Hundreds of wax figures in unexpected tableaux, magic shows in the museum's matchbox theater and baroque architecture, this is right out of a whimsical French film.Before Madame Tussauds moved to London to create her famous museum, she inspired journalist Arthur Meyer to create something similar in the French capital. With the help of noted caricaturist Alfred Grévin, this museum came to life (). With more than 450 lifelike wax sculptors arranged into dynamic (and sometimes morbid) tableaux, and its listed 1900s decor (marble staircase, cupola, and baroque-style Hall of Columns), this is a throwback to the Paris of your imagination. Since its opening in 1882 this Parisian attraction has been drawing homegrown crowds - it's estimated that more than 70% of the visitors are French. The scenes are by turns historically informative, and incredibly whimsical. Tableaux from the glory days of French history, including the coronation of Charles VII (with Joan of Arc in attendance), Sun King Louis XIV living it up at a party at Versailles, and Napoleon Bonaparte, in his post-Waterloo days. On top of the many figures and surprising tableaux, the recently renovated Hall of Mirrors is noteworthy for its optical illusions and dazzling light and sound effects. The tableaux of Charlotte Corday's arrest for assassinating radical Revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat uses the actual knife used in the killing, and the actual bathtub Marat was stabbed in. Since opening in 1882, the museum has had only one unscheduled closure - on the day the Nazis invaded Paris.
