Near the Palais Royale, we encountered a shop selling collectible miniatures, which I think is deserving of its own post. (This was actually at the south end of the gardens, so my chronology is a little out of order here.) Its window displays were extensive and overwhelming – I can’t imagine what the inside of the store is like.
They had battle miniatures:
Revolutionary miniatures:
Circus miniatures:
Medieval miniatures:
and Cycling miniatures.
I’m sorry (to Jonathan especially) that my focus ended up on the lady in the fancy hat instead of on the cyclists, but perhaps I can excuse myself a little; as I snapped this shot, I said to John “just one more!” for the 5th or 6th time – plus some smokers had taken up residence in the corner of the arcade – so we were in a rush to leave. I held my breath, took the photo, and we hightailed it, with no stopping to check whether or not it had turned out well.
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On an unrelated note, I will now present the miniature annoyance of the day:
Imminent and eminent are not the same word, and are not interchangeable.
imminent: impending
eminent: illustrious; or clear and thorough.
(And just to round out the offerings, “immanent” = inherent, although it is not a frequently encountered word.)
puddle-wonderful life 
Very cool, and thanks for the miniature annoyance reminder!
:) I’m glad you like the miniatures of all sorts. I kind of wish I’d had more time to photograph those windows … there were so many different scenes and figures. Maybe next time!
my favorite was the corpse on the guillotine — was the head there too??
We were really surprised to see the miniature beheading scene – I didn’t think that was the kind of thing miniature collectors usually went for, but maybe so …. At any rate, the head *was* there, but it was really disgusting which is why I took the photo so that it wasn’t visible.
Very cool stuffs.