A week earlier, whilst walking along the long bricked passageway that runs underneath this famous Parisian boulevard, I’d seen a group descending the observation shaft accessed by the same manhole that I was now stood on top of.  Tonight however, that plaque, tellingly surrounded by muddy footprints and carbide deposits, was unequivocally welded shut.

Clearly not the first time that this had happened, a jagged hole had been bluntly punctured through the concrete cover which was itself pitted with cracks and encircled by the remains of previously broken welds.  Descending the same shaft a week later, I imagined it was with a sigh of resignation that a chain had once again been looped through the manhole cover and attached to the back of a car.

It’s the same story beneath the ground where blockages are either tunnelled around or destroyed outright.  Unmistakeably the work of the regulars who frequent these old quarry networks, "les cataphiles," such actions neatly exemplify the passions evoked by this subterranean playground.

Of course, it would be unusual if this space was not in some way controlled, and naturally, both exploration and access are fineable infractions enforced by a dedicated division of the French police, "les cataflics."  Despite their regular patrols, the ensuing game of cat and mouse is somewhat frustrated by the scale of the networks and the number of possible entrances.  The result is that discrete exploration is often intentionally overlooked.

Whilst it’s widely believed that the Romans were the first to extract stone from the area, the earliest verified evidence of industrial quarrying is a 1292 dated entry in the city archives.  The introduction of vertical mining techniques around this same time would later prove to be the catalyst for a further 4 centuries of extensive excavation.

It was once proudly stated that the former extent of the quarries could be understood by considering that all that existed above the ground had originally come from beneath it.  However, by the late 1700’s it was becoming increasingly apparent that centuries of lax regulation had allowed this once burgeoning underworld to become a sprawling and confused mass of abandoned tunnels  and invariably unstable mine workings.

Despite the frequent construction problems caused by this, it wasn’t until there had been a number of high profile collapses before it was finally decided that an official body was needed to map, stabilise and take responsibility for the quarries.

In 1777, the "Inspection Générale des Carrières" was created for this purpose.  Although almost certainly destined to be consigned to eternal darkness, their legacy of expert masonry was nonetheless characterised by finely wrought staircases, vaulted galleries, and beautifully rounded observation wells.  In many ways the original cataphiles, their excessively ornate workmanship was wholly befitting of the unique historical and architectural heritage that they had been bequeathed.

Almost ten years after the creation of the IGC, they were entrusted with the unexpected task of constructing a necropolis under the city.  The city cemeteries had become so choked with rotting bodies that it was finally decided to condemn them and discreetly move the human remains to the soon to be catacombs.  Currently the only section of the quarries open to the public, the neat stacks of bones in this isolated network are now a familiar tourist attraction.

A number of disparate and shadowy groups were active in the period spanning from the troubled times of the 1789 French Revolution until the turn of the 20th century.  Clandestine meetings in subterranean darkness are not known for their tendency towards transparency, and most of what happened during this time has been lost to history or disfigured by rumour.  The troubling ambience of the quarries is probably more attributable to this period than any other.

In contrast, the war years left changes of a distinctly more tangible nature.  Scores of old quarry rooms were commandeered for use as bunkers or shelters by the civilian population, the Nazis, and the Resistance.  Now, as if purged from the collective conscious, most of these places lay abandoned and forgotten, yet inexplicably still accessible by unofficial means.  The relatively well preserved Abri des Feuillantincs nuclear shelter and the extensive Nazi bunker underneath Lychee Montaigne are both unsettlingly immediate reminders of this era.

Sitting in a room full of skeletal remains underneath a famous Parisian Cemetery, it’s difficult to believe that not only does this place exist, but that it’s still accessible in the modern era.   Far removed from the norms of the world above, there’s no explanation for most of what happens in this esoteric reality, and least of all why someone would have smashed their way into this once bricked up mass grave.

The largest of the networks contains nearly 300 kilometres of passages spread over several different levels.  At 20 metres beneath the city there's no mobile reception, and the nearest exit can at times be over an hour’s walk away.  The air is thick with dust and the galleries invariably caked with mud or flooded with turbid, sometimes waist deep water.  Where new tunnels have been created to route around blockages, they are often barely high enough to worm through.

The sense of claustrophobic oppressiveness weighs heavily on the psyche, but surprisingly, it rarely seems to manifest itself in a hostile sense.  The resilience of the inert brick and mortar walls is such that despite everything absorbed by them, all that is exuded is a mute indifference.  Even the intermittent dripping fails to penetrate the vacuous silence, which like a dense fog envelops everything in sight.

Given that this is a troubling place for anyone even vaguely aware of their own mortality, it’s understandable that of those curious enough to make a single descent, few are willing to return a second time.  But speleology is a sport with a perplexing appeal and cataphiles simply a characteristic reflection of the diverse range of personalities attracted to it.  From all divisions of the mental spectrum, successive generations come to excise their curiosity.

Each with their particular style of interpreting and interacting with this space, the murky darkness affords an anonymity which cloaks a varied coexistence of individuals and groups.  For this reason, cataphile culture remains an elusive concept which is by definition problematic to describe.  Only with continued descents can one begin to understand and become acquainted with the loose community which shares this space.

Left hidden in crevices or sometimes in plain view, tracts are one of the few discarded vestiges of underground activity.  Like correspondence between nameless ships that pass in the night, these photos, poems, drawings, or written notes offer an illuminating glimpse into the self-expression of this subculture.

"¡Wolf traps camouflaged in the mud! - Me, I’m not mad...I know where I left them..." [Anon, 2008]

"Believe that for you, each day is the last." [Belzebite, 2007]

Spanning the 5, 6, 14 and 15^th arrondissements and endowed with a wealth of interesting and historically significant sites, the "Grand Réseau Sud" is easily the largest, most accessible, and most well known of the Paris networks. Sadly, it’s also for these reasons that it’s the most vandalised and littered. Years of wholesale ransacking have left barely a lone wall unmarred by senseless tagging or a single gallery free from remnants of human waste. Fortunately, for the time being, the smaller networks in the 13^th, 16^th and 20^th have so far managed to avoid such widespread despoilment.

Prior to the internet, cartography was always the driving force behind the continued exposure of the quarries to human activity.  In fact, the effect has been such that specific eras of exploration and their accompanying generation of cataphiles can often be defined by the map which was used at that time.

From the spindly beginnings of the first maps drawn using the original IGC plates, there has been a continuous evolution in terms of both quality and accuracy.  The Giraud reproduction of the GRS is particularly worthy of mention here.  Handmade in meticulous detail (see inset), it is as much a work of art as a map.  For years it was the de facto navigation aid and due to its practical size is still a popular choice even today.  Other significant maps include the Saletta, Titan and the 2001 Cube (Nexus) topographies.

With the advent of the Cube maps came a whole new era of exploration.  Previously, the complexity of the Giraud had encouraged novices to seek guides before exploring, and it was an almost an act of initiation to be finally presented with a copy of this elusive map.  Nowadays, with reliable and clearer colour prints freely available online, anyone prepared to do the necessary research can eventually find their way into the network.  The result has been a marked increase in visitors, and a worldwide exodus of 'urban explorers' to what is by many considered to be the holy grail of this activity.

This new era of exploration is succintly expressed in these excerpts from this tongue in cheek tract written by the VCC ("Vieux Cons d'Cataphile").

The internet has left an indelible mark on exploration in the modern era, which whilst seemingly oblivious to the irrepressible nature of information today, has left the cataphile community divided as to whether access information should be posted online.

The quarries are a delicate environment, historically important and in need of preservation.  On one side, building works and structural changes eat away at the total length of linked tunnels; on the other, hordes of day tripping urban explorers bring the risk of further unwanted attention and a possible change in police policy.

For now, the only certainty is that whilst it’s still possible, the calm that lies beneath the manhole covers is a sanctuary destined to be continually rediscovered.