Collection of antique taxidermy and natural specimens, near one of Paris's oldest flea markets.

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

Ordinary art transforms to extraordinary thanks to locals' quirky sense of humor.

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

The Argonaute submarine was the French navy's pride and joy in the 1950's.

A magical, macabre wax museum, beloved by locals, uses real artifacts to depict an assassination from the French Revolution.

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

An odd museum dedicated to French fakes.

The personal library of the founder of modern neurology is open to visitors.

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

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

The Sun King's military models, saved from the Louvre.

BDSM, 1930s Style.

In this Parisian garden's grotesque former life as a zoo it fed exotic animals to the bourgeois and put humans on exhibit.

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

The floorboard scrawling of a tragic madman is on public display outside a Paris hospital, much to the dismay of its opponents.

135 bronze medallions mark a French meridian line which once rivaled the hotshot Greenwich timeline.

Skeletons, medical artifacts, and other obscure and precious treasures all displayed in a wooden pharmacist's cabinet.

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.

The headless bodies of more than 1,300 guillotined victims of the Reign of Terror are buried here in mass graves.

The recovered bones of martyrs slaughtered during The Terror are on display in this church crypt.

Museum on French naval history, with magnificent figureheads, a historic diving suit, and a boat used by Napoleon.

This Paris art space celebrates the creativity and ingenuity that springs from abject poverty, especially in Africa.

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.