About 500m to the northeast of the catacombs, on avenue de l'Observatoire, the classical Observatoire de Paris sat on France's zero meridian line from the 1660s, when it was constructed, until 1884. After that date, they reluctantly agreed that 0° longitude should pass through a small village in Normandy that happened to be due south of Greenwich. Visiting the Observatoire is a complicated procedure and all you'll see are old maps and instruments, but the original line is visible in the garden behind on boulevard Arago, marked by a medallion set in the pavement. In 1986, 200th anniversary of the astronomer François Arago's birth, 135 of these medallions were set along the Arago line in Paris. Many have since been uprooted but a few can still be spotted in various locations. On the other side of the boulevard de Port-Royal, the green avenue de l'Observatoire stretches north into the Jardin du Luxembourg.
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