"The Paris Morgue was built in 1864 on the Île de la Cité, one of the two islands in the Seine, [and was] where the bodies of unidentified dead – most of them suicide cases – were displayed on marble slabs for friends or family to identify. This edifice soon became a fixture in the Parisian social round, with tens or hundreds of people shuffling into the morgue to gawk at the dead and gossip over their possible origins and reasons for death."  http://theoddmentemporium.tumblr.com/post/29480158550/the-paris-morgue-was-built-in-1864-on-the-ile-de