound in indications, many of which date from the revolution.

The buildings located at the time above the gallery are indicated with precision. The Herse’s Hotel, Mont Saint-Adrien, located respectively at 266 and 330, the convent of the English Benedictines (written “English”) of the n ^O 269, each have their indicative plate underground. Most of the street numbers are also transposed: for example, a plate bearing number 152 indicates 152 rue Saint-Jacques. The first cut plates are surmounted by a fleur -de -lis, engraved and painted in animal black, like the number. In 1793, under terror, the fleur -de -lis was systematically buried, while the “saint” names visible on certain plates were erased. Several of them will be removed a few years later; As for the lily flowers, they will be replaced by small stars.

Between the numbers 28 and 51, the visitor goes under several vaulted arches. These symbolize the old barrier of granting, tax border imposing a taxation on all the goods which entered Paris. Several smugglers had the idea of ​​going through the careers to escape the tax: they were actively sought by the brigades of the granting, ancestors of the police in modern underground. Their surveillance allowed the discovery of several caters, small tunnels dug clandestine to go from a cellar near to the career gallery. Other catiers of this type were discovered at the end of XIX ^{It is} century, quite by chance.

A little further south is a gallery located under Humboldt Street. On the north side of this gallery, a carved plate indicates “rue Humboldt”, while on the south side, just opposite, another plaque (whose older spelling shows that it dates before the XIX ^{It is} century) indicates “rue de Biron – North side”, this corresponding to the old street name ^{[ 19 ]} .

Due to its high attendance, the gallery on rue Saint-Jacques was particularly exhibited at Tag. However, there are many purposes, signs of careers and various indications, some of which are older than inspection, are of an age difficult to establish. The notable places that can be found near the gallery are:

• The Gambier-Major mineralogical cabinet. It is the only cabinet of this type to be fully visible and visible in the GRS. Underground variant of fashionable curiosity firms at XIX ^{It is} century, it was built under the mandate of Hécart de Thury. There is a right central staircase, as well as high stone benches and a small concrete bench. The staircase was used to exhibit pieces of rock, all representative of a geological layer of the Lutecian. Due to sustained underground attendance, inscriptions and signatures have all disappeared over time. The ceiling, where one could once see a rose of the winds, is today completely black due to a fungus which has settled there ^{[ 20 ]} . The place remains however maintained by regulars, the graffiti are regularly deleted there and the cataphiles consider the cabinet as one of the most notorious squats on the network.
• Cabinet or career rest room. For a long time backfilled and inaccessible, this room was cleared from 1996 to 2003. We discovered the contours of an old carriers room, then a vaulted niche, doomed to receive a statue of the Virgin or a saint.
• The crypt (see photo opposite). It is a small gallery occupying a lower level. You can admire two rosettes, carved in 1993 in the size front and partially vandalized in 1996.
• The ladies of Port-Royal. It is not a place, but a carved plate whose maintenance in the state is due to a work carried out by cataphiles. Located near the convent of the same name, it was unfortunately placed at the ground of the ground, which made it vulnerable to splashes and the embankment located on the floor of the gallery. In 2003, cataphiles were digging a hole in the shape of a semicircle under the plate, in order to protect it from the passage: they added a small stone wall, as well as a deep drain of a meter which allows the flow of water in the ground.
• The promotional gallery. In the continuity of the Saint-Jacques gallery, under the rue de la Tomb-Issoire, we can admire frescoes painted by the promotions of the Mines School for 20 years now. Each year, a new fresco is painted. The École des Mines has a history mixed with that of the GRS: students surveyors train in fact to make career measures.

Quartier Sarrette [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Enameled plate at the start of XX ^{It is} A century marking a gallery under rue Sarrette.

Located under rue Sarrette and around, this sector is most frequented by cataphiles. There are several fairly large rooms, most of which have been redeveloped several times from the 1980s , either to decorate them (by painting frescoes in particular), or to install, among other things, benches and tables. The Sarrette district was widely reinforced during the 1890s, under the inspectorats of Keller and Wickersheimer, as evidenced by many cut or enameled plates: despite this, the gallery located under the neighboring street Alphonse Daudet is characterized by a cracked sky as well as than several fontis.

As a result of its popularity, this sector is one of the dirty and tagged GRS. Some haggles (dry stone walls) have collapsed, leaving lots of backfill on the edge of galleries. It is common to meet people there for weekends ^{[ 21 ]} .

The main rooms in the Sarrette district are:

• The castle. Very small in size (it is almost impossible to stand there), this room fitted out during the summer of 2000 is however one of the most popular by cataphiles. Four gargoyles cut in the rock overhang visitors, who can sit on circular benches placed around a stone table, itself surmounted by a chandelier. At the back of the room is a carved castle to which the place owes its name ^{[ 22 ]} . Since then, the room has undergone multiple degradations ^{[ 23 ]} .
• The Marie-Rose room. Located under the street of the same name, it consists of several rooms, some walls have been painted. There is a circular squatt, below in relation to the average level of the soil of the career, as well as a plate in memory of Foxy (cataphile deceased from cancer) whose surroundings are decorated by flowers and a candlestick.
• The beach. This room is most likely the most famous of the GRS, as evidenced by its high attendance since the very beginning of the cataphilia. It is a career vacuum in brewery towards the end of XIX ^{It is} Century, reinforced for the first time by the inspection, then a second time by the brewers themselves who built thick masonry walls there as well as pillars of retaining with trapezoidal hats. Like Marie-Rose, the beach is actually made up of a complex of parts (this is also the case of the cellar). Its soil is covered by filling sand (hence its name). We can see on one of the walls a large fresco imitating The Great Wave Japanese painter Hokusai ^{[ 24 ]} . At the beginning of XX ^{It is} century, the room was occupied by the Brasserie Dumesnil, then the Brasseries Louxor and Espérance ^{[ 25 ]} .
• The cellar. As its name suggests, this room served as a cellar in XIX ^{It is} century ; It also served as a cellar and brewery to the Gallia beer brand, which has reinforced the place by building concrete arches and supporting pillars similar to those of the beach. First separated from the network, this room was put into communication with it in the late 1980s. Since then, cataphiles have carried out a certain number of developments, including several colorful frescoes, some of which are imitations of famous works (For example The source of Ingres or a metaphysical painting of Chirico) ^{[ 26 ]} .

Carrefour of the dead [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

In 1824, the southern cemetery (current Montparnasse cemetery) was created to replace the cemeteries of Vaugirard and Sainte-Catherine. It was extended in 1847 south-east ^{[ 27 ]} . Below are miles of galleries little or not at all comforted, all the more dangerous since the career had been used on two Levels. When the inspection begins the comfort work, the city of Paris gives it ten years. It will take him twenty to overcome the site, which was not finished in 1867. At the upper level, the empty spaces located under the divisions of the cemetery are almost all backfilled or masonry; The inspection galleries left in place at this level, on the other hand, rigorously follow the route of the aisles on the surface. They form a real orthonormal benchmark, made up of lines (perpendicular or symmetrical) and roundabouts. At the lower level, some winding galleries, relics of the old exploitation of the place, are always visible. When the work is completed, almost eight kilometers of galleries line up under the Montparnasse cemetery, while nine stairs connect the two levels ^{[ 28 ]} .

Located near the geographic center of the network, the crossroads of the dead owes its name to the many small ossuaries it contains. From the 1870s, this part of the network served as an annex to the official catacombs which were full and which could no longer be enlarged. Bones from various common pits were thrown into the quarries, by the extraction wells, then stored in heaps in different places. Since then, this ossuary has become the second largest in the city of Paris after the municipal catacombs ^{[ 29 ]} .

In addition to the bones that can be found, this sector is characterized by neat comforts, often in vault or cantilevered, as well as by a large amount of masonry. The stairs connecting the upper level to the lower are also masterpieces of underground architecture:

“Among other wonders, the cemeteries district undoubtedly has the most beautiful stairs in the GRS. These communicate between the two levels of galleries. They alone deserve a visit to these galleries between the floors. The architectures of these stairs are practically all different, made up of perfect adjustments of carefully cut blocks. Some have stalls, are spiral, surmounted by the vault or a flat sky. The most beautiful of them is undoubtedly the staircase [said] of crystal, thus baptized for the reflections created by the light on its steps with a whiteness of alabaster ^{[ 27 ]} . »

The sector, little frequented by cataphiles, has only a reduced number of rooms. The two best known are the office of the center, a small square room with a lintel when it is entered and decorated using crossed or stacked bones, as well as the pig room, provided with a bench, a bar with a large arm pillar ^{[ 30 ]} .

Notre-Dame-des-Champs district [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

In the same way that the Sarrette district typically represents the south of the GRS, the Notre-Dame-des-Champs district constitutes what cataphiles generally call the north. As its name suggests, the central gallery of the sector is that located at the APLOMB of rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. The district as a whole extends from the boulevard du Montparnasse at Boulevard Saint-Michel, with the Luxembourg garden for the North limit, although some galleries go below.

This sector is characterized by particularly varied galleries, places and arrangements. There is as well, at its limit with the crossroads of the dead (on the side of boulevard Edgar-Quinet), galleries in millstone, as older comforts dating from terror. Under the boulevard du Montparnasse, the visitor can sometimes admire large arches, in particular one in the cross of warheads, sometimes black boxes located in concrete niches, relics of the PTT telephone cables which had been installed there during the Cold War.

From 1814 to 1824, two IGC teams took almost ten years to drill some 400 m gallery, due to the exceptional hardness of the rocky mass located under the rue d’Assas ^{[ thirty first ]} . It was only at this price that the inspection could be sure that no old, abandoned and dangerous exploitation remained there. In 1824, the chief inspector Hécart de Thury had a “natural” fountain built under the current nursery of Luxembourg. It is a permeable corner of rock, which naturally drips water. Thury, noting this geological phenomenon, has the idea of ​​taking advantage of it to build a fountain. Under its direction will be built a stone basin, containing the clear water which comes from the rock, a first right staircase with double ramp, a second staircase leading to a low water scale thanks to which it was possible to measure the level D ‘Water from the water table, as well as two masonry square pillars.

A few years earlier, a tragic event allowed the sector to include a new development. In 1793, a porter working in Val-de-Grâce, named Philibert Aspairt, made use of the keys to which his function gave him the right to enter into a career, in search of the cellars of the old Chartreux monastery, located not far from here. The monks then have just been expelled and their nationalized monastery: a rumor claims that several bottles of Chartreuse, drink produced by the monks, would still be in these cellars … Aspairt enters career via A small kiosk located in the courtyard of Val-de-Grâce and begins its journey. Probably provided with a plan or any indication, it undoubtedly provides for a route of a few hours at most, and may have only equipped itself with a candle or an oil lamp, which we Don’t even know if he could turn them on. Unfortunately for him, the network is much larger, the galleries more complex and more confusing, than what he imagined. His candle ends up going out and Aspairt, wandering in darkness without water or food, collapses under Boulevard Saint-Michel.

His skeleton will not be found until eleven years later, in 1804. He will be identified thanks to the keychain which was still at his belt. Guillaumot, then chief inspector, decides to have him buried on the spot. A few years later, Hécart de Thury erected an acrostering tomb in his honor. However, an alternative theory notes a curious lack of traces about the history of Philibert Aspairt, and develops the hypothesis that the porter of Val-de-Grâce has in fact never existed, but would be an invented myth to discourage The recklessness wishing to venture into the careers ^{[ 32 ]} .

The main places in the Notre-Dame-des-Champs district are:

• The aperitif room. Any career abandoned for a long time, he was transformed into a room by cataphiles, then again abandoned. In 2009, it was redeveloped by other cataphiles, which built rounded benches there, added a hook and redone a table that threatened to collapse. In addition to these recent elements, the room has an arm pillar, a well (half -filled) well, as well as a large waist front. The place has become a particularly appreciated squat due to its vast size and recent arrangements.
• The rats bar. This room was connected to the surface by a spiral staircase whose height indicated is 17.525 6 meters (it was measured in feet and the number in meters was obtained by conversion, hence the four -digit decimal). There is a graduated low water scale, accessible by a right staircase, chairs from the Luxembourg garden, a wall with three arms pillars as well as several frescoes ^{[ 33 ] , [ 34 ]} .
• The Faco shelter. Located under the current n ^O 117 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, this former air shelter dating from the Second World War is intended for civilians. Higher ceiling than the Montparnasse shelter, it is however less frequented ^{[ 35 ]} .
• The Anschluss room. Formerly called Dibim, it was redone during the 2000s by motivated cataphiles. These have taken almost a year to build the new room, which is distinguished by rounded masonry in the network, as well as by a central level well ^{[ 36 ]} .

• The German bunker. Located under the Lycée Montaigne, it is the shelter arranged by the occupation army in 1941 for passive defense purposes. Accessible only by cat trees (narrow spaces), the bunker has a very special atmosphere due to the reinforcements that cover the walls, a mixture of shot and projected concrete, which rub shoulders with older masonry and fronts. You can find many traces of the military use of the place, such as the remains of electrical installation, arrows indicating outputs and inputs, as well as chemical toilets ^{[ 37 ]} .
• The grave of Philibert Aspairt. Located in the extreme east of the sector, near rue Saint-Jacques, the Val-de-Grâce porter stele has become an obligatory passage for the new ones. Different ways of honoring his memory are used in cataphiles: some pour beer or wine on his grave, others leave flowers or a lit candle, others bring bones they have taken at the crossroads dead, although this kind of practice is not always seen with a very good eye underground ^{[ 38 ]} .

Val de Grace [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The exploitation of careers located under the Val-de-Grâce dates from the middle of the Middle Ages, perhaps beyond. They were abandoned at XIII ^{It is} century, then forgotten until XVI ^{It is} century, the date on which the religious order of the Ursulines settled above. In 1621, Anne of Austria, wife of King Louis XIII, acquired a plot of the Ursulines land: she had the Petit-Bourbon private mansion, already present, and renamed it abbey of Val-de-Grâce for y Installing a community of Feuillantines in 1622. However, while the nuns thank their beneficiaries, it is tormented by large personal problems. Indeed, in order to ensure the sustainability of the royal dynasty, Louis XIII wants her a male heir, but Anne of Austria fails to give him one. Desperate, she swores to build a church in the Blessed Virgin if God fulfills her wish and gives him a male child. In September 1638 , after twenty-two years of unsuccessful attempts, a dolphin is born which will be the future Louis XIV. A year later, Anne of Austria laid the first stone of the church, on which the inscription is engraved: “For the long desired grace of the happy birth of a dolphin. September 5, 1639 . » ^{[ 39 ]}

We charge François Mansart, the most prestigious of the architects of the time, to draw up the plans and to direct the construction of the church. Only, there is a problem: the future church in Val-de-Grâce is located just above former career gaps, where the limestone benches had been operated over a height of up to six meters. Building on such a vacuum would cause immediate collapse, which is why Mansart has monumental comforts erected in the career part of the career. Gigantic vaults and masonry, as high as the old exploitation, are built. In October 1646 , the career is completely reinforced and construction can be done without danger. However, Mansart built so important comforts that he had to spend, to see them completed, almost all of the budget intended for all the work, while the church, on the surface, is barely up to ‘first floor. Mansart is thanked and replaced by Jacques Lemercier, who will finish the church according to the plans left by his predecessor.

Under the large courtyard of Val-de-Grâce is the Mansart staircase. This is an old descent, condemned following a landslide, then arranged in staircases XVI ^{It is} century (staircase greatly altered by Guillaumot in 1777). Although it was not built by Mansart himself, the staircase was baptized thus because of the comforts that the architect had built nearby. Today it is classified as a historic monument ^{[ 40 ]} . This staircase is unique of a kind, most staircases connecting the quarry area that were built in spiral, for convenience, until 1940.

In the 1930s, the hood, a fascist and terrorist organization, plans to make a coup. Its members sometimes meet in the GRS. Equipped with summary indications (type “at such a crossroads, turn left, then five steps and turn left” ^{[ 41 ]} ), they find themselves in various rooms that they designate by letters. Among these rooms, the most distant is designated by the last letter of the alphabet, namely the Z. This room is none other than that confirmed by Mansart in 1645-46: anteroom of the Val-de-Grâce network, it will keep his name “Cagoulard” and is still today designated by the cataphiles under the name of room Z.

Not far from the garden of Val-de-Grâce, at the plumb of the northeast angle of the cloister, a room contains a masonry well where there are two symmetrical orifices, in the shape of a bin, with a height of 80 cm . Due to its width, this well is too narrow to allow a man to pass there: he was in fact located at the foot of the latrines of the Queen’s pavilion, and was nicknamed, for this reason, “MADE service hole the Queen “.

Almost cut off from the rest of the GRS, Val-de-Grâce is a network in the network. It is the only sector where the old operating galleries, supported by pillars left in the mass, still exist (their original height was generally four meters and they were half backfilled, which leaves a close height two meters). Instead of following the trace of the streets or the surface aisles, these galleries directly follow the rock veins and the benches exploited by the carriers of the Middle Ages. The result is a tortuous, winding network, where you can get lost very easily despite the abundance of signs and plates left everywhere. Some rooms contain concrete benches, vestiges of defensive use of the network in the 1940s; Others, from a more recent development, allow the visitor who has ventured in this subnet to make a stop there. Under the Val-de-Grâce church, concrete comforts from the XX ^{It is} century constitute a kind of corridor called the corridor.

Here’s how René Stel describes the sector:

“The quarries of Val-de-Grâce, maze with shredded rocky edges hanging light, with threatening shadow areas, have retained their old character. Videes with irregular skies, tortuous and tangled galleries, unforeseen roundabouts adorned with rustic stone benches, rooms supported by arms pillars or large turned pillars, all contributes to giving an impression of unknown and mystery ^{[ 42 ]} . »

Little frequented by cataphiles because of its distance and the difficulty in orienting itself in its galleries, the Val-de-Grâce sector nevertheless contains several notable places.

• Salle Z. High place of clandestine festivals during the 1980s, it is the largest room of all the GRS, which allowed several hundred people to be there at the same time. The closure of the neighboring access has largely reduced attendance since then, but the monumental comforts erected by Mansart are still there, with their procession of tags and detritus as a trace of the fêtarde period ^{[ 43 ]} .
• The Radio Room, thus baptized for having served as a storage place for the radiographs of the Val-de-Grâce military hospital until the 1970s.
• The generator, used during the Second World War to supply electricity the anti -aircraft shelter right next door. Today there is a fresco showing a score.
• The corridor, a massively comforted corridor and used as an anti -aircraft shelter at the same period. Although it is not really a room, it is possible to find several reinforced concrete benches, testifying to the time when civilians took refuge there to escape air bombings.
• Bermuda, wetland filled with square and rectangular pillars, in which it is very easy to get lost.

15 ^{It is} north [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Mainly consolidated during the second half of the XIX ^{It is} A century, this sector was located in the far west of the GRS. It is characterized by a large quantity of rectilinear galleries which constitute the longest in the network. Very large, however, it is not one of the favorite sectors for the ride; If we except the galleries located under the boulevard de Vaugirard, it is one of the sectors least frequented by the cataphiles. This is mainly explained for two reasons. First, the sector is far from most of the rooms, and its long galleries make it painful to travel; Then, and this second reason undoubtedly stems from the first, the sector has hardly benefited from cataphile arrangements. There are therefore only galleries, or almost, for very few benches or tables that would allow you to take a break.

The history of careers of 15 ^{It is} North begins later than that of the other sectors of the network. Although some arrangements have carried out under Guillaumot, in very small numbers, the sector will not really be reinforced until the 1860s, mainly by the construction of cantilevered and masonry walls.

In 1901-1902, during the construction of the metropolitan, some of the galleries located under the boulevard de Vaugirard were reconformed with the millstone, in order to bear the weight of the metro which passes just above them (the millstone supports better Metro vibrations that limestone ^{[ 44 ]} ). In the 1930s, one of these galleries was partially concreted and re-moored in passive defense shelter. The shelter, located just below the boulevard postal center, was built for the use of postal staff only, as evidenced by its reduced size and the few parts that constitute it. It has nevertheless been equipped with an electric lighting and ventilation system.

The telephone deployment in quarries under Paris began in the between two wars ^{[ 45 ]} . In the 1960s, when the phone became democratized, in the middle of the Cold War, it was decided to intensify the use of the quarry galleries to bring PTT telephone lines. These galleries are located about twenty meters below the surface of the ground, which would make it possible to put telecommunications safely against any air attack, while avoiding having to dig new technical galleries a little higher to make them pass there . Telephone repeaters, large black boxes intended to amplify the sound signal, are installed near certain galleries, as well as a large quantity of cables which constitute the telephone network proper. The cables were removed later, and there are no longer today at all ^{[ forty six ]} . As for the repeaters, they are abandoned on the spot because of their weight and the price that their dismantling and their evacuation would cost. They can still be seen on the outskirts of certain galleries, protected from water by concrete niches built specially for them.

In the 1970s, the Montparnasse tower was built above several network galleries. Its foundations, made of steel and reinforced concrete, plunge 70 meters deep, or well below the quarries: these, from boulevard Edgar-Quinet to avenue du Maine, will be either injected or concreted and used as cellars of the tower. A door located in these cellars allows you to enter directly into a career via A very narrow concrete gallery ^{[ 47 ]} .

The notable places of the quarries of 15 ^{It is} North are:

• The Montparnasse shelter. After the Second World War and the Cold War, the shelter was gradually abandoned, for lack of utility. Its doors with thick shielding, which isolated it from the rest of the quarries, are unlocked by cataphiles. Quickly, the shelter becomes a place of passage, then a squat; The old doors now serve as tables, around which the cataphiles have set up makeshift benches. Several small frescoes will also be painted on concrete.
• The flag room. Located west of the shelter, this place is actually a large bell of masonry fontis during the construction of the metro. It is distinguished by its very high ceiling (nine meters), as well as by an old badge painted in the colors of the French flag, from where it takes its name.
• The stove roundabout. It is not a squat, but a set of galleries located at the plumb of the Falguière square. These ceiling galleries are distinguished by a large quantity of indicative plates. There is also, northwest of the roundabout, a small concrete bench, the sector is characterized by the strange presence of red cockroaches.
• The gym. Formerly called so because of an iron bar planted at the entrance to the room, with which it was possible to make pull -ups, it was half filled with bentonite during an injection in 2010 ^{[ 48 ]} .

Montsouris [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Under the current Montsouris park are old careers exploited from the XIV ^{It is} century. It was an open -air career bearing the name of Cybèle or Cibelle. When galleries were dug in underground, due to the too large place that the exploitation took, one could enter it by a cavity mouth, connected to the normal level of the soil by a gentle slope.

In the year 1869, a park was built all around the old operating pit to provide a green space to the neighborhood. All the surface vacuum has not been filled, however, and what remains of the vacuum will be filled with water, hence the current artificial lake that can be seen in the park. During its construction, this lake had to be filled twice; Indeed, the first time, the whole water suddenly emptied in the careers when the park was inaugurated, and the engineer in charge of the supervision of the works committed suicide soon after.

At the same period, a huge water tank was built by Eugène Belgrand on the orders of Baron Haussmann. This is the Montsouris tank. First intended to receive the waters of the valve aqueduct, it will require huge consolidation work. These will be carried out from 1868 to 1873. At the end of the work, the foundations of the tank were grid on a rectangular underground of 3,600 m ² , where there are no less than 1800 thick masonry pillars, indicated by a large number of landmarks (plates, figures, letters), and five consolidated fontis bells. This underground was initially part of the GRS: today it is no longer connected to the network, all the access galleries having been walled. A high -voltage cable segments the undergrounds of the tank ^{[ 49 ]} .

The Muraille Pass in 2016

Delimited by rue Nansouty to the west and by avenue Reille to the north, the Montsouris sector recalls that of Val-de-Grâce, although of smaller magnitude. Its galleries do not follow the layout of the paths of the surface park – which is hardly surprising if we consider that they are much older than the park in question -, but the rock veins extracted by the carriers of the Middle Ages. They form a maze where it is very easy to get lost, despite its reduced size. You can see historical traces, often made in charcoal by visitors to XIX ^{It is} century. Unfortunately, a large number of indicative plates in the sector, most of them, have been stolen. René Sutel, in his description of the Careers of Montsouris, evokes the presence of bats (now disappeared) in the sector ^{[ 50 ]} .

From 2000 to 2001, the construction of the ZAC Montsouris considerably reduces the size of the sector. Many galleries and rooms, located between rue d’Alésia and avenue Reille, are walled and injected. Among them, an almost entirely flooded place called the Corsican beach (supported by arm pillars built before the flood) and two rooms, the ceramic room and the soft concrete room, which disappear under the injections. At the same time (and this is a extremely rare fact in the works of the current IGC), old -fashioned consolidation walls have been built avenue Reille, which contrast with the masonry more old by their whiteness ^{[ 51 ]} .

Although the Montsouris sector has lost a lot of appeal following the disappearance of its northern part, there are nevertheless several rooms and notable places. These places are:

• A concretion called the Medusa. Located north of avenue Reille, it is at the extreme limit of the Galleries disappeared in 2000-2001. It owes its name to a strange form which makes it look like the invertebrate sea.
• The KCP room. Called by the initials of the cataphiles which are originally, it is characterized by several benches, one of which on which a stonemason has carved a small town, masks and various decorations.
• The room at the end of the world. Located in the extreme south of the sector, it is called due to the efforts that must be made to reach it through the Daedalus of Montsouris. It is a rectangular room, where there are benches, a table and a niche placed at the bottom ^{[ 52 ]} .
• Le Passe -Muraille – A sculpture of a man who walks through the walls. Created here in 2013 to replace the old wall pass which was located in the valve region and vandalized shortly before.

For visitors, we will of course mention the catacombs of Paris, the only part of the network open to the public. It is a museum of the city of Paris, which is free for those under 18 and which can cost up to € 29 for tickets with priority access ^{[ 53 ]} . By invitation, Cochin’s quarries are also visited, however it is a private museum whose management belongs to the SEADACC (Study & Encounters of the old Capuchin careers). These two networks are geographically part of the GRS, but are technically separated from them, the galleries which made it possible to pass from one to the other having all been injected.

Regarding the large southern network proper, several specialized access exist. These are generally stairs, which lead to plates or closed doors to key. One of them is located under the former historic seat of the inspection (3 avenue du Colonel-Henri-Rol-Tanguy), another is near the health prison, another still is located in the extreme north of the network.

If it has existed in the past nearly three hundred career access, most have since been closed by the inspection in order to prevent the intrusions of the cataphiles. Network attendance, apart from the official ossuary and cochine, is prohibited without a mandate and repressed by the decree of the November 2, 1955 ^{[ 54 ]} . Any offender faces a fine of € 69 (€ 38 ^{[ 55 ] , [ 56 ]} For violation of prefectural decree, to which is added 31 € in order fees) and runs the risk of getting lost if he does not know the layout of the galleries, of falling short from light or provisions, to fall into a well, etc.

Related articles [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Bibliography [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

: document used as a source for writing this article.

• Louis-Étienne Hécart de Thury, Description of Paris Catacombs , Reprint of the book published by Bossange editions in 1815, ed. CTHS, 2000, 382 p., (ISBN  2-7355-0424-7 )
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