A secret carving, left for us by a dead man. Before the network of tunnels running under the streets of Paris was a catacomb – currently home to thousands of bodies – it was a mine for the stone from which the city is built. One of the miners, a man called Décure, came to this room in his breaks and carved detailed reliefs into the walls – facades of buildings, streets and military installations. Décure was wounded when one of the spaces he was working in collapsed and died of his injuries.

Some see Paris as an endlessly romantic place. But I believe it’s more of a city misery and death than it is a city of love, as I wrote about in this Medium post.

For me, this object is yet another reminder of Parisian doom and gloom.

Image: thanks to Hugo Clement with CCL.