
Making Space for the Dead
Catacombs, Cemeteries, and the Reimagining of Paris, 1780-1830
Erin-Marie Legacey(Author)
Cornell University Press
Published on 15. April 2019
Book
Hardback
228 pages
978-1-5017-1559-4 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
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)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Ithaca
United States
Product notice
Paper over boards
Illustrations
16 b&w halftones, 1 map - 16 Halftones, black and white - 1 Maps
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
907 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5017-1559-4 (9781501715594)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Erin-Marie Legacey
Making Space for the Dead
Catacombs, Cemeteries, and the Reimagining of Paris, 1780-1830
E-Book
04/2019
1st Edition
Cornell University Press
€163.99
Available for download

Erin-Marie Legacey
Making Space for the Dead
Catacombs, Cemeteries, and the Reimagining of Paris, 1780-1830
E-Book
04/2019
Cornell University Press
€32.49
Available for download
Person
Erin-Marie Legacey is Assistant Professor of French History at Texas Tech University.
Content
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, Pere 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
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, Pere 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