Musée Carnavalet

As Meg and I hurtled northwards through the Marais on the perpetually overcrowded 96 bus, practising our French, we let our minds drift to the exciting afternoon ahead.

We had determined to go to the Musée Carnavalet, a museum presenting to visitors the history of Paris through art. The collection is housed in two 17^th century mansions in the Marais, and is particularly known for its 19^th and 20^th century collections, including some particularly fine Art Nouveau.

Admittedly, the museum was free, so we can’t fault them there, but at no point were we informed that the second mansion – containing the 19^th and 20^th century and Revolution collections – was completely closed and none of the collections therein were available for visiting. This was disappointing, and would have affected my decision whether or not to visit; again, I couldn’t help feeling that yet again, the aim was to get as many people in to spend money in the gift shop, and if this affects their view of Paris or disappoints, who cares? It’s the only thing here that constantly irritates.

In any case, the rest of the museum was fascinating, and Meg and I spent a lot of time in a tiny gallery devoted to religious art, where we got (sort of) chatting, in a multi-lingual sense, with the museum attendant. That makes the Musée Carnavalet and the Louvre joint winners of the “best non-threatening museum staff” award, as both had a very pleasant atmosphere.

There was indeed some great art, but I thought the most interesting part (in the absence of fin-de-siécle and 20^th century stuff) was just seeing inside the mansion that was open. There were many very individual rooms, and it was a bit different to the usual stately home proportioned buildings that are usually open to the public. Also, seeing inside a 16^th century Marais home let us into a bit of Parisian history that isn’t as accessible as the Haussmanian.

And I just loved this collection of old shop signs.

After the museum, we sat in the gardens for a while.

Then we headed out onto the streets of the Marais, where we found some pleasant squares and visited the Jesuit church there.