The Monkey by another of Paris' famed landmarks, the Arc de Triomphe. Napoleon proposed the idea in 1806 to commemorate revolutionary and imperial war dead, and by 1836 the 50 meter tall arch was completed. Beneath its vault is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and as such it serves as a focal point for memorializing French war dead. The Arc sits in a star-shaped intersection, L'Etoile, at the opposite end of the Champs Elysées from the Place de la Concorde. This is a (not very good) shot from the Monkey's 1995 trip to Paris.

In 1990, a modern cousin of the Arc de Triomphe was born. Another of Mitterand's "grand projets", the Grand Arche de la Défense is 106 meters high and houses government offices. It is the centerpiece of the La Défense area, a few kilometers from central Paris, where modern glazed architecture dominates. The Grand Arche aligns perfectly with the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs Elysées, and the Place de la Concorde, realizing the goal of a monumental ceremonial passageway through the heart of Paris. Le Singe stopped by in 1995.

At one of Paris' most exclusive cemeteries, Pêre Lachaise, the Monkey pays his respects to Fredric Chopin, the French composer. Also entombed at the cemetery are such notables as actress Sarah Bernhardt; painters Gustave Caillebotte, Amedeo Modigliani, Eugène Delacroix, Camille Pissarro, and Georges Seurat; playwright and satirist Molière; actor and singer Yves Montand; singers Jim Morrison and Edith Piaf; and writers Marcel Proust and Oscar Wilde. Were he not immortal, it would be the Monkey's desire to spend eternity at Pêre Lachaise.

By the end of the 18th Century, Parisian church cemeteries were reaching their full capacity. The ground in some cemeteries had risen by eight feet, and the sanitary conditions nearby were worsening, the foremost complaint being an asphyxiating stench. The solution? The disinternment of the remains from all the parish cemeteries and their relocation to a mass ossuary. Dating from the 12th Century, Paris had a system of tunnels and galleries linking strategic sites and today extending for some 300 kilometers (entirely independent of the Metro system). The ossuaries occupy only a small part of the whole system. Christened in 1786, the ossuaries received transferred remains well into the 19th Century. A section is open for visits. Here, the Monkey meets past Parisians.

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