Fodor's Expert Review Chapelle Expiatoire

Commissioned in 1815, this neoclassical temple marks the original burial site of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. After the deposed monarchs took their turns at the guillotine on Place de la Concorde, their bodies were taken to a nearby mass grave. A loyalist marked their place, and their remains were eventually retrieved by the dead king's brother, Louis XVIII, who moved them to the Basilica of St-Denis. He then ordered the monument (which translates to Expiatory, or Atonement, Chapel) built on this spot, in what is now the leafy Square Louis XVI off Boulevard Haussmann. Two massive white-marble sculptures by François Joseph Bosio show the king and queen being succored by angels, while stone tablets below are inscribed with the last missives of the doomed royals, including pleas to God to forgive their Revolutionary enemies.