What Was Here Before the Catacombs of Paris?

In 1786, Paris began moving its dead at night. The official count of what went down that shaft is 6 million people. A man born in Paris who has walked among those bones puts it at no more than 100,000. And most of the tunnels under the city have never been counted at all. Before there were catacombs, there was the Holy Innocents' Cemetery: walled in during the 1200s, filled pit by pit, 1,500 bodies at a time, and closed in 1780. The city's own population records raise a question nobody has answered. Where did 6 million dead come from, in a city that never seems to have had that many people? This episode follows the record from the cemetery to the wagons to the concrete being poured into the quarries under Paris today, built on research by independent researchers and on old records anyone can read for themselves. 6 million, 100,000, or more than anyone has walked far enough to see? Pick a number and tell me why in the comments. IMAGE CREDITS: Engravings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (18th century) and the Holy Innocents' Cemetery view by Theodor Josef Hubert Hoffbauer (19th century), public domain. Modern photographs and footage used under license. DISCLOSURE: This video uses AI assistance in production. Archival images have been AI-upscaled, and some illustrations are AI-generated. #CatacombsOfParis