he Faubourg
Saint-Jacques, has one of the smallest salles de garde in Paris. In
recompense, its diners have under their feet an immense city, with
streets, open places, and many inhabitants, a city cool in summer and
warm in winter, and which, for a long period of time, the internes of
this hospital had been in the habit of considering as an annex to their
dining-room. It is not every one who would take this view of the
catacombs; but the practice of medicine and surgery does not lend itself
to the cultivation of squeamishness. Every evening, accordingly,
exploring parties were organized to visit these subterranean streets;
underneath the hospital itself is a large open square, from which
radiate, in every direction, lanes and avenues. These the internes at
first explored by means of a compass, but, as a result of some judicious
meditation before the commemorative slab recording the death by
starvation of Philibert Aspaut, concierge of the Val-de-Grace, lost in
the catacombs in 1793, they took the trouble to unearth an old plan in
the Musee Carnavalet and draw up a new one, probably now one of the best
in existence. In consequence of this prudent conduct, they have never
had any losses to deplore; but the frequency of these unprofessional
rambles finally aroused the administration to action, and the hospital
entrance to the underground city was closed. Since then, the
disconsolate diners have had to seek other distractions;--it is said
that they are greatly given to equitation, but as they have no horses
in their salle de garde, they paint them by squadrons on the walls, as
illustrated on page 259.

The catacombs are those portions of the ancient stone-quarries under the
city which have been used as municipal ossuaries since 1786. As far back
as the Roman epoch, the inhabitants of Lutetia were in the habit of
drawing their building material from these subterranean quarries, of
clay, gypsum, and limestone. The clay, _argile plastique_, is found in
the region of Passy and Grenelle; the zone of gypsum extends from
Montmartre to Bercy, and the limestone, rich in fossils, is found under
Passy and most of the city on the left bank of the river, from the
Jardin des Plantes on the east to the former barriere de Vaugirard on
the west. This stone was largely used in the construction of ancient and
mediaeval edifices,--the Palais des Thermes, the portal of
Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, a portion of Notre-Dame, Saint-Germain-des-Pres,
a