St. Innocents' Cemetery, 14th May 1610

Illustration from Livret explicatif du diorama de Paris à travers les âges (pages 36-41). In the foreground life, goes on as usual: Workers are stacking skulls under the roof and a little further away a corpse is being interred (or "inhumed") in a shroud. In the far background to the right of the church, the roof has been raised, so the attic has two stories to stack skulls in (see the pages about burials and ossuaries).

At the right side there's a big commotion. King Henry IV has just been assassinated outside the Porte Saint-Jacques (this entrance can be seen in the far, right corner of the background). The king was stabbed to death while his carriage was stuck in the traffic in the Rue de la Ferronnerie, and in the right side of the scene the assassin has been caught. 59 years later it was determined to tear down the charnel houses to the right in order to broaden the street. There's a larger version here: 1610.