Paris is a city that thrives on her history. And while tragedy and bizarreness may also be found in that history, the French are only slowly coming 'round to the notion of Halloween (La Nuit des Sorcières).

So, where to go, if you want to be chilled? Why not make your way to the most eminent of monuments, the Eiffel Tower, where many a smitten couple have professed boundless love and intent to marry. Then, consider this tale of rejection, dramatic demise and, yes, a haunting:

Legend has it that a girl decided to break up with her boyfriend, but chose, unfortunately, to do so on the very the date upon which he planned to propose marriage to her. When the bad news was relayed to the poor young man, he took it in a most regrettable manner. He escorted his lover to the top of the Eiffel Tower and threatened her. The girl, however, innocently imagined that he was still the nice guy to whom she'd once entrusted herself...once upon a time, before she'd tried to split up with him. The boyfriend informed the girl that he'd spare her only if she agreed to be his bride. Again, falsely assuming her suitor to be nicer than he'd recently become, the ingénue responded to his offer with a "No, thank you." Well, the young man took this quite badly and proceeded to push his heartbreaker to her extinction. It's said that one can still, on occasion at the Eiffel Tower, hear a girl's laughter, followed by the word "no", then a scream and, finally, silence. (I suppose the moral, here, is that it's patently unwise to take offers of marriage lightly or threats of murder with any degree of frivolity?¹)

Anyway, if you wish to pursue some potential ghostly action, you'd be well advised to make your way to The Catacombs, a substantial network of tunnels dating back to the reign of Rome—60 B.C., to be precise—and, in the 5th, 6th and 14th districts, they're about 100km (62 miles) long. 'Delight in the morbid? Death features strongly in the chronicles of this subterranean world. In fact, in 1786, The Catacombs (perhaps more correctly referred to as "Les Carrières de Paris" or "The Quarries of Paris") were converted into a mass tomb, by order of Monsieur Thiroux de Crosne, Lieutenant General of Police, and Monsieur Guillaumot, Inspector General of Quarries. Les Halles district, in the middle of the city, was rife with disease, due to contamination caused by improper burials and mass graves in churchyard cemeteries—especially the large Cimetière des Innocents. Consequently, it was resolved to place the bones of the deceased in the quarries. So, essentially, The Catacombs may be thought of as an historical dumping ground for the remains of those killed in riots or struck down by contagions. Of course, they, too, played their part in important periods of French history, used, for example, by French revolutionaries and Germans, during the second World War, who encamped in bunkers, there.

Some call The Catacombs "The Empire of the Dead". After all, there are the skulls and bones of seven million dead Parisians—peasants and noblemen, alike—intermingled, therein. I made an unauthorized visit to the giant sepulcher, thankfully accompanied by two capable guides. I can't say I saw anything that, in anyway, spooked me, but there's a recent story that's most chilling.

Down in the quarries, a discovered camcorder held the captured image of a man running away in abject terror. That man was never found.

Here's another: In 1999, a Swedish engineer took some photographs in The Catacombs. His girlfriend, who was standing beside him, at the time, noticed that her video camera started going haywire and, subsequently, broke. And the photos taken by the engineer? When they were developed, they contained extremely odd shadows and lights.

It might be inadvisable to photograph in The Catacombs.

Some say it's equally inadvisable to move the dead. A tourist was recklessly tossing a skull about, at the spot where he'd pilfered it. A blue mist emerged, and the skull took on its original human form. When the head was placed back in its correct setting, it disappeared, having frightened the life out of the foolish tourist.

One notorious trial featured Bishop Peter of Bayeux and his nephew, in 1278, for using wizardry against Philip III. Then, there were the cases of Bishop Guichard of Troyes, who was charged, in 1308, with employing magic against Philip de Bel and other aristocrats; Ailps de Mons and sundry associates accused of exacting image magic against Louis X, in 1314; Count Robert d'Artois, banished, in 1331, for fashioning a wax figure to operate against the King's son; and myriad suspects beheaded for causing the madness of monarch Charles VI, in 1398.

The death penalty was liberally wielded from the mid-15th century. Between 1428-1450, we find 110 women and 57 men being burned alive for witchcraft, as the Inquisition extracted confessions by way of multifarious methods of torture. The guilty were paraded as heretics, in the street, before meeting their dark fate of being burned alive.

Paris took the issue of witchcraft very seriously, and the law was applied harshly. Jehenne de Brigue, was accused of sorcery, allegedly having used it to heal her critically ill neighbor, Jehan de Ruilly, who, according to de Brigue, was the victim of a spell cast by his lover, Gilette. De Brigue denied being a witch but admitted to using charms. Later, she 'fessed up to being an enchantress and, while awaiting sentencing, conveniently claimed to be pregnant (afterwards, proven false). The trial went to appeal, and de Brigue was tortured on the rack. In the end, she disclosed that Macette de Ruilly, Jehan's wife, had hired her to kill Jehan. Both women were tried, led to the Paris Pig Market, and burned to death.

Halloween (or "ah-low-EEN", as it's pronounced by the French) is primarily an offshoot of globalization or Americanization, a marketing ploy. It's neither a significant nor traditional part of French culture. (Not like All Souls' Day, in which chrysanthemums and candles are customarily taken to cemeteries for the adornment of graves, and the dead are remembered by their families.) But, ironically, the origins of Halloween are European, not North American. The idea stems from a festival observance of both the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon heydays, on the 31st of October, when the souls of the dead were believed to revisit their homes. These pagan practices ultimately found their way into Christian commemorations. Halloween surfaced in North America when Irish immigrants promoted its practice, establishing the pumpkin as its official symbol and making "trick-or-treat"ing into a major component.

2 images by Francis Powell