The Louvre Museum in Paris is a world famous art collection with several of its masterpieces playing a major role in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. The museum has a thematic Da Vinci Code trail beginning in the Hall Napoléon - which is located under the Pyramid - Robert Langdon like the museum's seven million visitors each year enters the Louvre through the Pyramid. The intials P&S in a Gothic stained glass window in the Church of Saint Sulpice provides a vital clue for symbologist Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu in the novel. Other rose windows can be seen at:

• The monumental Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens.
• The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Denis in Paris which served as the prototype for the Rayonnant Gothic style.
• Notre Dame de Paris, one of the first Gothic Cathedrals. with rose windows located on the tier above the three west portals, and on the north and south transept.
• Cathedrale St-Jean in Lyon. The central rose and transept windows are dated c. 1390 and have the characteristic blue-violet colour of medieval stained glass. The colouring is adapted to the cathedral's alignment with south facing windows having cold colours to compensate for increased sunlight, while north windows have warmer colour tones. The 8th December each year is marked by the Festival of Lights la Fête des lumières during which a large-scale light show is projected onto the cathedral.
• Chapel of Notre-Dame-des-flots in Saint-Adresse built in the Neo-Gothic style.
• Chartres Cathedral
1. Twelve point star pattern of the north rose window. In the five lights below Saint Anne carries the infant Mary flanked by Aaron, Kings David and Solomon and Melchisedek.
2. West front window with the Last Judgement. Christ is surrounded by the Four Evangelists and angels.
3. South transept window with five lights below.
• Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame in Mantes.
• Laon Cathedral.
• Rouen Cathedral with a rosace above the Porte Central. One of a series of views of the west front by the Impressionist painter Claude-Oscar Monet is in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen.
• Church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois in Paris - the subject of a painting by Monet.
• The Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims, where the kings of France were once crowned. In front of the cathedral is an equestrian statue of Joan of Arc.
• La Grande Rose above the grand portail of Strasbourg Cathedral in Alsace. The cathedral is also noted for its considerable height, and its third astronomical clock designed by Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué.