Flèche de la Basilique Saint-Michel

This guide to the Fleche de la Basilique Saint-Michel in Bordeaux opens with a nameless mummified figure known only as the General Killed in a Duel, one of dozens of bodies uncovered in 1791 when workers dug into the square's old cemetery ground and found flesh that had never decayed. It follows how the city put the naturally preserved corpses on display in the crypt for nearly two centuries, charging visitors like Victor Hugo and Gustave Flaubert to look, each inventing a story for the silent faces. You'll also climb the freestanding Gothic bell tower rising above the square. Stand at its base, on ground that has held Bordeaux's dead for a thousand years.