Part 62

Every visitor to Rome makes, or is expected to make, a journey through the catacombs. Very soon after my arrival in the Eternal City I started to make this tour. Our party went first, as a preparation for visiting the catacombs, to one of the churches (the Church of the Capuchins), which is in charge of about twenty-four monks. Underneath the church is the place where the monks after their death are buried. The earth in which they are placed came originally from Jerusalem, and the monks consider it a great honor to be planted there. This number of monks—not the same ones, by any means—have been in charge of the church for several centuries. Whenever any of them dies, he is buried with a good deal of ceremony; and, in order to find a place for him, the bones of one of his predecessors are dug up. The space is sufficiently large for burying forty or fifty persons, so that when one of the number has been placed under ground he is not likely to be disturbed for ten or twenty years. His bones, when removed from the earth, are placed with those of his predecessors. They are not piled up in heaps, as one might naturally suppose, but are fastened to the walls and ceilings of the little rooms that cover the cemetery.

Some of the walls are entirely covered with these bones. As you look at the walls a little distance away, you would think they were frescoed; but a near approach shows you that, instead of being fresco, it is alto-relievo. For example, one wall will have in its centre a skull, and around it will be a select assortment of the bones of the forearm. Then sections of the back-bone, fragments of fingers, toes, and all the bones familiar to the student of anatomy, will be arranged in artistic order, so that the wall forms an interesting picture. Sometimes the bones are arranged in the shape of wheels, and some of them are formed into wheels and stars.

One of the peculiar things connected with the visit to this spot is, that you are shown through the place by one of the monks, who stands complacently by, calling your attention to the bones of his predecessor, and regarding with calm satisfaction the prominent positions which they occupy. He knows very well that one of these days he will go into the earth which his lantern illuminates, and a few years later his bones will form a part of the mural ornaments. He contemplates death with satisfaction, as he knows he will be buried in a conspicuous resting-place, where people can call upon and admire him. The monk that guided us through the burial-ground was enthusiastic rather than otherwise, and seemed to look forward with delight to the time when he should form a part of an alto-relievo.

[Sidenote: IRREVERENT COMMENTS.]

An irreverent member of our party proposed asking the monk if he did not think there would be a good deal of confusion at the day of judgment, when Gabriel’s trumpet sounds, and the bones undertake to sort themselves out and get together. He suggested that the arms, and legs, and fingers, and toes, and back-bone joints would be a good deal mixed up, and that fragments of a dozen monks might be collected together and present themselves as one individual. He said the head of Brother Ignatius, the body of Brother Francis, and the arm of Brother Peter might be mixed up with the legs of Brother Simon, and an arm, or leg, or a rib of somebody else. We reproved him soundly for his levity, and told him he had better go.

Some of the catacombs are entered beneath the churches, while others are entered in the open ground. The first one we went to after leaving the church was at the right of the Appian Way, a little distance outside the city. There was a party inside when we reached there, and the guide who took us in charge said that the rules forbade two parties going down at the same time, and that we could not descend until the other returned; so we loitered around for a little time, until our predecessors came out. We found ourselves in the middle of a field, part of it cultivated and part of it in rich, luxuriant grass. To all external appearances the ground beneath was perfectly solid, and we almost began to think we had come to the wrong place.

The guide preceded us to a little hollow or excavation, down which there was a flight of steps. We stood around this until we saw some heads emerge from the ground two or three hundred yards away; then the guide descended the steps, and we followed him. He unlocked a door and allowed us to enter; then he locked the door after us, and we found ourselves standing in a place where there was very little light, and it was evident that we must have candles before proceeding farther.

[Sidenote: ENTERING THE CATACOMBS.]

He produced the candles, and each of us produced a franc. Another carriage-load had joined us, so that our party consisted of seven or eight persons. The harvest for the guide was a very good one, and certainly allowed him no occasion to complain. When we had lighted our candles he told us to follow him, and we descended another flight of steps, and then struck off through a narrow gallery about six or seven feet high—narrow in some places, and in others enlarged to a width of ten or twenty feet.

As we went along, the guide explained to us the character of the place, its mode of construction, and the uses to which it had been put. He explained that the catacombs were originally quarries; that we were then in the second gallery from the surface, and that there were three similar galleries below us. He could take us through all of them if we wished to go, but the journey would be rather monotonous, as the objects to be seen in all were very much alike. This mode of working in galleries one above the other is not peculiar to the Roman catacombs, though it is more noticeable there than in any other locality. Imagine a hotel, half a mile square and five stories high, placed under ground, and you can form a very good idea of the arrangement of this catacomb.

[Sidenote: FOLLOWING THE GUIDE.]

All along the galleries there are little niches, called _loculi_, cut in the sides one above the other, just large enough to contain a single body. From nearly all these _loculi_ the skeletons have been removed, but there is now and then a skeleton or so visible, and adding interest to the place. It is said that millions of bodies were buried in these catacombs during the time they were used for cemeteries. Those that have not been explored are still full of skeletons, and would furnish relics enough to equip several thousand new churches. Here and there the guide pointed out small rooms or chambers in the tufa, where some of the Christians lived. There are inscriptions of a religious character scratched upon the walls of many of them, some being legible, while others are only partly so. Beneath many of the _loculi_ there are inscriptions showing who are resting there, and at the entrance to one of the chambers, in which a dozen skeletons are leading a very quiet life, there is an elaborate door-plate set in mosaic.

The places where some of those who have since been canonized dwelt in their lifetime and were buried after death, were pointed out. Some of them were quite interesting, and several were ornamented with considerable care. Sometimes there were mosaics and marble monuments of considerable size; and at one spot a life-sized statue cut from the tufa rock, and evincing considerable skill on the part of its designer, was shown to us.

We followed our guide in single file. Some of our party were rather inattentive to his directions. Among them was a pair of lovers, who seemed much more interested in saying sweet things to each other than in looking at the curiosities of the place. Several times they lagged behind, and the rest of us were obliged to halt and wait for them to come up. Their dilatoriness caused the rest of the party at times to become separated, and as they showed a disposition to wander off in the side-galleries and corridors, we were apprehensive of losing some of them. Sure enough, when we reached our journey’s end one of our number was missing.

[Sidenote: A PAIR OF LOST LOVERS.]

Our guide left us and went back, and he was gone ten or fifteen minutes before he found the missing individual. When he brought him forward and we were united, the latter said that he thought we turned a certain corner while he was examining the grave and bones of an early Christian. He followed and could hear our voices, but was surprised to find that, in following us, he seemed to get no nearer. He thought a minute or two, and then concluded that he was lost. He said his hair began to stand on end, and he was considerably relieved when he heard the voice of our guide shouting to him, and answered. The guide had some difficulty in finding him, as he had turned into a side-gallery and thence into another gallery; and had he gone a little farther, it might have taken some time to trace him out. I am entirely convinced that the next time he visits a catacomb he will take good care to keep within hearing distance, and seeing distance too, of the guide.

The guide told us that it was not unusual for people to be lost there, and he said that whenever they took a large party inside the catacombs they always counted them carefully both on entering and departing. “People,” he said, “will stop and look at things while the rest of the party is moving on; and if we have a large number, they are quite likely to get lost. The galleries run in all directions, and in some places there are holes from a gallery to the one above or below. Unless a person is careful, and is aware of their locality, he may fall down one of these holes, and be severely injured, or perhaps killed.” After he had told us of the danger of getting lost, he said,—

“I once took two Americans into one of the catacombs, along with a party of a dozen or more. They had been drinking somewhat, and were not very sober. We had quite a long journey through the galleries, as it was late in the day, and I knew that no other party would be allowed to enter. We spent some time in the place, and then we went out, and I was so busy talking when we came out that I forgot to count the party. I locked the door and went home, supposing all was right.

“In two or three hours the driver of a carriage came to wake me, and said he had been all that time trying to find me. I asked what he wanted. He said he took two American gentlemen to go into the catacombs, and they had gone there; they had not come back to the carriage yet, and he was beginning to get alarmed about his pay. He did not think they would run away and cheat him, but he could not tell what had become of them.

“Just then I happened to think that I did not count the party when they came out, and quite likely the crowd might have been two men short; so I went and found the custodian of the place, and got permission to go into the catacombs. The rules forbid us to go into the catacombs between sunset and sunrise, unless we have a good reason; and I thought my excuse was good enough at that time. I was afraid that those Americans might be shut up there in the dark, as their candles were not very long, and unless they burned them singly, were not good for more than three hours.

“From the time I shut up the place until I got there again and unlocked the place, it was nearly five hours. The Americans are a strange people, as I found when I went down there.

“I expected to find these men, if I found them at all, half dead with fright, and wandering about or trembling in the darkness; but they were nothing of the sort. When I got down into the place and walked along one of the galleries, I heard somebody singing. He would sing a little while, and then he would whistle. I could hear a rattling of bones and a sound as if somebody was dancing.

[Sidenote: DANCING WITH A SKELETON.]

“Well, gentlemen, as sure as I am a guide, when I came in sight of those men they were in a place where the gallery widened out into a sort of chamber, and there were some skeletons which had been tied together with wires and thongs. The chamber was about ten feet square, and these skeletons were in the niches in the side. Those fellows were there. One of them was sitting on the edge of a niche, and making music by singing or whistling. He kept time with a couple of leg-bones which he had in his hands. The other was hugging a skeleton as if it had been a queen of the ballet. I stood still five or ten minutes to see what they would do.

“When the fellow that was waltzing got tired, he seated his skeleton in the corner, bowed to it as if it had been a young lady, patted it on the cheek, and sat down. Then the other one got up and picked up the same skeleton; the one who had just been dancing made the music, and the scene was repeated.

“I shouted to them; they looked a little surprised, and answered me.

[Sidenote: MAKING A NIGHT OF IT.]

“They said their candles were nearly out. As soon as they found that they were lost they concluded they must stay there all night; so they stopped right where they were, entered the chamber, and made themselves as comfortable as possible. The accommodations were not very good, but one of them said, ‘Now that we are in for the night, I guess we will stay it out.’

“They gave me some money, sent me out for a couple of bottles of wine and something to eat, and told me to come again in the morning. They sent money enough to pay the driver. I bought a dozen candles, took them their overcoats from the carriage, so that they could use them in case they wanted to lie down on the ground, and they had a merry time of it all night.

“They promised not to disturb anything, and I knew they were gentlemen, and would keep their word. They did not sleep any, but kept carousing all night. They were ready to come out when I went there in the morning; and though they said they had plenty of fun, I don’t believe they would care to stay over night in the catacombs again.”

In some of the catacombs many persons of distinction have been buried. The place where the Christian martyrs were concealed has been regarded with such veneration that a great many people have considered it a high honor to be buried there. Sometimes people who had died in France, Spain, and other distant countries, were brought to Rome to find a sepulchre in the catacombs; and sometimes their funeral ceremonies were conducted with great pomp. Among the noted men buried in the catacombs were the Popes Leo I., Gregory the Great, Gregory II. and III., Leo IX.; also the Emperors Honorius, Valentinian, and Otho II. In most of the places now opened to visitors there are no graves of persons of distinction, though there are several of the second and third class.

[Sidenote: INTO DAYLIGHT AGAIN.]

The place where we emerged from the catacombs was some distance from where we descended into the earth. It was in the same field, and through an excavation which promised as little as the one by which we descended. The light of the Roman sun seemed much brighter than when we left it, and it was some minutes before our eyes were accustomed to its dazzling rays.

LIX.

THE PARISIAN RAG-PICKERS.

THEIR NUMBER AND EQUIPMENT.—THEIR KEEN-SIGHTEDNESS AND SKILL.—THE PLEASURE OF THE BOTTLE.—SEEKING COMFORT UNDER DIFFICULTIES.—UNWHOLESOME MAGAZINES.—WHERE AND HOW THE CHIFFONNIERS LIVE.—DISMAL AND NOISOME ABODES.—A SOUP LOTTERY.—QUAINT SCENES IN CHEAP BOOK-SHOPS.—TASTING ROAST CAT AND STEWED PUPPY.—ROMANCE IN DIRT-HEAPS.—A HIDEOUS HAG ONCE A FAMOUS BEAUTY.—PENITENCE AND REFORMATION THROUGH FIRE.

Everybody who has been in Paris—and who has not?—remembers the rag-pickers, or chiffonniers, as they are styled, who frequent the streets after nightfall, searching the city through for the means of subsistence. One sees them so much, and in every quarter of the French capital, that he imagines there must be several thousand of them. The entire number, however, does not exceed six hundred, one half of whom are women and children. Though rag-pickers in name, they are something more in fact, since they gather up every article of the most trifling value—old corks, fragments of bone or glass, coal or wood, scraps of paper, ends of cigars, and all sorts of rubbish that can be sold for the fraction of a sou.

Everything is organized and licensed in Paris, the chiffonniers not excepted. After once entering on their calling, they usually remain in it for life. Many of them begin as children in their ninth or tenth year, and continue, while their limbs will bear them about, and their eyesight is good enough to detect the objects of their quest. They are usually so soiled and begrimed that it is hard to distinguish the young from the old, unless they be small children, and even these have the look of premature age.

[Sidenote: ROUTES OF CHIFFONNIERS.]

They set out on their rounds between nine and ten o’clock in the evening, with a large willow basket strapped to their back, carrying in one hand a stick about a yard long, terminating in a hook, and in the other hand a lantern fastened to a piece of wire, so that they can swing it over the ground, and discover if there be anything they want. They pay particular attention to the little heaps of rubbish, made by the citizens before their doors, from the miscellaneous refuse of the household. After these have been raked by the rag-pickers, they are carried away by the scavengers’ carts. The pickers-up of unconsidered trifles never waste any time or space. They understand the exact distance from one point to another, always moving in straight lines, and taking in everything at a glance. Their vision is like that of hawks. They very rarely miss anything, or confound one object with another. They know bone from wood, and coal from glass, though it be half buried in the mire, and transfer every desirable fragment to their basket by means of their hooks with unerring accuracy, and by a single curve movement. It is astonishing how quickly and thoroughly they can hunt through one of the little dirt-piles. After quitting it, it is as valueless as the notes of a western wildcat bank, or a second-hand tombstone.

They never encroach upon each other’s domain, for they have their particular districts marked out, and generally visit them unaccompanied, darting about in silence, without the least indirectness, dawdling, or delay. They are certainly among the most industrious and indefatigable of laborers, if not the tidiest and most fastidious. They go forth in all sorts of weather, night after night, month after month, and year after year; patient, plodding, never discouraged while there is the slightest chance of finding a bit of leather or scrap of paper in the entire capital. So dexterous are they by long practice in the use of their hook, that they very seldom employ their fingers.

The night-wandering gypsies have the highest expectations from the gutters, where they are often delighted by securing a prize that yields them a whole centime,—one fifth of a cent,—and when they discover what will sell for a sou, they deem themselves blessed. There, cigar stumps, remnants of shoes, and broken bottles, are sometimes found, and are enough to cheer the heart of the rag-picker for weeks after fortune has ceased to smile upon his nocturnal gleaning. At long intervals a whole bottle dawns upon his vision, and he is as much rejoiced as an American would be if he should stumble upon a treasure of gold buried in his cellar.

[Sidenote: DELIGHTED WITH A BOTTLE.]

The pleasures of the bottle have a new interpretation with the chiffonniers of Paris. The phrase has a literal, not a figurative meaning with them, and I have heard them speak of finding half a dozen bottles in one week, as Ponce de Leon might have spoken of discovering the fountain of eternal youth.

I remember to have bound one of the guild to me in eternal gratitude by presenting him with a few empty wine bottles, as he passed my lodgings one stormy night. He regarded me as a gentleman of munificent income; he went away, I am persuaded, with a semi-conviction that I owned the Bank of France.

One would hardly think that the poor devils of the hook and basket would attempt to have any comfort in this life. But they do; for they are French, and must have dissipation and distraction, however humble and homely it be. After midnight, they visit the cheap wine-shops, where they can purchase as much wine as they want for two or three sous. They smoke their pipes there, and have very pleasant chats, manifesting a gayety in their rags and dirt that only a Gaul can feel. They even get mildly tipsy sometimes, but usually start off with their baskets before daylight, make another round, and then sell their collection to the rag and refuse merchants who are their regular customers. The contents of their baskets, holding some two bushels, will bring from twenty cents to one dollar in our money, the average rate being from forty to fifty cents.

The merchants have large magazines in the quarters frequented by the chiffonniers, and employ scores of men and women to assort and arrange their unwholesome purchases. The air of the magazines is vitiated and poisoned by the exhalations from mouldy leather, greasy rags, filthy bones, and repulsive rubbish generally. How those whose duty it is to attend to this obnoxious business escape contagion is by no means clear. It may be they are so defiled and encrusted with dirt themselves, that they cannot receive any harm from what they handle, though if they were neat in habit, or if their pores were open, they could not fail to be made sick unto death by breathing such tainted air. They are advanced in years, or infirm in body, having belonged, most of them, to the rag-picking profession when they were younger, and in sounder health. They prefer the more active, open-air duties, but are forced by circumstances and their condition into this lower grade of offensive industry. For twelve hours of labor a day, they are paid about thirty cents, and on this, in some unaccountable way, they contrive to keep their wretched bodies and souls together.

[Sidenote: HOMES OF THE RAG-PICKERS.]

I ceased to wonder how the rag-pickers lived when I discovered where and under what surroundings they lived. Live indeed? Theirs is a satire upon life. It does not deserve the name of subsistence, or even vegetation, for subsistence and vegetation are at least natural and salutary. Few strangers in Paris ever see such miserable quarters as are the damp, dreary, and ill-ventilated cellars of the Quartier Mouffetard, in the neighborhood of the old Barrière des Deux Moulins, in which the chiffonniers reside. In those narrow and dismal streets, reminding me of the streets in the old Spanish towns, the sunshine is shut out, and the fresh breeze of heaven is unknown. In those vile dens, the unfortunate toilers herd together, frequently sleeping ten or twelve in a small apartment, regardless of age or sex, paying three or four sous a night for their detestable lodgings. Some of the aged and less impoverished couples pretend to keep house; but it is after so sorry a fashion that their homes would be unwelcome to a respectable beast.