Death on Display in Paris

Culper Bell

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May 2, 2019
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Greensboro, North Carolina
You read that correctly.

Rather than sights like the Eiffel Tower and the Palace of Versailles attracting tourists in today's age, the Paris Morgue was instead the most attractive sight to see for both locals and tourists alike. Originally established so friends and family of otherwise unidentified found bodies could retrieve them, it very quickly turned into a form of entertainment for many.

Propped up on tables with belongings hanging above or around them, the found dead were a local spectacle with only a large glass window keeping the still living separate. In most cases mass influx of visitors to the morgue is entirely because the newspapers ran sensationalised articles about these mysterious found bodies, formulating exaggerated stories for how someone lost their life. The Crimson wrote "Men are crowding and elbowing each other; old hags are pointing toward the glass, and croaking to one another; pretty women are gazing with white faces of pity, but with none the less thirsty greediness, upon some fascinating spectacle; little children are being held aloft in strong arms, that they too may see the dreadful thing, and they do see, and they toss their tiny, wavering arms aloft and crow right gleefully." after an American journalist witnessed a typical day at the morgue.
Morgue 2.jpg


The Diamond Guide for the stranger in Paris, 1867, with a chapter about ‘The Morgue (Dead House)’

This was entirely intentional though. When the Paris Morgue was rebuilt in 1864 it was placed right behind the Notre-Dame, entry was affordable to most, and was open to visitors from dawn until dusk. The space where the bodies were kept were large and spacious, two long rows able to hold fifty people with the bodies laying behind a curtained window on rock slabs. “Picture a large department store window when the merchandise has been removed on a Saturday night.” wrote spectator Ernest Cherbuliez of the Exhibition Room.

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from Brown University Library

This openness extended into police efforts to force a confession from suspected murderers, the prevailing idea being that upon seeing what they'd done a confession would be stated. This was met with relative success though, as criminals were overwhelmed by the manifestations of their crime.

It is arguable that the Paris Morgue was a predecessor to the true crime genre, though the sensitivity of it is up for much debate.

For further reading I direct you to both Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Paris / Edition 1 from Vanessa R. Schwartz and Murder in Parisian Streets: Manufacturing Crime and Justice in the Popular Press, 1830-1900 from Thomas Cragin.

 
It is not surprising to me that this would pass as entertainment for some during the Victorian Era. Public executions used to be great sport for some, families used to bring picnic baskets and make a day of it when there was going to be a public hanging. Today, we have slasher films and the horror genre to satisfy our lust for gore and violence.
 
It is not surprising to me that this would pass as entertainment for some during the Victorian Era. Public executions used to be great sport for some, families used to bring picnic baskets and make a day of it when there was going to be a public hanging. Today, we have slasher films and the horror genre to satisfy our lust for gore and violence.

This also doesn't surprise me very much though this fixation with death, the dead, and what happens after death may be a new encounter for some. Most of my familiarity is from studying surgical theatre at an earlier point in time, and particularly Dr. Robert Liston with a 300% lethality rate. Regardless, it's simply symptomatic of the time. We have torture films, they watched people bleed out in a theatrical setting.
 
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