Castles · Tour

Palais-Royal Murder Investigation with a Costumed Actor, in French

A walking tour with a plot. An actor in costume takes the group through the Palais-Royal district as a case to be solved, and the monuments and the anecdotes arrive because the investigation needs them, not because a list says so. The visit is conducted in French. That is worth knowing before booking: the whole thing runs on dialogue with the actor, so the language is not incidental. The case: in 1841 the body of Duchess Blanche of Condrie was found near the agency of Vidocq, the most famous detective in Paris, the convict turned policeman who invented the modern criminal investigation. Vidocq appears never to have closed the file. An investigator has now reopened it, and the group is recruited to help, following the trail through the streets and looking for what was missed. The route covers the garden of the Palais-Royal, one of the finest covered passages in the city, and the Buren columns, which is to say the most photographed courtyard in Paris. Walking them as a suspect list rather than a sightseeing list is the difference here.