The Paris Catacombs originate from the 18th century - It should’ve been named “municipal ossuary”.
The name of “Catacombs” has been given to this ossuary after the Catacombs of Rome, the name given to the antique cemetery located next to the Appian way.

The Innocents’ cemetery (next to Saint-Eustache, in the district of ‘les Halles’) was being used for nearly ten centuries and became a source of infection for all the inhabitants of this district. After many complaints, the State Council, by judgement of the 9th of November 1785, pronounced the suppression and evacuation of the Innocents’ cemetery.

Old quarries were selected to have to bones put in ; the city of Paris had just acquired a general inspection of the Quarries whose role was to consolidate the public roads and ways mined for the quarries. The quarries of the ‘Tombe-Issoire” were at the center of the attention with a lot of carpentry to keep the galleries from collapsing, completed by the digging of a staircase flanked by a well to dump the bones.
The transit of what was left started after the benediction and consecration of of the place on the 7th of April 786 and continued until 1788, always at nightfall with a ceremony constituted of a procession of priests in surplices chanting the office of the dead following the path of the coffins loaded with bones and covered with a black veil. Afterwards, until 1814, this site would receive bones from all the cemeteries of Paris.

Since their creation, the Catacombs aroused a lot of curious minds. In 1787, the Comte of Artois, future Charles X, went there accompanied of ladies from the ‘Cour’. The next year, the visit of Madame de Polignac and Madame de Guiche is mentioned. In 1814, Francois 1er, emperor of Austria, residing in Paris as a winner visits the Catacombs. In 1860, Napoleon III visits them with his son.

The Catacombs reopened the 14th of June 2005 after several months of work. The lighting was changed, the vaults consolidated and the bone walls rebuilt.

Hotel suggestion

Du Parc - budget option next to Montparnasse

Sophie Germain - another budget option, not far from the Catacombs

Meslay Republique - also on the budget side but on the right bank

Five Hotel - romantic option - great hotel!

Villa Saint Germain - 4 star option in a great location

Albe - central location in Saint Michel

Bellechasse - next to the Invalides and Tuileries in Saint Germain

Fontaines du Luxembourg - great hotel next to the Luxembourg Park