Halloween in Paris: 10 Things to do when you're (Un)Dead
With Halloween upon us once more, there’s no better time to explore the darker side of Paris — the legends, crimes, and ghostly secrets that linger beneath its beauty. Forget plastic skeletons and manufactured scares; the French capital has the real thing. From prisons where queens took their last breath to underground ossuaries lined with skulls, these are the haunting traces of a city shaped by revolution, ambition, and death. Dare to join us as we venture into 10 spine-tingling places where history refuses to rest…
Descend into the Paris Catacombs — The Empire of Death
First on the list come the Catacombs, Paris’s most famous burial grounds, where, for those who dare to disobey the sign above the descending stairs (“Stop, here is the empire of death”). If you are among the brave, then skeletons and skulls greet you with their inimitable grins. For full effect join one of of our spine-tingling tours and go where angels fear to tread (that is, spaces that are cordoned off from unaccompanied visitors).
📍Catacombs of Paris: 1 Av. du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, 75014. Métro: Denfert Rochereau
Open 9:45 - 20:30pm, last entry 19h30. Closed Mondays
Musée de la Préfecture de Police — France’s Crime Stories Uncovered
Next stop Hôtel de Police. Opened in 1900 for the World’s Fair, it contains much chilling memorabilia of serial killers and poisoners and assassins out of French history, but perhaps the star of the show is the guillotine blade, all 8 kilos or 17.6+ of pounds of her, for a swift severing of neck and head. Did the victims retain a few seconds of consciousness after the “National Razor” did its deadly work, and see the crowds cheering on their end? The question remains a mystery for the ages. Go see it and wonder.
📍Musée de la Préfecture de Police :4, rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève 75005. Métro: Maubert-Mutualité
Open Weekdays 9:30-5pm
Hôtel d’Augny — The Ghosts of the Guillotine’s Victims
It is said, in hushed voices, that here, at the fall of Robespierre and the end of the Reign of Terror, a mania for dances called the “Bal des Victimes” took over. Only those with relatives who had died by the guillotine were invited. Women wore short hair in memory of those whose locks were chopped off in preparation for the blade, and a red ribbon choker with the obvious meaning. Maybe you’ll glimpse one turning a corner, only to disappear if you should follow her.
📍Hôtel d’Augny (Town hall of the 9th Arrondissement): 6 rue Drouot 75009. Métro: Auber
Open weekdays. 8:30 – 5 :00pm
Square du Vert Galant — The Templar’s Final Curse
In the peaceful, gracious square behind what once was the royal palace, a stake was built on a cold day of mid-March 1314. The king, Philip IV the Fair (as in “Good Looking,” not “Just”) accused the Templar Knights, crusaders of heroic renown, of heresy. He had their grandmaster Jacques de Molay, who was also godfather to the crown princes, burned alive,. It is said that the soldier cried out as the flames licked his mortal coil that those guilty of his death should appear within the year before the tribunal God, and then “A curse unto you until the thirteenth generation!” Within the next year, all the movers and shakers of de Molay’s trial were dead, including the pope, and all the king’s heirs and spares. His dynasty died out. They say if you count the generations until the thirteenth you arrive at Louis XVI, last reigning King of France who died at the guillotine in 1793. They also say when the wind is right and the moon is full you can still hear Jacques de Molay shrieking out and his fateful cry that felled the French royalty. At all events on the Square du Vert Galant you can see the plaque that marks the place where the pyre was built.
📍Square de Vert Galant: 15 Place du Pont-Neuf, 75004. Métro: Pont-Neuf
The Conciergerie — Marie-Antoinette’s Last Stop
Spectacular in its international début for the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Olympics, the towers that lower over the Seine from the Ile de la Cité cast a long shadow over French history. In fact, the premises were once the medieval royal palace. They were deserted, however, during the 100 Years War, when the stronghold succombed to enemy forces and the young crown prince (his father captive in England) was forced to watch the murder of his advisors. After he gained the crown as Charles V, he preferred to live elsewhere and the palace was eventually turned into a prison. In March of 1793, it became the not only the site in which the notorious Revolutionary Tribunal held its sham trials, but also, as a result, the holding cell for those destined to the guillotine. You can visit it today and see some of the Gothic remains of halls that the kings would have known, as well as the cells of the doomed. Most famously, you can see where Marie Antoinette was kept until her hour came to mount the scaffold.
📍The Conciergerie :2, boulevard du Palais 75001. Métro: Cité or Châtelet
Open 9:30 - 6pm daily
Paris Cemeteries — Where the Famous and Infamous Rest
Cemeteries! As we head toward Halloween and the Day of the Dead that follows, this is the season we pay homage to the deceased. Paris has an embarrassment of funereal riches. You will of course want to head to Père Lachaise, final home to Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Eugène Delacroix, Marcel Marceau, Frédéric Chopin, Gertrude Stein, and more than we have space to mention. Check out our previous blog post here for more info!
Lesser known Paris Cemeteries we recommend
As well as Père Lachaise, make sure you go see some lesser known boneyards boasting the venerable remains of the great and the grand.
Montparnasse Cemetery
- Here lies the decadent poet Charles Baudelaire for example. Don’t be fooled by the cenotaph, which is only that, an empty marker. His actual body is buried with his family, under the name of his hated stepfather Jacques AuPick
- Feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir is buried here beside her long time lover Jean Paul Sartre whose quote -- “Hell is other people” -- makes you wonder.
- Serge Gainsbourg — Iconic music artist whose grave is a pilgrimage site, adorned with offerings from fans.
- Samuel Beckett — Nobel Prize-winning author and playwright, buried here among Montparnasse’s creative community.
- Constantin Brâncuși — Pioneering sculptor whose grave is also located here and marked by artistic funerary design.
📍Cimitière de Montparnasse: 3 Boulevard Edgar Quinet, 75014. Métro: Edgar Quinet et Vavin
Open 8 - 6pm daily. Hours may vary by season.
Montmartre Cemetery
Nestled behind the Butte Montmartre, this cemetery is a peaceful, atmospheric. artist-filled necropolis full of tombs of writers, painters and other cultural icons. Perfect for a walking detour after visiting the Sacré-Cœur and Montmartre’s busy streets.
- Edgar Degas has a tomb here, he who painted racehorses and ballerinas with such brio and which grace the Orsay. You can explore with his work and how it fits in with the Impressionists in our tour of those collections.
- Dalida, the iconic singer whose grave remains a pilgrimage site. You'll see her well-loved bust and her house on our walking tour of Montmartre.
- Stendhal, literary giant, is also buried here
📍Cimitière de Montmartre: 20 Avenue Rachel, 75018 Paris (access via Rue Caulaincourt stairs). Metro: Blanche or Place de Clichy
Open; Monday–Friday 8 am–6 pm; Sunday from around 9 am. Hours vary by season.
Passy Cemetery
Don't miss this small, elegant cemetery in the 16th arrondissement with views of the Seine and the Eiffel Tower nearby. It's an elegant alternative to the more-famous cemeteries, with graves of artists and composers — ideal for visitors wanting something off-the-beaten-path during Halloween season.
Look out for:
- Édouard Manet, influential painter of the modern era.
- Claude Debussy, one of France’s great composers.
- Berthe Morisot, pioneering female Impressionist, buried near Manet
📍Cimitière de Passy, 2 Rue du Commandant-Schloesing, 75016 Paris. Metro: Trocadéro
Open: From 16 March to 5 November: Mon–Fri 8 am–6 pm; Sat 8:30 am–6 pm; Sun 9 am–6 pm.
From 6 November to 15 March: Mon–Fri 8 am–5:30 pm; Sat 8:30 am–5:30 pm; Sun 9 am–5:30 pm
The Panthéon — Resting Place of France’s Heroes
France’s illustrious are enshrined here with all honors due, names such as:
- Victor Hugo,
- Louis Pasteur,
- Marie Curie
Josephine Baker, the French-American entertainer who doubled as an agent in the French Resistance. If you’d like to get a sense of her work under the Nazi Occupation, do we have the tour for you.
And if it's open, climb up to the colonnade on the rooftop surrounding the dome for wonderful views across Paris, particularly the bird's-eye view of Notre-Dame Cathedral.
📍The Pantheon: Place du Panthéon 75005
Metro: Maubert-Mutualité, Place Monge or Luxembourg
Open: 10 – 6pm with some exceptions, please see their website for more information.
Basilica of Saint-Denis — Necropolis of the Kings
We offer a tour of this gem of a church which saw the rise as well as the full glory of Gothic architecture. It also served as the traditional necropolis for the kings and queens of France from the early Middle Ages on to the end of the royal line. Join us to find out more about the history of these tombs and the breathtaking structure containing them.
📍Basilica of Saint Denis: 1 rue de la Légion d'Honneur, 92300 Saint-Denis
Métro: Basilique de Saint-Denis
for a detailed reference to its opening hours see here
Chapelle Expiatoire — Spirits of the Revolution
Originally a mass burial place for the guillotine victims of the Reign of Terror (1793-94) during the Revolution, this shrine commemorates those not given proper burial rites, whose headless bodies were simply thrown aside and covered over with lime in the nearby Madeleine cemetery. Could they still walk here, after sundown?
📍Chapelle Expiatoire, 29 rue Pasquier, 75008
Métro: Saint-Lazare and Saint-Augustin
For detailed opening hours please refer here
Musée Grévin — Wax Figures or Restless Souls?
As the bodies of those who have passed on from this life grow restless, do you dare to go to the wax museum ? Doubles of those living and dead stand as if breathing and alive before you. It started as wax sculptor Mme Tussaud took imprints of the guillotined and turned them to figures in a tableau. While most of today’s effigies are alive and well, many are not and those will send gooseflesh up your arm and the hair stand on end. We dare you to stand before the Reign of Terror’s dread public prosecutor Antoine Fouquier-Tinville who sent so many to their deaths without even the pretense of a lawyer and not tremble.
📍 Musée Grevin: 10 Boulevard Montmartre 75009
Metro: Grands Boulevards
Open: Weekdays 10 - 6pm / Weekend 9:30 -7pm
Guillotine Traces — Where the National Razor Fell
By the mid-19th century, guillotine executions were still a public spectacle but took place more discreetly at the entry courtyard of prisons, such as the Grande Roquette. For youth and women, it once stood right here, from 1900-1974, before it was demolished. You can still see, embedded in the pavement right at the crosswalk for instance, the stones that stabilized the instrument that so effectively implemented capital punishment. Between 1851 et 1899, some two hundred people were put to death here. It would not be surprising to catch a glance of them traversing doorways that no longer stand. Keep a look out.
📍Guillotine traces : Corner of rue de la Croix-Faubin and la rue de la Roquette 75011
Métro : Bastille
Paris’s Most Haunted Building? Square La Bruyère
Located, appropriately, in a dead end, one of the building facing it, one of its apartments carries with it a somber legacy. Over a hundred years ago now, when the original Roaring Twenties opened, a certain Héra Mirtel, both author and journalist, murdered her husband. The next inhabitant put a premature end to her own days. Following this, a brave antiques dealer took the rooms only to find that the objects he collected would suddenly begin to rot without ever finding a cause for such an odd occurrence. A later renter threw himself out of the window. Today it remains empty.
📍Square La Bruyère 75009: Off the rue Pigalle
Métro: Saint-Georges
Paris has always balanced elegance with a taste for the macabre. Every shadowed alley, every ornate tomb hints at the dramas that played out here — love, betrayal, power, and downfall. This Halloween, go beyond the surface and unwrap the stories still whispering through the City of Ghosts.
✨ Want to explore the darker chapters of Paris with a local expert?
Join one of our immersive theatrical tours, led by Edgar Allen Poe himself — and discover the haunting history hiding in plain sight.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read our blog! We are a small Paris-based tour company that prioritises a boutique personal experience where we can share our passion for our heritage and community with every individual that joins us. If you'd like to take a tour then head over to our website for an unforgettable trip to the city of lights. Also, check out our social media @memories.france for everything you could need to know for coming to Paris: from how to use the metro to coffee shops closest to each major monument, there is something for everyone!
Angelissa, Siobhan & the Memories France Family
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