Making Space for the Dead: Catacombs, Cemeteries, and the Reimagining of Paris, 1780–1830

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Erin-Marie Legacey

Making Space for the Dead

Catacombs, Cemeteries, and the Reimagining of Paris, 1780–1830

Erin-Marie Legacey

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English

Cornell University Press
15 April 2019

European history; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900; French Revolution; Sociology: death & dying; History of medicine

The dead of Paris, before the French Revolution, were most often consigned to mass graveyards that contemporaries described as terrible and terrifying, emitting ""putrid miasmas"" that were a threat to both health and dignity. In a book that is at once wonderfully macabre and exceptionally informative, Erin-Marie Legacey explores how a new burial culture emerged in Paris as a result of both revolutionary fervor and public health concerns, resulting in the construction of park-like cemeteries on the outskirts of the city and a vast underground ossuary.

Making Space for the Dead describes how revolutionaries placed the dead at the center of their republican project of radical reinvention of French society and envisioned a future where graveyards would do more than safely contain human remains; they would serve to educate and inspire the living. Legacey unearths the unexpectedly lively process by which burial sites were reimagined, built, and used, focusing on three of the most important of these new spaces: the Paris Catacombs, Pere Lachaise cemetery, and the short-lived Museum of French Monuments. By situating discussions of death and memory in the nation's broader cultural and political context, as well as highlighting how ordinary Parisians understood and experienced these sites, she shows how the treatment of the dead became central to the reconstruction of Parisian society after the Revolution.

By: Erin-Marie Legacey
Imprint: Cornell University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 24mm
Weight: 907g
ISBN: 9781501715594
ISBN 10: 1501715593
Pages: 228
Publication Date: 15 April 2019
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: The Revolution of the Dead 1. The Problem of the Dead: In which the French Revolution interrupts and intervenes in Paris's preexisting burial crisis. 2. The Solution of the Dead: In which a range of experts and amateurs imagine a new burial culture for Paris after the Terror. 3. The City of the Dead: In which Parisians visit and respond to their city's new burial space, Père Lachaise Cemetery. 4. The Empire of the Dead: In which thousands of visitors descend ninety feet below the city to tour the newly opened Paris Catacombs. 5. The Museum of the Dead: In which the artist and administrator Alexandre Lenoir displays the dead as history in the Museumof French Monuments. Conclusion: The Historian of the Dead: In which the Romantic historian Jules Michelet resurrects the history of France in Parisian spaces for the dead. Notes Bibliography Index

Erin-Marie Legacey is Assistant Professor of French History at Texas Tech University.

Reviews for Making Space for the Dead: Catacombs, Cemeteries, and the Reimagining of Paris, 1780–1830

Making Space for the Dead,[is] a book that will make a deep and long-lasting impact on the cultural history of the French Revolution. * Leonardo Reviews * Legacey advances a focused and unusually powerful argument about the changes in Parisian cemetery culture during the Revolution and in its lingering aftermath. [Her] book draws attention to a fascinating aspect of French history, and,,, it holds its place among recent works on material culture in nineteenth-century Paris. * H-France * The book is written beautifully and with a light touch, in spite of its somber subject... Legacey is to be congratulated for making a significant contribution to our understanding of how Parisians struggled to reimagine their social and moral worlds after the Revolution. * Journal of Modern History *