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Curiosities [afterw.] Romance of modern travel (1849)
Curiosities Romance of modern travel - afterw. - 1849 Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS. The catacombs of Paris form one of its most singular objects of interest. For years past it has been very difficult to obtain permissi... more »on to enter them. A visitor is said to have lost himself in the labyrinth of subterranean passages, and to have been never heard of again. The roofs of the quarries have also been in a dangerous condition. For these reasons, and because, also, as I learned afterwards, some persons had abused the permission granted them, and carried away some of the bones of the dead, the catacombs have been almost entirely closed against visitors. Although I had a strong desire to visit them, I hardly hoped to obtain permission, but in this, as in other instances, I have to acknowledge the marked kindness of our minister, General Cass, whose attentions to our party, during our' stay in Paris were as useful as they were gratifying. Having expressed to him our wish to see this subterranean world of the dead, and, at the same time, our fears that we should not be able to gratify it, he kindly replied, that he would address a note to the minister and ask permission for us. Accordingly, a few days after, the permission " A few persons have, by great interest, been allowed by the prefect of police to enter; but, in general, permission may be said to be impossible to be obtained."—Galiynani. came, with the note, " M. Durban pourra se faire ac- compagner par quatre amis." But Mr. G., of New York, desired also to be of our party; so here were jive instead of four. What was to be done? We concluded to repair to the spot at the appointed hour, and see if we could not make four mean Jive. So, on Monday, June 20, at eleven o'clock, we went, as directed, to the house of M. Fourcy, engineer of the Royal Corps of Miners, who was to be our guide,...« less