The site of the immense Necropolis of Les Innocents,[234] which for six centuries swallowed up half the dead of Paris, roughly corresponds to the parallelogram formed by the modern Rues Berger, St. Denis, Ferronnerie and de la Lingerie, and one of the old vaulted charnel-houses may still be seen at the ground floor of No. 7 Rue des Innocents. The huge piles of human remains and skulls that grinned from under the gable roof of the gallery painted with the Dance of Death were, in 1786, carted away to the catacombs under Paris, formed by the old Gallo-Roman quarrymen as they quarried the stone used to rebuild Lutetia. For centuries this enclosure was the refuge of vagabonds and scamps of all kinds, a receptacle for garbage, the haunt of stray cats and dogs, whose howlings by night made sleep impossible to nervous folk; and the lugubrious _clocheteur_, or crier of the dead, with lantern and bell, his tunic figured with skull and cross-bones, bleating forth:-- "Reveillez-vous gens qui dormez, Priez Dieu pour les trepassez." was no soothing lullaby. [Footnote 234: According to Sir Thomas Browne, bodies soon consumed there. "Tis all one to lie in St. Innocents' churchyard as in the sands of Egypt, ready to be anything in the ecstasy of being ever, and as content with six feet as the _moles_ of Adrianus." "_Tabesne cadavera solvat An rogas haud refert._"--LUCAN.] A curious early fifteenth-century rhyme is associated with this charnel-house. One morning, two _bourgeoises_ of Paris, the wife of Adam de la Gonesse and her niece, went abroad to have a little flutter and eat two sous' worth of tripe in a new inn. On their way they met Dame Tifaigne, the milliner, who recommended the tavern of the "Maillez," where the wine was excellent. Thither they went and fared not wisely but too well. When fifteen sous had already been spent, they determined to make a day of it, and ordered roast goose with hot cakes. After further drinking, gauffres, cheese, peeled almonds, pears, spices and walnuts were called for, and the feast ended in songs. When the bad quarter of an hour came, their sum of sous proving inadequate, they parted with some of their finery to meet the score, and at midnight left the inn dancing and singing-- "Amours au vireli m'en vois." The streets of Paris, however, at midnight were unsafe even for sober ladies, and these soon fell among thieves, were stripped of the rest of their clothing, then taken up for dead by the watch and flung into the mortuary in the cemetery of the Innocents; but, to the terror of the gravedigger, were found lying outside the next morning, singing-- "Druin, Druin, ou es allez? Apporte trois harens salez Et un pot de vin du plus fort."