Het Onbekende van de Seine

In the Middle Ages, corpses found in the streets of Paris or fished up in the Seine were collected by nuns of saint - Catherine's hospital, nicknamed " the single women under 25 " by the Parisian. The hospital was situated street Saint-Denis in approximately 300 meters of the cemetery of the Innocents in which the sisters held a right permanent employee to make bury bodies. Further to a contesting of this right arisen between the churchwardens of the saints - Innocents, the chapter of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and saint - Catherine's community, a stop of the parliament of Paris on September 29th, 1372, confirming a judgment of Hugues Aubriot, Provost of Paris, of December 23rd, 1371 confirms that " It is the sisters that mean providing in the burial of bodies resulting from the hostel-God of saint-Catherine, or that iceux bodies are brought by Chastelet of Paris or of the aforementioned hostel-God ". It is the first mention stating Grand Châtelet as place of deposit of corpses.

Demolished at the beginning of the XIXè century and replaced by the current place of Châtelet. It sheltered the seat of the police, the prisons and the first mortuary of the capital. A judgment of the provost, of September 1st, 1734, associates the low gaol of Châtelet with the identification of corpses. Later the aforementioned cells having been transferred in another part of Châtelet, the "mortuary" was allocated, to the XVIIIè century and until 1807, to the exhibition of bodies found on public roads or flooded in the Seine. An opening practised in the door allowed to recognize them " by catching itself the nose ".
About fifteen bodies was found every night in the XVIIè century. The hospitable girls of saint-Catherine had to wash them and to make them inter in the cemetery of the Innocents.

In 1804, the prefect of police Dubois makes move the mortuary quay of the New Market (in the location of the current public garden of the Ile-de-France). This mortuary is enlarged and transferred at the tip of the island by the City in 1864, what causes the disapproval of the intellectual and artistic environment. The Baron Haussmann will make it build in 1868, a building having the speed of a small Greek temple. The place established moreover one of the most fashionable exits of the capital: corpses to identify (in particular victims of drownings), spread on 12 oblique tables of black marble, were exposed to it during three days, in a room separated from the public by a window, a net of fresh water flowing on the table to preserve them.

Forensic medicine institute of Paris is born in 1923, quay of Rapée. In 1868, made Haussmann build a mortuary on the point is from the island of the City. The building which had speed of a small Greek temple, had been built in the location of a former walk called " the Ground " (the current public garden of the Ile-de-France). This one established, at the time, one of the most fashionable exits of the capital: corpses to identify (in particular victims of drownings), spread on 12 oblique tables of black marble, were exposed to it during three days, in a room separated from the public by a window.
In 1914, the become mortuary "Forensic medicine institute" settles down on the banks of the Seine in a brick-built building conceived by the architect Albert Tournaire ( 1862-1958 ), whose name will be also given to the public garden situated nearby.