Note 3 — Chapter XXXIX · LOUISE GAUTHIER—THE CONCLUSION

foul and reeking burial-ground attached to the Église des Innocens] The ill effects which the overcharged Cimetière des Innocens had upon the salubrity of Paris, situated as it was in its most crowded quarter, had been matter of complaint for four hundred years. Yet such was the opposition of the ecclesiastical authorities, and the blind and superstitious obstinacy of the people generally, although the tainted air they breathed was thick with putrefaction and disease, that it was not until 1785 that the Council of State ordered its demolition. It was supposed, up to that time, that there had been one million two hundred thousand bodies forced into its comparatively narrow limits!