why are there so many bodies in the paris catacombs
Catacombs of Paris The Catacombs of Paris (French: Catacombes de Paris,   (help·info)) are underground ossuaries in Paris, France, which hold the remains of more than six million people[1] in a small part of a tunnel network built to consolidate Paris' ancient stone mines. Extending south from the Barrière d’Enfer ("Gate of Hell") former city gate, this ossuary was created as part of the effort to eliminate the city's overflowing cemeteries. Preparation work began not long after a 1774 series of gruesome Saint Innocents-cemetery-quarter basement wall collapses added a sense of urgency to the cemetery-eliminating measure, and from 1786, nightly processions of covered wagons transferred remains from most of Paris' cemeteries to a mine shaft opened near the Rue de la Tombe-Issoire.
Bastille Some relics of the Bastille survive: the Carnavalet Museum holds objects including one of the stone models of the Bastille made by Palloy and the rope ladder used by Latude to escape from the prison roof in the 18th century, while the mechanism and bells of the prison clock are exhibited in Musée Européen d'Art Campanaire at L'Isle-Jourdain.[225] The key to the Bastille was given to George Washington in 1790 by Lafayette and is displayed in the historic house of Mount Vernon.[226] The Bastille's archives are now held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France.[227]