Saintly bones pressed into a wax effigy of a Catholic superstar.

A 16th-century fountain marks the site of a lost medieval cemetery once filled with mass graves.

Two awe-inspiring globes from the reign of the Sun King hang from the ceiling of France's national library.

A lone cannonball remains lodged in the walls of the Hotel de Sens as a sober reminder of a revolution.

This life-size replica of the Statue of Liberty's flame is also a tribute to Princess Diana by default.

Twelve grave-faced marble angels guard the emperor's tomb at Les Invalides.

The water-powered carriages are long gone, but for over a century this funicular railway has been the fastest route to the highest point in Paris.

This former “ante-chamber to the guillotine” has been refurbished to illustrate the brutal history of French justice.

In the best of all possible worlds, everyone will get a chance to see this statue in which Voltaire's heart is interred.

An overlooked marble is the only surviving in-place 18th century example of the measurement that changed how we define distance.

Medieval museum built over Roman baths that features famous tapestries of a lady and a unicorn.

This statue was given to France by the United States to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution.

Indents in the pavement are all that remain from a grisly death machine in Paris.

A Parisian cemetery where the elite and artistic are interred beneath an eccentric collection of tombs.

Site of a classic 19th-century physics experiment to prove the earth is rotating.

This museum houses an imposing skeleton army comprised of creatures great and small.

France's national museum of scientific and industrial instruments.

A horde of stray cats rule in this secluded Parisian cemetery under a bridge.

This iconic Parisian bookstore doubles as the "Tumbleweed Hotel" for traveling writers.

This massive library holds what was once the largest book collection in the world.

France's most famous cemetery, with some of its most curious tombs.

The vast, legendary catacombs hold secrets much stranger than stacked bones.

A collection of more than 12,000 shoes, displayed in a building shaped like a shoebox.