Created in 1868, it was located on the « Ile de la cité ».
Yes, the same one where Quasimodo was supposed to live, and the one where the Sweeney Todd legend originated.
Busy place, huh ?
Originally founded to help identify the dead bodies that were found floating in the Seine, it quickly turned into a very famous tourist destination…
Before true crime and horror movies, people used to entertain themselves by witnessing guillotine executions, or queuing for hours to stare at real decomposing dead bodies.
Good times.
A free show for the masses
The bodies were naked, slightly propped up on a table, and misted to prevent decomposition odors from spreading.
Their clothes were hung above or around them. The dead were visible for up to 3 days, separated from the visitors behind a glass, and then switched up with « fresher » ones.
The public flocked there so much that lines were constant. Some notes mention up to 40 000 visits a day.
I’m sure the fact that it was free helped.
The point used to be identification but the numbers were very low on that part.
They were very high on the voyeurism factor though (turns out we can’t always blame Rotten.com).
It is said that some murderers even frequented the establishment to make sure whether their victims were found or not.
The end of (IRL) public voyeurism
Modesty then took over, and created a heated debate around the ethics of the open morgue concept at the end of the 19th century, closing viewings to the public in 1907.
The morgue was then reopened in a new private place in 1923, and now is « the Forensic Institute of Paris ».
The original one was eventually turned into a square.
I’m starting to think that most of the greenery in Paris is linked to its horrific past.
Now I’d like you to take a minute to ponder.
Picture yourself in Victorian Paris. Feces in the streets, rats everywhere, Borax in the milk, Arsenic in the bread, no hygiene anywhere to be seen.
40 000 people in a building filled with decomposing dead bodies.
In the summer heat.
The ambiant aroma could gag a maggot.
Nowadays, in the square exactly where the 1868 glass walls once displayed the dead, people eat their lunch.
Even the city’s plaques seem confused about their own timeline (they state the morgue was from 1861 to 1863).
Paris has so many layers of macabre that it’s hard to keep track, I guess.
City of love, they say…
Current square photo by Lady little punk doll.