You might think it’s an Halloween story… but it’s all true.
For over a century, Parisians — and even tourists from far away — flocked every week to observe… the anonymous dead of the capital.
Welcome to a Paris where, on Sundays, families or couples didn’t go to a museum… but to the morgue.
Originally, the word “morgue” comes from the verb morguer, meaning “to stare intensely.”
Its purpose? To help identify people found drowned in the Seine or deceased without identification.
But very quickly… morbid fascination took over.
Located on the Île de la Cité, behind huge windows, around fifteen bodies were displayed each day, lying on marble slabs, cooled by a trickle of water to slow decomposition.
Free entry, no ticket… guaranteed success.
Result: up to 40,000 visitors per day.
Yes, 40,000 people came to observe the dead as if they were visiting an exhibition.
Parisians… tourists… and even criminals, who discreetly checked whether their victim had been recognized.
The place became a true popular attraction, so much so that it was included in British tourist circuits!
Zola and Maupassant themselves drew inspiration from it in their writings.
But this “Sunday outing” ended in 1907, when Prefect Louis Lépine permanently closed the site for reasons of hygiene and morality.
The morgue then became the forensic institute we know today — far from the sinister window display of the time…
This chilling story reminds us how much our relationship with death has changed.
Yesterday: spectacle.
Today: taboo.
Would you have dared to go in…?
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