$4.46
Details
Catacombs of Paris, The: The History of the City's Underground Ossuaries and Burial Network
Author: Charles River Editors
Narrator: Scott Clem
Unabridged: 1 hr 23 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Findaway Voices
Published: 09/10/2019
Genre: History - Europe - France
Synopsis
In the late 18th century, as political unrest stirred in the heart of Paris, local residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the city’s urban cemeteries faced a pressing crisis: the putrefying stink of rotting corpses, many of which were likely friends and family members, crept into every house and business due to overflowing burial grounds. The city’s population had long since outgrown its centuries-old cemeteries, and mass graves packed tightly with corpses lay open for months at a time, sometimes upwards of a year, as they waited for more bodies to join. Before long, over-filled charnel houses spilled bones into their neighboring churches.
During and after the Enlightenment, science was a popular tool, and many began to question the potential health detriments that such ongoing decay might bring. With growing concerns and rising complaints, the anciens regime of France took steps to begin the long process of transferring old bones from charnel houses and old graves into the miles of tunnels beneath the city streets, now known as the Paris Catacombs.
As the French government engaged in this initial step, however, a revolution broke out across the country, initially bringing moderate change before transitioning into a brutal Reign of Terror by the revolutionaries. The chaos would witness a frightened return to a more moderate republic, and finally the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, yet throughout all of this upheaval, the topic of burial reform in Paris remained pressing and the conversation began to shift from merely a practical issue of space and health to a discussion that included legislators, priests, moralists, and everyday citizens. Put simply, the newly formed government had to decide what to do with the dead, no matter the politics.
by Charles River Editors
According to most assessments of the age, France was not typically home to the systematic, “scientific” anti-Semitism that had such deep roots in Germany, and even more so further east in Russia and its dependencies. As proof of this, w...
Published: 07/15/2019
by Captivating History
If you want to discover the captivating history of the Napoleonic Wars, then pay attention...The Napoleonic Wars, which took place between 1803 and 1815, were spearheaded by probably France’s best tactician and military strategist to date, Gen...
Published: 01/08/2020
by Neil Wenborn
The fifth in the new Naxos AudioBooks series ‘In a Nutshell’, The French Revolution is a short and accessible introduction to one of the most important periods in European history. It brings vividly to life the implacable Robespierre, th...
Published: 10/26/2009
by Charles River Editors
As one of the seminal social revolutions in human history, the French Revolution holds a unique legacy, especially in the West. The early years of the Revolution were fueled by Enlightenment ideals, seeking the social overthrow of the caste system t...
Published: 05/13/2020
by Man with a Cat
In the early 18th century, eighty years prior to revolution, France went wild for stocks and bonds. Mechanics dropped their tools, tradesmen closed their shops. There was but one profession, one employment, one occupation, for persons of all ranks f...
Published: 06/07/2017
by Charles River Editors
Nearly 50 years after Napoleon met his Waterloo, generals across the West continued to study his tactics and engage their armies the same way armies fought during the Napoleonic Era. Despite advances in military technology and the advent of railroad...
Published: 11/06/2019
by David Serero
"I, MARIE ANTOINETTE" is a one woman theater play, written by David Serero, about the most iconic Queen of France: Marie Antoinette. Under the form of an autobiography, Marie Antoinette (1755-1793) tells her story from birth to death, to contemporar...
Published: 11/18/2020
by Charles River Editors
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, when Western Europe was governed by a Germanic warrior-caste, the theory of a just and virtuous war took root. The Roman Church enhanced its authority by sanctifying oaths taken for jus...
Published: 10/11/2020
by History Nerds
The French Revolution of the late 1790s was one of the critical events in the history of Europe. It was the defining moment - a historic landslide that ushered the world into a new, completely different epoch. Alas, all such changes come at a great ...
Published: 02/10/2021