If you're going to live somewhere for a couple months, maybe you should take an afternoon to learn a bit about it, right? And the local museum would be the right place to do this, right? We'd spent a couple hours at the Carnavalet in 2014 with daughter Rachel. It was a busy day and a hurried visit, and those three months passed very quickly. In 2021, we're taking it all a bit more leisurely, and thought we'd give the Carnavalet most of a day, thereby informing ourselves much more fully about this city that is vast in size and even more so in history. So we showed up at the museum in the morning, with timed tickets and passes sanitaires and an eagerness to learn everything we could. Four hours later, just done with the Revolution, we gave up, resolving to come back a week or two later, to carry on with the 19th century, and especially the Belle Epoche stuff we like best. Those four hours were exhausting, physically and intellectually, but we'll be back. So our posts on the Carnavalet will come in two installments...
The Carnavalet was closed for some time recently, for renovations, reopening just last May 31st. It consists of two huge Renaissance hotels (really big houses), the Hotel de Carnavalet and the Hotel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau. The scores of rooms and halls, now joined together, contain hundreds of thousands of paintings, prints, maps, models, sculpture, artifacts, mementos of the famous, and nearly a thousand pieces of furniture. The vast collection is organized chronologically--prehistory, Romans, Medieval, Renaissance, 17th and 18th centuries, Revolution, Napoleon, and so on--although it is easy to get lost or off-track. An express or executive summary sort of route would be helpful, although one would miss much that is of importance or interest. Such is the richness of the place. The Carnavalet is one of fourteen city museums in Paris, and perhaps not even the most famous. There is no admission charge.
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| Entering through a courtyard presided over by Ludovico Magno, Louis XIV, in imperial garb |
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| Through two halls of wonderful old tavern and storefront signs |
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| Original chat noir |
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| Another courtyard/garden |
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| Beautiful old buildings |
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| First of many, many painting/prints of historical maps; this from 1684; just for orientation |
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| Detail showing our neighborhood; you can clearly see the abbey that became the Musee des Arts et Metiers, bottom, center... |
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| Pirogue, that is, a dug-out boat, from paleolithic times |
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| The usual stones and bones |
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| Moving right along a few aeons, a 2nd century CE Roman steele of Mercury |
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| Artist's conception of what the amphitheater in Lutece looked like (Lutece being the name of the Roman settlement here in the lands of the Parisii tribe of Gauls; a good ford over the great river) |
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| Roman bits |
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| Google Earth view of Lutuce; note the main Roman settlement is way in from the river; note also the road that bypasses the town and heads straight for the bridges of the Cite |
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St. Genevieve, patroness saint of Paris, 5th century CE; famous for her austerity, piety, many miracles, but mostly for saving Paris from Attila by conducting a prayer-a-thon among its citizens; he sacked Orleans instead, where she is not patroness saint; notice she is depicted in a stone circle...hmmm |
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| Medieval Paris |
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| Just one of many room-sized scale models of the city; this one of Medieval times |
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| Hammers for banging out Medieval coins |
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| Moving right along to the age of the Sun King, I could not resist posting this print of the Porte Saint-Denis, down the street from our appart |
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| Ditto |
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| The museum is replete with explanatory signage, in three languages |
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| One of dozens of period rooms from the 17th and 18th centuries; as Haussmann redesigned and re-did Paris, many of the old hotels and such had to go, and many of their room were preserved, intact, and moved to the Carnavalet |
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| This one with wall murals painted by Fragonard, among others |
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| By the mid-18th century, Parisians were flying, and hot-air balloons were all the rage; in furniture |
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| Dedication of the church of St. Genevieve; later became the Pantheon |
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| Boat-jousting on the Seine; note the Notre Dame bridge covered with houses and shops |
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| Lenoir's portrait of Louis XVI |
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| Clouds were gathering for the monarchy, however; and maybe this is a good place to pause... |
