Good Day – June 30, 1779
On June 30, 1779, an official response came from the Paris city hall.
The Les Innocents Cemetery is a duly registered corporation and a legitimate business compliant with French law.
The common folk erupted in fury at this reply. But their rage cooled in an instant when they saw King Louis XVI's response attached beside it.
Revival and elimination are the virtues of the free market.
Those who could read fixated on the word "elimination."
"His Majesty has made an example of them. Shouldn't have gotten involved."
"He's right. If we give these heretics a proper thrashing here in our country, they'll never dare show their faces in France again."
"As expected of His Majesty's foresight."
They believed Louis XVI was building a pretext to crack down on the heretics. They didn't know the details, but they were convinced some political calculus was at play.
"Don't get nosy and cut yourself—mind your own business."
The Enlightenment thinkers interpreted it differently, however.
"Is he tying commerce into this too?"
"Who knows? How could an ignorant fool like me fathom His Majesty's wisdom?"
They had long suspected the Les Innocents Cemetery was one of Louis XVI's ventures. This response was tantamount to him admitting it was his brainchild.
"Why not pay it a visit while we're at it?"
"It's a bit creepy, but..."
Of course, they were French citizens too. They had endured the oppression of the old conservative forces and witnessed countless reactionaries dragged away with their own eyes.
"Scared?"
"No?"
But they mustered their courage. For them, risking their lives to escape mysticism was nothing less than an honorable rite of passage.
The Les Innocents Cemetery grew bustling with visits from Enlightenment enthusiasts and bourgeois types.
"Weren't you off to America last time?"
"And you, I heard you went to Egypt. Good to see you after three years!"
It became a salon for the upper middle class.
The old woman managing the ossuary said nothing to them. Treating their debates on liberty and equality as mere white noise, she meticulously recorded each visitor's tastes and ideologies.
"Granny, isn't this a bit pricey?"
"If it's too expensive, don't buy it. Didn't the Paris markets and His Majesty himself say as much? If folks buy a lot, the business thrives; if not, it gets eliminated."
"Fair enough."
Those heavily influenced by England wholeheartedly agreed. Laissez-faire capitalism—the very utopia they dreamed of—was unfolding right here. Not just the revivals, but the eliminations matched their visions perfectly, leaving them deeply satisfied with the old woman's words.
"But we can't leave empty-handed after coming all this way. What's the bestseller here?"
"By sales, it's the Sévres porcelain on the private ebony shelves at the very back. Some gentleman's leased it in perpetuity for 100,000 livres."
"A hundred thousand? He's lost his mind. That alone would cover a century of maintenance."
The old woman waved it off.
"Don't even get me started. Using this vast building just for the dead is a ridiculous waste of space."
She pointed out the window to the fence being installed next door.
"Those church bastards are real pieces of work. They cherry-pick the able-bodied kids—what kind of church is that? Folks preaching God's word, and they ignore it the most."
Inside the fence, countless children frolicked. Some, with adults' help, were riding hobby horses. Those were children with physical disabilities.
"Once the kids grow up and can't find work, the patrons cut them off. So we have to run a business like this."
The old woman lit her pipe and took a drag.
"Sorry for smoking indoors. At my age, even going outside is a chore."
"It's fine. We understand."
"Care for a puff?"
"No thanks. Quitting's the trend these days."
As she lit her pipe, she swung her cane to scare off the approaching children.
"You know nothing of court etiquette. It changes every three days anyway."
"His Majesty doesn't smoke."
"Ha! If he stopped drinking, temperance would be all the rage too."
"It's all just for show."
"So when's temperance coming?"
"Even if His Majesty bans alcohol, the drinkers will drink."
*
By mid-July 1779, a few weeks after the ossuary opened, it vanished from Parisians' concerns like smoke. The city had grown abuzz with fresh scandals—a string of secret room murders and a draft tax reform bill.
The Les Innocents siege faded into oblivion.
As public interest waned, serious customers began trickling in. People genuinely worried about their own deaths, upper- and middle-class folk troubled by the bone towers of Charonne—they became the main clientele.
They recoiled at the thought of their bodies ground to dust, yet pondered which porcelain vessel or shelf in the ossuary would suit them best. No matter how they spun it, being dumped en masse into Les Innocents like common trash felt utterly unnatural.
This shift in mindset was entirely thanks to Louis XVI.
The roadside canal project from the previous public works had diverted all of Paris's filth into fertilizer plants on the outskirts. So-called fertilizer plants that were little more than massive compost pits.
Filth flowing into the pits, stirred with long poles, covered in soil to ferment—the scene was eerily identical to Les Innocents' burial methods.
They could hypnotize themselves all they wanted about "returning to nature," but nothing hit as viscerally as those compost pits.
If the process hadn't worked or polluted the surroundings, maybe not. But the soil near the pits turned fertile, and the fermented compost was top-notch. Wealthy farmers made special trips to buy it for their fields.
That only deepened their revulsion.
What if my body ends up as mere fertilizer?
This fundamental question haunted the minds of Paris's middle and upper classes.
One doubt bred more. Professionals prizing reason wondered:
To resurrect, don't we need our remains intact?
Self-employed farmers with moderate faith fretted:
What if full decomposition prevents resurrection?
Clergy who survived the purges, steeped in deep faith, agonized:
I'm no Jesus—if I rise, will it be like some incomplete zombie from American voodoo?
These qualms drastically lowered resistance to cremation.
In weeks, the ossuary transformed from a sinister heretical rite into a stylish death industry offering fine final resting places.
Doctors and lawyers strode in boldly, reserving Sévres porcelain and stone shelves.
Middle-class self-farmers slipped in furtively, glancing about. Romanced by childhood tales of Austrian porcelain, they booked empty vessels on stone shelves. The annual 10-livre rental fee pricked their consciences, yet filled them with strange satisfaction.
Clergy entered disguised in cloth veils over faces and figures, visiting only after dark when no one lurked. Post-Louis XVI's great purge, they lived in dire poverty. Private property banned, non-religious activities forbidden outright.
They couldn't even tend vegetable patches for profit. Technically, it was a ban on using assets, not outright confiscation—hidden vaults brimmed with unspendable gold and silver.
But any purchase attempt triggered immediate police reports from sellers, rendering the money useless.
This unprecedented clerical purity boosted religion's image among the French masses. The priests, however, could no longer sustain their near-lordly lifestyles.
Yet their pride as First Estate endured unbowed. Old corrupt clerical factions liquidated their pure gold and silver like shedding ballast.
The old woman engraved brass nameplates for porcelain shelves, selling them the future vessels for their ashes.
*
July 18, 1779, the king's office.
I was reviewing the National Intelligence Agency's revenue report on the ossuary.
Visitor numbers were low. But per-visitor spending was sky-high. As expected, not a single earthenware urn or wooden shelf had sold.
"Yet, Your Majesty, luxury items fly off the shelves. Imports of blank Sévres porcelain alone have already topped a million livres. Expand this nationwide, and the tax revenue will be astronomical."
True enough. Selling souls always pays best. Modern cults rake it in the same way.
But.
But still.
"I didn't build the ossuary to make money."
I built it to clear away Charonne's abomination.
"Aren't the wooden shelves and earthenware a tad overpriced?"
"Comparable to Les Innocents burial fees."
"No helping it. Issue a decree, and we'll obey in silence, but..."
"Yes... I suppose."
This was my pet policy. I couldn't resort to a decree over something like this.
In the end, the French people would come around to using the ossuary. Sooner or later—someday, they would.
They would. They had to.