Holy Innocents' Cemetery

The Place Joachim-du-Bellay now sits where the Holy Innocents' Cemetery served as the city's largest burial ground for six centuries. You can identify this space by the fountain standing at its center, which was originally built in fifteen forty-nine against the wall of the church that once bordered the site. By the Middle Ages, the burial ground had grown so overcrowded with some two million interred Parisians that the earth level reportedly rose eight feet above the surrounding streets.