Fontaine des Innocents

The Fontaine des Innocents stands in the center of the square as a tall, ornate stone pavilion covered in intricate Renaissance carvings of nymphs and tritons. Originally built in fifteen fifty to celebrate King Henry the Second, it sat against the wall of a crowded cemetery where bones were piled in charnel houses. Workers moved the fountain to this spot years later, rotating the panels to make it a freestanding monument. It remains the oldest public fountain in Paris, still flowing today.