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Beneath the romantic streets of Paris lies a hidden city of the dead.

In the late 1700s, Paris’s cemeteries became so overcrowded that graves overflowed and public health fears grew. Authorities made a chilling decision: millions of human remains were carefully transferred into abandoned limestone tunnels beneath the city.

Over the years, workers arranged skulls and bones into eerie walls and patterns, creating what is now known as the Catacombs of Paris.

Today, more than 6 million people rest beneath the French capital, stretching through miles of underground passageways.

A haunting reminder that beneath one of the world’s most beautiful cities lies one of its most mysterious secrets.