The Corpse Tax of 1700s Paris

“In France, you once had to pay a tax… just to bury your dead.” By the 1700s,

Paris was drowning in bodies. Disease swept through the city, and cemeteries were

so full that coffins broke open and bones spilled into the streets. The government’s

solution wasn’t compassion — it was a tax. If your family member died,

you were required to pay the “corpse fee.” Couldn’t afford it?

Your loved one was dumped into a mass grave, sometimes naked because gravediggers

stripped valuables from the dead. The worst part: during harsh winters, bodies piled up

in the open for weeks because the poor couldn’t pay. When conditions became unbearable,