The Tour Saint-Jacques at dusk, a tall Flamboyant Gothic tower with statues at its top corners.

A square stone tower with a steep pointed roof beside a school building, seen across a street.

A square Renaissance fountain pavilion with arches and carved figures, on a stepped base in a paved square.

A stone shield with fleurs-de-lis and chains set into the surface of a street.

A white stone plaque with a portrait medallion, the dates 1553 and 1610 and an inscription in capitals.

After Dark, Paris

Paris After Dark: Bones, Gallows and Alchemists

Name: Paris After Dark: Bones, Gallows and Alchemists
SKU: 224

$18.95 per tour

A duke’s tower and the murder behind it, a cemetery emptied by night, a king stabbed in a traffic jam, the square of the gallows, and an alchemist who never made gold

Categories: After Dark, Paris

Phones: 2 included, extra phones $2.95 each
Length: About 90 minutes
Distance: About 2.5 km (1.6 mi)
Stops: 9
Effort: Easy
Starts at: Tour Jean-sans-Peur
Ends at: Rue Vieille-du-Temple
Language: English

Content advisory: contains a medieval murder, the assassination of a king, torture and public executions (including the quartering of Ravaillac and Damiens and the first guillotine execution) and the mass removal of human remains, all told briefly and without graphic detail; the executed are named as people.

This is a self-guided smartphone experience. No human guide will meet you.

Start when you want, pause whenever you like, explore side streets, and go at your own pace.

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Description

Paris loves its legends: an alchemist who found the philosopher’s stone and never died, a devil carved over a church door, a turret where a prince was murdered. This walk tells every one of them, and labels each as a legend. Then it shows you the record, which is darker. A duke’s tower built after he ordered his cousin’s murder. A cemetery so full that a mass grave broke into a cellar, and the bones of ten centuries carried away by night to the quarries that became the Catacombs. The street where Henri IV’s carriage was stopped by a hay cart and a wine cart, and the stone that marks it. A fortress where the word morgue was born. And the square where Paris executed people for centuries, from Ravaillac to the first use of the guillotine. History, not horror: real people, named and told with care. Made for the evening on lit streets, and just as good by day. No tickets needed.

The stops

The Duke’s Tower: A Question for the Night
The Innocents: Where the Catacombs Began
Rue de la Ferronnerie: 14 May 1610
Place du Châtelet: The Fortress and the Morgue
The Tour Saint-Jacques: An Alchemist Who Never Was
Saint-Merri: A Devil Younger Than the Church
The Place de Grève: The Square of Executions
Rue François-Miron: The Houses Under the Plaster
Rue Vieille-du-Temple: 23 November 1407

Finding the start

Start on the south sidewalk of rue Étienne-Marcel, opposite number 20, facing the stone tower across the street (the Tour Jean-sans-Peur). Étienne Marcel métro (line 4) is about one minute to the east; Châtelet-Les Halles (métro and RER) is about five minutes south.

Terrain and access

About 2.5 kilometers from Les Halles to the Marais, plus about 500 meters on to Saint-Paul métro, flat, with no steps on the route. Mostly sidewalks and pedestrian streets, with setts in places. About a dozen signalized crossings, the busiest at rue de Rivoli, the boulevard de Sébastopol and rue Étienne-Marcel, and bicycle lanes along rue de Rivoli. Lit streets throughout. Every stop is on a public street or square: the garden around the Tour Saint-Jacques is never entered (the tour stands outside its railings) and no church, museum or cemetery is visited. Made for the evening and usable by day; from May to August it is not dark until about 22:00. The last two stops are residential streets in the Marais: earbuds only, voices low. Châtelet-Les Halles and the place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville are busy late at night: mind your bag and phone.

Tickets

No admissions.

Keep going

Where Paris Began: the Island, the Cathedral and the Kings

What you get

An email from [email protected] with a link and an access code.
Use it on your phone or tablet in an up-to-date web browser, no app store needed. There is no account to set up before you start.
Download it on Wi-Fi before you go. After that it works offline: audio, text, map and pictures.
Your booking includes 2 phones, so two of you can follow along, each on your own. Extra phones are $2.95 each, or a group can share one phone on its speaker.
Play, pause and replay every part, skip back and ahead, or change the playback speed. Keep the screen on or tap play at each stop.

How it was made

Every fact in the narration is checked against a cited source, and legends are told as legends. The narration is written from that research. How our tours are made.