text: When visiting a new city for the first time, it’s customary to purchase a souvenir that not only represents the culture but also marks your adventure away from home. Typically, a miniature Empire State Building after a jaunt to New York or a pashmina shawl found at a souk in Dubai will do, but one entrepreneur from Paris takes the concept of procuring a piece of the land quite literally, selling a range of hand-painted cobblestones that come directly from Paris’s storied streets. 
   
   Last summer Margaux Sainte-Lagüe noticed a line of jackhammers tearing up the cobblestones on Paris’s tony Champs-Élysées as she rode her Vespa down the street. Sainte-Lagüe, who has a collection of eccentric decorative objects throughout her home, thought a small cut of cobblestone would make for a perfect addition to her library’s bookshelf. “I only wanted one for myself but ended up buying five tons,” Sainte-Lagüe says. 
   
   In early 2016 the city of Paris began selling thousands of tons of cobblestones from its most iconic roads and secret-trodden alleyways as part of its circular economy, with goals of reducing waste and saving energy, which resulted in the attraction of buyers like Sainte-Lagüe. With several tons of chiseled cobblestones in her possession, Sainte-Lagüe launched her online store, Mon Pavé Parisien , offering three styles of the five-pound stones: a classic version hand-painted in the colors of France’s flag, one gilded in 22.5 carats of gold, and the May 68 series stone, whose bottom half is sheathed in sand and features the inscription “sous les pavés,” a popular phrase used during the protests of the May 1968 revolution. 
   
   If Sainte-Lagüe’s signature stone variations don’t suit your home’s decor, she will customize the design to your liking. In fact, Sainte-Lagüe has already personalized one for Paris’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, with the number 75, symbolizing Paris as France’s 75th arrondissement, as well as a wedding gift for a Chinese bride and groom, painting their names, side by side, on the rock’s surface. “No matter the design, I want to let the stones be as raw as possible, like they are still on the streets of Paris,” says Sainte-Lagüe. “Each one is a real piece of the city you can take home, a real piece of history.” 
   
   Each cobblestone is available at Mon Pavé Parisien’s online store, with prices ranging from $63 to $157; monpaveparisien.fr ||||| Mon Pavé Parisien sells real cobblestones from Paris. They are all directly provided by the Paris City Hall. All our cobblestones are hand-painted. It makes each of them special. A unique souvenir for a special gift. Here are some of our creations. 
   
   “For a modest price, the streets of Paris can be yours” 
   
   said Benoit Morenne from the New York Times! 
   
   A cube of Paris. Its name “Mon Pavé Parisien” which means My Cube from Paris. 
   
   Coco Chanel might have walked on this pavement of granite. Or Victor Hugo or even Charles de Gaulle. Witness of the life of Parisians for more than 800 years. 
   
   Serie N°2 “My Cobblestone May68” is over. ||||| SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email 
   
   Photographer: Jacques Demarthon/AFP via Getty Images Photographer: Jacques Demarthon/AFP via Getty Images 
   
   Want to take home a piece of Paris? French entrepreneur Margaux Sainte-Lague has something for you. 
   
   Earlier this year, when Paris began selling thousands of tons of cobblestones that once paved the city’s streets and alleys, Sainte-Lague bought five tons. She is now reselling them to tourists and collectors keen to own a well-trodden piece of the French capital’s history. 
   
   A cobblestone from Mon Pave Parisien Source: Mon Pave Parisien 
   
   Her company, Mon Pave Parisien, is an illustration of how used materials like stones, glass and concrete are being put on the market for construction projects or, in this case, as souvenirs for lovers of Paris and visitors to the city of light. The activity is rooted in a movement to create a so-called circular economy that’s being promoted by the French government, European Commission and some builders to reduce waste and save energy through recycling and reuse. 
   
   “The Parisian cobblestones have attracted the interest of many people, including tourists,” said Patrick Marchetti, who runs the Paris city maintenance center where the cobblestones are sorted and cleaned. “They are cheap and have some charm.” 
   
   While Sainte-Lague’s sales are relatively low so far -- she has sold 50 of the chiseled stones -- customers are steady and come from far-flung places. They have ranged from Chinese brides to a U.S.-based French expatriate nostalgic about her youth during the protests of May 1968, when cobblestones were hurled at the police by demonstrators during national strikes. Sainte-Lague now plans to sell her wares in luxury boutiques and souvenir shops near the city’s monuments. 
   
   “First in concept stores, and then, why not, in souvenir boutiques,” she said. 
   
   Champs-Elysees 
   
   On a larger scale, French builder Eiffage SA has said it will recycle materials from public works into cement aggregate. Cie de Saint-Gobain, Europe’s biggest supplier of construction materials, is working with recycling company Paprec Group to collect discarded residential windows for use in new products. 
   
   The French capital may sell as many as 3 million tons of the cube-shaped granite, Marchetti estimates. The cobblestones, first laid in Paris in the 11th century, were retrieved from several layers below pavements ripped up during civil works projects, including a new tramway. The city put the blocks on the market in March. 
   
   Paris is by no means getting rid of all its its cobblestones. The ones around the famous Arc de Triomphe and Place de la Concorde will remain, while those along the Champs-Elysees are being polished and refurbished into smoother, more regular shapes for cars, bikes, strollers and high heels, Marchetti said. 
   
   Picasso’s Path 
   
   Most of the cobblestones sold directly by the city from a warehouse in a southern suburb of Paris have gone to small companies recycling them to pave terraces and driveways, he said. The city’s customers have included the foundation created by French photographer and environmentalist Yann Arthus-Bertrand for the renovation of the Longchamp castle, in front of the famous horse-racing course. 
   
   At a retail price of eight euros a square meter (11 square feet), or 40 euros a ton, the sales could add about 400,000 euros ($371,000) annually to municipal coffers if 10,000 tons are extracted from under asphalt every year. At that rate, the supply is estimated to last for about three centuries. 
   
   At between 60 euros and 150 euros a cobblestone, shipping within France included, Sainte-Lague is making a tidy profit from her central Parisian workshop where she cleans and custom decorates each stone -- some elaborately with gold leaves. With the possibility that some of the cobblestones were trod on by Vincent Van Gogh or Pablo Picasso in the neighborhood of Montmartre, buyers can own a piece of Paris’s history, she said. 
   
   — With assistance by Marie Mawad ||||| Some Paris streets still have visible cobblestone paving, but on many the stones have been buried under asphalt and are often torn up during construction. Rather than dump them, the city has started to salvage and sell the stones. 
   
   Credit Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times
target: – Parisian streets have been paved with stones since the 12th century, and while asphalt now covers large swaths of the city, the cobblestones still adorn squares, boulevards, and alleyways. For years as the city dug them up (about 10,000 tons a year) to continue building or repaving, it paid to haul them to the dump, reports the New York Times. No longer. It finally occurred to officials last March to salvage these rare gems of Parisian history and sell them to contractors so that they'd have "a second life," say the head of the city maintenance yard that stores them. "They are cheap and have some charm," he tells Bloomberg. In September, one enterprising woman bought five tons for $215 and set up a souvenir shop of sorts, where her team polishes, weighs, and hand-paints the stones. She sells them online for between $60 and $160, plus $15 to $40 in shipping fees. Tourists from as far afield as China and Oklahoma have paid for what entrepreneur Margaux Sainte-Lagüe calls enduring little pieces of history. (Not bad, considering the stones are worth maybe 8 cents as raw material.) For her, they bring a bit of nostalgia, reminding her of when youth threw them at police during national strikes in 1968. (This happened in 1848 as well.) Even the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has one of her decorated stones, notes Architectural Digest. (Paris is designating a wooded area for nudists.)