Catacombs Moles

The Pavillion de l'Arsenal began its life as a display space for a wealthy amateur artist's paintings. It has since become part of the Bibliothèque National de France as a center for the study of urbanism. Which means a lot of wall displays of the layout and development of Paris since the Gallo-Roman times, right through its plans into the mid 21st century. It's a big, open space with a glass roof and façade to allow natural light.

I was drawn to l'Arsenal for an exposition on the city's animals--particularly the more exotic and quotidien ones that ended up on the menu when food became scarce during the 1870-1871 Paris commune. Think dogs and rats, but also working horses and mules, as well as elephants and antelopes from the city's zoological gardens.

"Grand dîner parisien, 1870-1871" by Jean Gauchard (1871) captures some of the gastronomic desperation and horror of the Siege of Paris. Courtesy of Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

What I did not expect was the taxidermy display of "greater catacombs moles" (talpa necropeia) that purportedly were hunted to extinction shortly after the removal of nearly all of Paris's cemetery contents to the catacombs. T. necropeia was said to be a remnant species from the Pleistocene whose burrowing habits spared it from the fate of other European megafauna as hominid species expanded into the furthest northern latitudes. Some even assert that it was these giant, omnivorous talpidans' foraging beneath Paris's cemeteries that caused the collapse of containment walls (spilling mud and human remains into the basements of adjoining businesses and residences) and random cave-ins that instigated the 18th century consolidation of bones into the ancient stone quarries.

Wilder still were tales from some who claimed to have accompanied Philibert Aspairt on his doomed descent into the catacombs in 1793. When Aspairt's remains were discovered in 1804, tales began circulating that he was the leader of a treasure hunt or heist that went terribly wrong. Some claimed that Aspairt got lost trying to abandon his colleagues in the dark in order to keep the loot for himself (and that they only came forth with their stories when they were certain he was actually dead). Others claimed that their party was scattered by "large, dark forms" that charged them from just outside of their lamplight, picking off members one by one--the implication being that Aspairt's remains were found because he was one of the few who survived the attacks, only to die alone in the dark from hunger, thirst, and exposure. Over time, tales of these mystery attackers were increasingly described as consistent with much older Celtic-Gallic traditions of mythical creatures--everything from Beowulf's Grendel to the Beast of the Gevaudan (which some still believe, without evidence, to have been a werewolf).

La bête du Gevaudan, circa 1764. Werewolf? Probably not. Courtesy of the Public Domain Review.

Which of course all sounds like bullshit. First, the centuries of mining Paris's lutetian limestone was sufficient to destabilize both surface and subterranean structures. No gigantic burrowing relicts are necessary to explain the cave-ins. Second, the timing of the "survivors'" testimony--eleven years after Aspairt's was last seen alive--is suspect, as is the selective reference to pre-modern ("simpler, more attuned with nature") inhabitants' ambiguous cultural traditions to corroborate a pseudo-historical precedent for the supposed "creatures."

Most damning of all: there is nothing in the fossil record to suggest the existence of giant, burrowing omnivores in Pleistocene central Europe (though the scientific nomenclature and designation as "greater," implying "lesser" and even "middle" variants, is a nice touch).

And the "bodies" on display at l'Arsenal ... well they just look fake.

Good story, though.

"I don't know what it was, therefore I know what it must have been."