Reviewed by: Making Space for the Dead: Catacombs, Cemeteries, and the Reimagining of Paris, 1780–1830 by Erin-Marie Legacey Alice J. Strange Legacey, Erin-Marie. Making Space for the Dead: Catacombs, Cemeteries, and the Reimagining of Paris, 1780–1830. Cornell UP, 2019. ISBN 978-1-5017-1559-4. Pp. 210. This work examines the crisis in the burial practices of Paris prior to the French Revolution and the chaos that followed as a new burial culture was created. For centuries the remains of the dead of Paris had been deposited into anonymous mass graves in one of the thirty-two churchyards in the city. The oldest and largest gravesite was the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents in central Paris, in use for more than five hundred years. By the late eighteenth century, it was overflowing with decomposing human remains and was a peril to neighboring residents. Although the space was surrounded by a wall, it emitted noxious airs and underground vapors that invaded surrounding buildings and made their way into living spaces. In 1780, a royal proclamation ordered the closure of this and other cemeteries and the relocation of remains to an underground quarry on the urban periphery, which eventually became the Paris Catacombs. The Old Regime failed to address the burial problem before its own demise in 1789, and cemetery reform was left to successive regimes. Legacey argues that the French Revolution was central to transforming attitudes about the proper treatment of the dead. Revolutionaries called for an end to religious burial practices and a new system based on the ideals of equality and fraternity. They were unable to realize these goals, and during the Terror, the remains of thousands of secretly executed victims were placed in open mass graves, complicating the problem. Instability continued into the Napoleonic Empire. It was gradually accepted that individual burial sites were preferable to communal graves. Architects and urban planners offered innovative reforms. One proposal, for example, argued that the dead should be judged for their civic contributions and assigned a place in a new cemetery according to their worthiness. Finally, in 1804, burial standards were codified by Napoleon in a decree that set forth twenty-six articles governing the design for burial spaces. Cemeteries were to be located on the periphery of cities rather than within urban areas, preferably on an elevated terrain east of the city. Père-Lachaise cemetery was opened in 1804 in accordance with the guidelines. Cemeteries were no longer unpleasant and unhealthy places to be avoided, but aesthetic and attractive sites. The new design aimed to accommodate individual gravesites with monuments, although some communal graves continued to exist. The living were encouraged to contemplate the achievements of the heroic dead. Ideally, the new cemetery would unite Parisians of all classes and instill a sense of shared history. The Paris Catacombs, opened to the public in 1809, were an indispensable component of the new culture. Bones from many cemeteries were arranged artistically to draw visitors, combining a macabre appeal with a reminder of the leveling effect of death. In this thoroughly researched study, Legacey presents compelling archival material to trace the revolution in Parisian cemetery culture and the corresponding transformation of attitudes toward the dead. Her work [End Page 240] makes a significant contribution to the social history of Paris in the early nineteenth century. Alice J. Strange Southeast Missouri State University, emerita Copyright © 2020 American Association of Teachers of French
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