day 4...

today we visited the Catacombs, but on our way there we stopped and saw a large water fountain in the middle of the square. it had Egyptian statues and symbols all over it. this was not the first Egyptian style thing i had seen; there were many in the Louvre and all over Paris. when i asked about it, i learned that when napoleon was in power, he went on a trip to Egypt. when he came back, he brought back many Egyptian artifacts...and that started a Egypt frenzy throughout the empire.

anyways, back to the catacombs. when we first go into the building, it looked normal enough, but, when we walked into the next room, i noticed a staircase in the middle of the floor, and, unlike other staircases, it went down instead of up. we had to go down these narrow, winding stairs; down, down,and, right when i thought that the stairs would never end, they did. they ended in a narrow, low corridor that was carved out of the rock. the corridor stretched on into the darkness, and we had no choice but to follow it.
we walked for a ways down this corridor, passing markers, carvings, arches, and the occasional caged off area. finally, about a mile under the city of Paris, we found the door. it was about 6 feet tall, and at the top, there was a warning. it said something along the lines of 'stop! you are about to enter the empire of the dead!' we passed under the doorway, and entered the empire of the dead.
the first thing i noticed was a row of skulls staring at me from a wall of bones. past the skulls, i noticed wall after wall after wall of bones. arm bones and leg bones were piled up high, and the skulls of men long gone were artistically arranged among them. here the bones of both beggar and king were living together in harmony.
i learned that the catacombs were partially built by the Romans as a burial chamber but that during the French revolution they were expanded because all the people who had died were buried very shallowly and whenever it rained the bodies would begin to float to the top. so the french expanded the catacombs to put all the fallen of the revolution under the city so they could use the land for other things. its also said that there are many famous people down there...such as Robespierre and Marie-Antoinette.

as for what i thought about.... being among so many dead has made me greatly appreciate being one of the living. having the faces of men long dead staring into your soul makes you examine yourself and how you will be remembered once you are like those in the catacombs.

and, like it says on the door beneath the mountain. "the way is shut...."