By Cathy T
** Warning – this blog contains pictures of the deceased including one child.
THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS
Much of the Left Bank area in Paris rests upon rich Lutetian limestone. Known as Paris stone, it is unique to the area. This stone built much of the city including Notre Dame and many of the Gothic monuments. It was extracted in suburban locations away from any habitation. Because of the post 12th-century haphazard mining technique of digging wells down and extracting the stone horizontally until depletion, many of these mines were uncharted, and when depleted, often abandoned and forgotten until a series of mine cave-ins beginning 1774 brought them into the ‘limelight,’ (pardon the pun!)
Around the same time, the overflowing cemeteries above ground, were also proving to be a problem, so with the reinforcement of the caves, the idea to use them for ossuaries was contrived. By 1785 it became a reality.
Beginning with an opening ceremony on 7 April the same year, the route between Les Innocents cemetery 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 the majority of Paris’s cemeteries.Note: the walking route in the catacombs is about 1.25 miles (2 klms), but some 200 miles of labyrinthine tunnels are believed to exist!
These days many tunnel entrances have grills to prevent the public from getting lost as has happened in the past. The most famous account occurred in 1793 during the French Revolution, a fellow by the name of Philibert Aspairt who was a doorkeeper of the Val-de-Grâce hospital. He entered the catacombs via a staircase in the hospital courtyard. His motive was unknown but if he thought to escape the guillotine, then he did not succeed in escaping Monsieur Grim Reaper! His body was found eleven years later (1804) in one of the quarry galleries, identifiable by the hospital key hanging from his belt.
Translation of headstone
TO THE MEMORY OF PHILIBERT ASPAIRT, LOST IN THIS QUARRY ON 3 NOVEMBER 1793; FOUND ELEVEN YEARS LATER AND BURIED IN THE SAME PLACE ON 30 APRIL 1804
As one visits the catacombs, a sign above the entrance reads ‘Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la Mort,’ (Stop! This is the Empire of Death).
Having visited these catacombs myself, I can attest to the very real eerie feeling as you tread softly through the subterranean tunnels. The knowledge that Paris’ metro underground rail system is way above you is unsettling enough, but once you start down the twists and turns, your attention shifts to the many stacked bones and skulls that once held life. Kept in separate sections according to their age, one cannot help but wonder what sort of lives they led.
BRAN CASTLE, ROMANIA
In the tranquil forest setting of Romania is Bran Castle, famously known as the inspiration for Dracula’s castle. In the words of Bram Stoker, the castle sits ‘on the very edge of a terrific precipice . . . with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm [with] silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests.’ Bram Stoker never visited Romania. He depicted the imaginary fortress based upon a description of Bran Castle that was available to him in turn-of-the-century Britain.
1922 portrayal of ‘Nosferatu’ the vampire, Count Orlok, played by Max Schreck. It is believed that this movie was based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula but for copyright reasons of the times, changed the names of a number of characters and places.
1931- Bela Legosi’s interpretation of Dracula which famously became the ‘look’ for future Draculas!
It’s not hard to see how Bram came across the castle either, when the real-life muse for his character, Dracula, that being Vlad the Impaler, lived (in today’s terms) just a 2-hour drive south in his own castle. Nothing remains of that castle now but the legend of Vlad the Impaler lives on.
Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, (picture tag – A portrait of Vlad the Impaler, circa 1450, from a painting in Castle Ambras in the Tyrol) was born in 1431 in Transylvania, a mountainous region in modern-day Romania. His father was Vlad II Dracul, ruler of Wallachia, a principality located to the south of Transylvania. Vlad II was granted the surname Dracul (meaning dragon) after his induction into the Order of the Dragon, a Christian military order supported by the Holy Roman emperor.
Situated between Christian Europe and the Muslim lands of the Ottoman Empire, Transylvania and Wallachia were frequently the scene of bloody battles as Ottoman forces pushed westward into Europe, and Christian Crusaders repulsed the invaders or marched eastward toward the Holy Land.
Vlad II was summoned to meeting with Sultan Murad II and he took his two younger sons, Vlad III and Radu, with him. But it was a trap, and though Vlad II was released, he had to leave his two sons behind as hostages. This was a common enough practice in medieval times in order to keep the parent under restraint or from attacking in the future. The boys were tutored in science, the arts, and philosophy, and Vlad became a skilled horseman warrior. It is during these times, he may have learned about the art of impaling.
Vlad III returned home to Wallachia to find the local warlords had killed his father and learn his older brother, Mircea, had been tortured, blinded and buried alive. Enough to turn a person into a blood-crazed, impaling killer?
He was now ruler of Wallachia, but his lands were in a ruinous state due to constant warfare by the feuding warlords. To consolidate power, Vlad invited hundreds of them to a banquet. Knowing his authority would be challenged, he had his guests stabbed and their still-twitching bodies impaled. He reportedly dined among a veritable forest of defeated warriors writhing on impaled poles.
A quick note on the ‘art of impaling.’ Done to perfection, the pole could be inserted into the body without damaging internal organs. This way the stake could be stuck in the ground, the impaled victim taking days to die. I think we can see where the idea of having to strike a vampire through the heart with a wooden stake in order to kill it came from!
Vlad went on to make history with his vicious killings, some 80,000 all told, but he also prevented the Ottoman empire from invading Europe.
Catacombe dei Cappuccini, Italy
The practice of mummification is an ancient tradition that has taken hold, particularly in Sicily, and the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo. The catacombs are the highest expression of this tradition, because of the huge number of preserved humans housed in them.
The Capuchin friars were established in Palermo in 1534, at the church of Santa Maria della Pace (Lady of Peace). They created a cemetery in which deceased friars were buried, digging a mass grave that opened like a tank under the altar of St. Anne.
The Capuchin community grew and by 1597 the first room, the pit or tank, became insufficient. Excavations began to create a larger sepulchre behind the main altar, using the existence of ancient caves below. After two years the new cemetery was ready, and similar to Paris’ catacombs, the transference of the brothers from the overflowing charnel house could commence.
Unlike Paris though, when the friars exhumed the corpses something incredible had happened: forty-five friars were found naturally mummified and magnificently preserved. They had not decomposed, and their faces were still recognizable.
The Capuchins believed that this was an act of God and, instead of burying the remains, they decided to display the bodies of their adored brothers as relics, propped in niches along the walls of the first corridor of the new cemetery. Various methods of mummification were invented by the Capuchin friars.
The Women’s corridor
These days the bodies do not just include those of the priests. Now a famous ‘must see’ attraction, the guides of the cemetery know the history of the 2,000 embalmed mummies including the famous two-year old Rosalia Lombardo, called the ‘Sleeping Beauty of Palermo.’
She can be found in the chapel of Santa Rosalia, between two coffins containing corpses of other children. She is amazingly preserved with the aspect of a sleeping angel. Belonging to a noble family, Rosalia’s father asked local taxidermist, Alfredo Salafia, to preserve his daughter and make her ‘live forever.’ Rosalia is so perfectly preserved that she is considered the ‘world’s most beautiful mummy.’
Edinburgh Castle, Scotland
Edinburgh Castle is possibly one of Scotland’s most haunted sites, containing countless urban legends, reported sightings of misty figures and ghosts, things pulling at your clothes, and sudden drops in temperature. Perhaps though, the most famous is the story of an unnamed piper who disappeared.
The boy had been sent to investigate the passageways beneath the castle. He was instructed to play the bagpipes as loud as possible so those above ground could trace the network of tunnels. He was dutifully completing his task when as the boy reached the area below the Tron Kirk, a church which is a well-known landmark on the Royal Mile, the sound of bagpipes suddenly stopped.
Rescue teams went into the tunnels in search of the boy, but his body was never found. The burrows were subsequently sealed off. Even today people claim to hear the faint sounds of bagpipes coming from beneath the castle.
Another military ghost seen on the castle’s battlements is that of a headless drummer. This grisly figure was first seen drumming around the courtyard all night long, disappearing when the sun rose. It is now believed to have been a warning signal in 1650, just before the castle was attacked by Oliver Cromwell. Ever since, the headless drummer has been considered a harbinger of danger.
There have also been reports of a ghostly man who smells distinctly of manure and tries to push visitors over the castle’s battlements. The story goes that he was one of the many poor souls imprisoned in the castle’s dark, damp, rat-infested dungeons. Desperate to escape, he crawled into a wheelbarrow full of muck, hoping to be taken out of the castle and emptied onto a nice soft dung heap. But the wheelbarrow was tipped over the battlements instead, and the poor man broke his neck on the jagged slopes of Castle Rock, the name given to the volcanic plug upon which the fortification is built.
A most tragic apparition is a mysterious lady, dressed like a 16th-century noblewoman, who wanders the older parts of the castle, sometimes weeping. It is thought she might be Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis, a woman accused of witchcraft by a vengeful King James V who took his grudge against her brother out on her. Everyone knew the accusations were baseless, but Janet Douglas was burned at the stake outside the castle on 17 July 1537, in front of her son.
When his grandson, James VI, travelled to Denmark to collect his new bride, Anne of Denmark, in 1589, storms were so severe they prevented his journey. Like his grandfather, he became convinced that this was the work of witches from North Berwick, intent on his ruin so he initiated a witch hunt which resulted in (numbers vary from report to report) anything from 200 to 500 women being burned at the stake on the Royal Mile. Their screams and protests haunt the castle still.
Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic
Another ossuary but with a difference. This one is a Roman Catholic chapel located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints. Blessed with earth from the Holy Land by the Cistercian monastery’s abbot in 1278, the cemetery became a desirable burial site throughout Central Europe. This eventually led to the familiar problem of an overabundance of bodies.
Expansions began but it wasn’t until 1870 when a woodcarver, Frantisek Rint, was employed to put the bone heaps into some sort of order. What resulted was a creative, macabre display of interior design including a chandelier of bones containing at least one of every bone in the human body, that hangs from the centre of the nave, garlands of skulls draping the vault.
Château de Brissac, Franc
Constructed during the 11th century, the beautiful Château de Brissac is situated south of Angers in the Loire Valley, and it’s haunted by the ghost of ‘La Dame Vert’ or the ‘Green Lady,’ so called for the green gown she wears.
Charlotte de France was the illegitimate daughter of King Charles VII, and the young wife of Jacques de Brézé. His father, Pierre de Brézé, was a chief minister of the king and no doubt the marriage had been arranged. Such agreements were commonplace in the medieval world, but these marriages did not always include love however, it would appear that Jacques took huge exception to his finding his wife in the arms of Pierre de Lavergne, her lover.
Returning from a hunting trip, Jacques ate dinner with his wife and retired to his own chamber–separate suites was another medieval custom–when he was awoken by his manservant in the middle of the night and informed his wife had a visitor…in her bed!
It is here the story has two versions as to what happened next.
One version states that Jacques was so enraged, he dealt over 100 blows of his sword to the cheating couple. The second version states that Jacques strangled Charlotte in the Chapel Tower at Brissac later that very same day. That version would account for why her spirit haunts this tower, but one thing is certain, neither Charlotte nor Pierre de Lavergne were ever seen again.
Jacques left the chateau shortly after, whether to escape the bad memories or the hauntings is unclear, but when his departed wife’s half-brother, Louis XI, now king of France, heard what happened, he had de Brézé thrown in Prison for a number of years. Jacques was to be sentenced to death, but Louis finally relented and spared his life, instead confiscating all his property. After all, adultery was an unforgivable sin.
Charlotte’s moaning and weeping spectre has been seen at the chateau ever since, mostly in the tower room. What terrifies witnesses to this ghostly vision is the fact that in place of eyes and a nose, there are gaping holes in her face making her look truly terrifying.
The Capetian Curse
This last example is another illicit affair, though it is more about the curse that was at work behind it, probably the most well-known today. So, let’s start with the curse and then see how it destroyed the House of Capet.
On Friday, the 13th day of October in 1307, secret orders issued by King Phillip IV were carried out in France. The knights of the Templar Order were arrested and under gruelling torture many broke, confessing to the crime of heresy. They were burned at the stake. Most historians agree that Phillip’s war had exhausted his funds and by ridding himself of these quasi-bankers, and confiscating their coin, it filled his repleted coffers nicely.
On 18th March 1314 the Grand Master himself, Jacques de Molay, having confessed then retracting it, was placed on a pyre to burn on the Île de la Cité. As he burned, he called upon Christ to ‘prove the Order’s innocence and bring its persecutors to the judgment of God.’ He cursed King Philippe and Pope Clement V in their collusion of falsehood. His curse included that within a year and a day, both king and pope would die. He also said that Phillipe’s bloodline would reign in France no more!
Phillipe had three sons, Louis, Phillipe, and Charles, so his dynasty was assured, and he secured for them excellent marriages to Margaret of Burgundy, Joan of Burgundy, and Blanche of Burgundy respectively, the latter two cousins to Margaret and all three descendants of Saint Louis IX. With his own daughter, Isabella, married to King Edward II of England, what could go wrong?
Isabella of France Margaret of Burgundy Blanche of Burgundy Joan of Burgundy
In fact, it was Isabella who first suspected her unfaithful sisters-by-marriage were having affairs. She had gifted them with beautiful, embroidered pouches and on a return visit to her father, she spied two Norman knights, the brothers Gauthier and Philippe Aunay, each wearing one of the purses on their belts. Isabella informed her brothers, who had the knights followed. It was discovered they were meeting the three women at the Tour de Nesle. There was speculation as to whether Joan actually participated in the romantic liaisons as her marriage to Philippe was thought to be a happy one, or was she just dutifully ‘keeping watch’ for her sister and cousin.
The Normans were caught ‘red-handed’ and justice was swift. They were castrated, drawn and quartered, broken on the wheel and hanged.
All three women were tried by parliament, Margaret and Blanche found guilty and had their heads shaved and imprisoned in underground cells at Chateau Gaillard. Joan was eventually acquitted.
Before the year was out, just as Jacques de Molay had predicted, King Philippe IV died, followed by Pope Clement. That put Louis on throne but his wife, Margaret was no longer fit to be queen. Mysteriously, she died before Louis was coronated. He remarried five days later. But the Templar curse struck again, Louis dying before the birth of his son. The babe only lasted five days-the same number of days between his first wife’s death and his new marriage.
With the death of his brother and nephew, Philippe took the throne, but the curse struck again when out of five children, his only male heir died within a year of the birth. Philippe died with no issue to take the throne.
That brought Charles to the throne and because it didn’t look good to have a wife in prison, he banished her to a convent. He had his heir, a son, Philippe, almost nine years of age, who had never really known his mother. Charles was coronated and two months later, young Philippe died of fever. Some say the child drank from a polluted well, but most agreed it was the curse again. With his only heir gone, Charles had his marriage dissolved and Blanche died …. you guessed it, within a year! Charles remarried twice his only other son from those couplings died weeks after birth. Only the females remained alive and, due to Salic Law, they could not inherit the throne. The Capetian House no longer ruled France and the words of Jacques de Molay became true.
This story is the basis of Maurice Druron’s ‘The Accursed Kings’ series or Episode 1 can be viewed here https://youtu.be/VU3-_C6IcWo The following episodes are available on the same page.
NB. When the House of Bourbon (descended from the House of Capet) came to power, King Louis XVI was stripped of his throne by the French Revolution and refused the name of Bourbon, possibly because it could still entice a following. From then, he was to be called Louis Capet, and his wife became the ‘Widow Capet,’ for the time left to her. We all know what their fate was! Nearly 500 years after Jacques perished, the curse was still working.
Since Edward III, son of Isabella, was Philippe IV’s grandson, it should be deduced that he also had Capet blood in his veins. His attempt to take the French throne failed and was part of the reason for the Hundred Years War, lasting 116 years. He never gained the throne, again proving Capetian blood would not rule France’s kingdom. Towards the end of Edward’s reign, his struggle shifted to hold his own house, the House of Plantagenet, intact. He may have dodged the ‘Capetian Curse’ but could it be said the military intervention of his son, the Black Prince, into Spanish affairs had attracted another?
There is a curse about a ruby, the gem currently residing in the British Crown jewels, but I’m not going to share it here. That story will be told in Lions and Lilies next instalment, Roar of the Lion.
Catherine A Wilson co-writes with Catherine T Wilson (no relation). Their first book, The Lily and the Lion, was based upon their true-life accidental meeting and resulting friendship. All four books in their ‘Lions and Lilies’ series have won first place prizes in the Chatelaine/Chaucer Awards in the US and in 2019, The Traitor’s Noose won the Grand Prize Chaucer Award.
Lions and Lilies 