nd in July of this year, 1880, the lightning fell in this garden, and
at almost the same moment two houses in the Boulevard Saint-Michel began
to sink, as well as a large section of the sidewalk. These events
naturally produced a great excitement in the quarter, and measures were
taken to prevent a possible recurrence of such happenings. Proprietors
proposing to build in these suspected districts are now required to
conform to certain regulations of the inspector-general of quarries, who
examines the subsoil under their properties.

[Illustration: PARTY OF STUDENTS LUNCHING DURING A VISIT TO THE
CATACOMBS.

Engraved from a flash-light photograph.]

The Cimetiere des Saints Innocents,--said to have dated from the time of
Philippe-Auguste,--which thus contributed to the first furnishing of the
catacombs, was one of the institutions of mediaeval Paris. Surrounded by
its arcades of _charniers_, it had long been one of the most popular
resorts of the city, and the Danse Macabre, earlier than the famous one
at Bale, painted along fifteen of these arcades, with inscriptions "to
incite the people to devotion," only incited them to dance themselves.
It was believed that the Duc de Berry had caused these paintings to be
executed after the assassination of the Duc d'Orleans, the king's
brother, in 1407, and the verses written under each personage were
attributed to Jean Gerson, who was "inspired by serious contemplation to
appeal, by the presentation of death, to his contemporaries of this
fifteenth century--so abounding in calamities of every nature." The
contemplation of death ceased to appal them,--for the space of six
months, from August, 1424, to Lent, 1425, the people were in the habit
of assembling in the cemetery on Sundays and fete-days, grotesquely
attired to represent various classes of society, and, led by a mask
disguised as Death, dancing frantically over the graves and along the
charniers heaped with skeletons. In this _ronde infernale_ might be
recognized some obnoxious abbot, or procureur, or bourgeois, or serjent,
travestied and caricatured; the people, "seeking for the moment to
forget their cares and sorrows, mocked at that death which they no
longer scarcely feared, for it was, at this disastrous epoch, very often
for them a deliverance." Too close familiarity with the _Camard_--"the
flat-nosed," the death's-head--had bred the proverbial lack of respect.

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