As early as 1766, the Parlement of Paris had taken up the very important reform of suppressing all interments within the city, "a custom which had its origin only in the growth of the city which, in extending its limits, had gradually taken into its enclosure the cemeteries originally outside its walls." A municipal decree, in nineteen articles, forbade any further burials in the cemeteries then within the city walls, after the first day of January, 1766, or in churches, chapels, or vaults, excepting under certain limitations. This sanitary measure was, however, so vehemently opposed by all the curés of Paris that it was never enforced; the question of compelling all interments to take place in suburban cemeteries was not seriously taken up till 1804, when the grounds of Père-Lachaise were purchased by the city, and, to this day, the only interments that are forbidden within the built-up limits of the capital are the temporary ones, and the common ones for the poor,--the _fosses temporaires_, and the _fosses communes_. [Illustration: CLOISTERS OF THE CHURCH DES INNOCENTS, SHOWING UPPER PORTIONS CONTAINING HUMAN SKULLS, AND THE FRESCOES OF THE "DANSE MACABRE."] By a grotesque arrangement, the funeral arrangements in Paris were formerly in charge of the town-criers, the _crieurs de corps et de vins_, the _crieurs-jurés_, who held a monopoly of these public announcements, and who bawled through the streets, indifferently, the proclamation of _choses estranges_ which were lost, mules, children, horses, and the like, of wine to sell--when they carried a gilded drinking-cup, and of deaths--when they wore a sort of dalmatic sown with black "tears" and death's-heads. Their number was at first fixed at twenty-four, then at thirty, and an edict of January, 1690, raised it to fifty. They had a reprehensible fashion of announcing deaths and ringing their bell through the streets at all hours of the night: "Pray to God for the soul of Messire Suchaone, who has just died! Awake, all ye who sleep, and pray God for the dead!" The Parisian bourgeois, suddenly aroused from slumber by this hoarse appeal under his windows, entered into a state of fright, or of fury, according to his temperament. These _crieurs_ and _clocheteurs des trépassés_, moreover, formed a wealthy and influential corporation which held the monopoly of what is to-day the _Pompes funèbres_,--they furnished the serge, the robes, the mantles, the chaperons or hoods, the hangings, and the torches for the funerals, they even furnished the hired mourners when required, who preceded the cortège to the graves in black garments, "ringing their bells, drawing lugubrious sounds from grotesque instruments, appealing to the people to pray for the defunct, making an infernal uproar, and, in order to honor the dead, nearly killing the living." This corporation was in existence after 1789, but the hospitals and hospices had obtained the right of furnishing hangings for funeral ceremonies, and a decree of