This off-limits room in the National Library of France is home to a system of pneumatic tubes, once used to bring books to readers.

Beggars were miraculously "cured" of their fake ailments when they returned home to this 17th century Paris slum each night.

Order a boozy baba au rhum at the oldest patisserie in Paris.

The mummified heart of Louis XVII, the lost dauphin of the French Revolution.

The site where two doves fell in love.

This little-known relic crypt holds stolen parts of a Roman Empress.

The oldest stone house in Paris was built by its most famous alchemist.

A mechanized clock where a man fights off a dragon, crab, and rooster.

A grotto-like lodge decorated with gilded mosaics, rocks and a noisy waterfall was the setting for the most sumptuous pleasure house of 1900s Europe.

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

This small, ingenious cannon once helped regulate Parisian life.

The tradition of open-air secondhand and antiquarian bookselling in Paris dates back to the Renaissance.

This demon atop the Notre-Dame de Paris looks utterly bored.

A giant silver apple a day keeps the perils of capitalism away.

Stripes of human ashes cover a back lawn in the most sought-after burial grounds in Paris.

A phantasmagoric tomb honors a Belgian artist-scientist's contributions to the world of spooky entertainment.

This bridge was constructed from the rubble of the infamous Bastille.

The spiral staircase hidden inside this giant Parisian column was likely built for Catherine de Medici's astrologer.

Shop at the 200-year-old store where Julia Child stocked up on copper cookware.

Paris' linguistic guide to the international language of, yes, love.

The oldest continuously operating mint in the world that has been making coins since the 9th-century.

A 400-year-old church covered floor to ceiling in ex-voto offerings from the faithful.

The former home of France's controversial pop maestro is almost completely covered in ever-changing tributes and graffiti.

A simple plaque on the facade is the only reminder that the treaty ending the American Revolution was signed inside.