The gods of the Gauls who watched over Lutetia were called Esus, depicted cutting branches from trees, Cernunnos, the horned god, and Smertrice, the Hercules of the Gallic pantheon, who conquered monsters. When the Romans came, they imposed their own flock of deities. The hillock of Montmartre became the Mount of Mercury, the future Les Halles was the site of a Cybelline temple, and the île de la Cité contained a temple to Jupiter. Subsequently, in the same locations and places, the churches of Saint Pierre de Montmartre, Saint Eustache, and Notre Dame would be built.

Like geological strata, we see the divine dethroned and piled up on top of each other. The first gods are in the basements of our urban memory; like fossils we have yet to unearth. They embody Parisians’ original fears and dreams, their first look at transcendence. In order to find them, you simply have to dig…

In the foundations of the hôtel Dieu, under the île de la Cité, a three-headed, bearded god, dressed in a short tunic and holding a ram’s head and a purse was found.

During the construction of the Bastille metro station, the labourers discovered an Egyptian statue of Ushabiti, a funerary goddess linked to the cult of Isis.

Similarly, close to the church of Saint Eustache, a bronze bust of an unknown woman was unearthed that we think is Isis.

Lastly, in 1737, one Monsieur Dubois told the strangest of anecdotes:  in the middle of the thickets of the quarries of Montmartre, he had discovered the entrance to an underground tunnel on the north flank of the hill, near the hamlet of Clignancourt. Having walked in a straight line for seven hours, he arrived in front of a temple, a real pagan chapel decorated with eight giant-sized statues representing gods. Among them, Osiris and Isis…

The latter, funerary goddess of Ancient Egypt, comes up time and again. Her name is linked to the history of Paris to the point that a statue of the goddess in a Bologna church carries the inscription:  Fluctuat nec mergitur (the motto that appears on Paris’ coat of arms that means “She is tossed by the waves but does not sink”). Exegetes of urban esotericism like to go further, examining Paris’ geography to reveal that the place de l’Étoile and its 12 mansions (referred to as les “maréchaux” – the Marshalls) could be a nod to the 12 signs of the zodiac, to which Isis was directly linked. At any rate, through his decree of 24 November 1853, Baron Haussmann could have removed any trace of Isis from Paris’ coat of arms. What was he afraid of after all? But then, you don’t get rid of a goddess that easily…