Paris Werewolves

  A phantasmagoric bas-relief from Robertson's tomb, Cimitière du Père Lachaise, 20th Arr. I took the opportunity to create another entry for Atlas Obscura. This one was for the tomb of 18th century scientist and pioneer of spooky stage entertainments, Étienne-Gaspard Robertson . AO wrote a great story about Robertson years ago, but did not include particulars about visiting the tomb. It's a small thing, but I wanted to rectify it. Now I have. I won't rehash everything that you can read on AO, except to say that his grave in Cimitère du Père Lachaise is a marvelous homage to the kinds of nightmares he inflicted on audiences in the darkened crypt of the Convent of the Capucines. Not your usual cherubic decor. An engraving from Robertson's memoirs. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. As it happens, one of Robertson's other claims to fame was "aerostats," i.e., he would ascend in a hydrogen-filled balloon to take detailed measurements of meteorological and atmos...

We don't consciously seek out places that look like Castle Dracula. Well, actually we do. And compared to places like the Cathar castles in Queribus and Peyrpeteuse that we visited down south years ago, Strasbourg's cathedral really delivered. Château de Quéribus, Cucugnan Château de Peyrepetuse, Rouffiac-des-Corbières But that was not why we took a side trip to Strasbourg, in the Grand-Est region (formerly Alsace), just across the Rhine River from Germany. We had hoped to visit the famous Christkindelsmärik (Christmas Market) last winter, but got organized too late to get an affordable hotel room. So we contented ourselves with a post-May Day trip, principally to enjoy the Alsatian architecture and cuisine. Of which we got plenty of both. We stayed in a 16th century, half-timbered building that was the site of a continuously operating apothecary (later, pharmacy) from 1298 until 2000 (La Pharmacie du Cerf). The ground floor now houses an ice cream shop--which is probably a the...

  Paris is not the only city where people make pilgrimages to the resting places of the great and the good. Luxor comes to mind. But Paris seems to have more than its fair share of "must-see" dead people who draw crowds year-in and year-out. There are of course the catacombs, the vast network of underground quarry tunnels where in the 1700s and 1800s skeletons from several overflowing Parisien cemeteries were relocated for hygienic reasons and structurally (and often touchingly) arranged. Oscar Wilde's tomb in Père Lachaise cemetery became so damaged from lipstick smooches that in 2011 officials erected a glass barrier around it. Sad old stoners still leave junk all over Jim Morrison's grave--a bust of the singer was defaced and eventually stolen by "fans" in the 1980s. And of course the Emperor Napoleon I reposes in the Dome of the Hôtel des Invalides at the bequest of King Louis-Phillipe. That's as close as Sugar will get to any Emperor, dead or alive....

The Basilique Cathédrale de Saint-Denis is just a 45 minute metro ride from our apartment. It's notable mainly for two things: it's the first example of what is considered Gothic architecture (e.g. the rose window and lots of other glass to light the interior, vaulted ceilings with cross-ribs); it contains (or once contained) the remains of most of France's kings and queens going to back to the Frankish King Dagobert who died in 639. Exterior views of the Basilique Cathédral de Saint-Denis. I've been in some very old churches , but Saint-Denis--from the 12th and 13th century--showed none of the typical decay and gloom. The gargoyles and demons crawling around the exterior all seemed to have their snouts and horns mostly intact, and the interior was bright and free of mold and mildew. This is in spite of the fact that the church was sacked and abandoned during the Revolution, and by the time of Napoleon I's ascension birds and grasses had taken over in the nave. The ...

Greetings, kiddies, from the haunted flea market of Sainte-Ouen. To my great joy, I'm part of a generation that was raised on a heavy dose of spooky culture. On TV, old horror movies ran on weekends while reruns of the Munsters, the Addams Family, and Scooby Doo were on every day after school. Titles like "The Witching Hour," "Werewolf by Night," "Swamp Thing," and "Tomb of Dracula" were on the comic book racks at 7-11. "Monster Mash" and "Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House" got regular rotation on my record player. Basically, if you watched, read, or listened to anything targeted at kids back then, any normal day might include imagery of ancient cemeteries, old dark mansions, and crumbling castles. And that's not counting monster-themed toys and games (I know I built the Aurora glow-in-the-dark "Wolf Man" model, and maybe the "Mummy," too) or standard Halloween icons such as bats, witc...