Parisians love their oldest municipal museum, created in 1880, which tells the capital story but also the little stories of their city, and reopens this Saturday after four years of work.
The sign of this passion?
This first weekend is already full, with admittedly limited gauges, as well as Tuesday, June 1, knowing that Monday is closed.
To discover Carnavalet, whose permanent collections are free, it will be next Wednesday at the earliest, and the slots are filling up quickly.
We run there, because Carnavalet has done much more than a beauty.
It is partly a new museum that we discover, after expansion work in the basements, the improvement of circulation between the two mansions that make it up on a route of 1.5 km and the creation of three huge contemporary staircases to better distribute the space (we got lost while looking for the exit).
Works costing 58.3 million euros, of which 55.1 were assumed by the City of Paris.
The result is frankly breathtaking, even if the museum remains a labyrinth with its catch-all charm.
3,800 works, some at child height
Galloping from prehistory to the pandemic, since the great novelty is that the museum runs to contemporary times, through 3,800 works.
Some of which are presented at child level, a first, to really get into the heads of the youngest visitors.
It is even astonishing, for us grown-ups, to look at paintings hung almost at floor level.
The museum tour no longer stops at Marcel Proust's bedroom, as it did before the renovations.
It now continues into the 21st century.
LP / Delphine Goldsztejn
In the new spaces devoted to prehistory, we are struck by this Neolithic canoe found in 1991 during excavations before the construction of Bercy-Village: we were already sailing on the Seine.
Regulars will find the large 17th-18th century woodwork of the mansions of the Parisian nobility, the part devoted to the Revolution but slightly transformed (read below), the ballroom of the Wendel hotel, the apartments of Madame de Sévigné or Marcel Proust's bedroom.
A collective family album
But the museum no longer stops at the writer's room, as before.
It stretches into the 21st century and confinement, through a poignant finale, until this shot of Belleville deserted in the spring of 2020. “Our collection of photos has grown enormously and we have chosen to show them more, and to pull a thread until today, even if we cannot have the same historical perspective ”, explains Anne de Mondenard, curator of the museum in charge of this part.
The recent history of the capital is discussed, such as the demonstration of January 11, 2015, after the attacks against Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher, with this photo of Laurence Geai.
Paris Museums / Carnavalet Museum-History of Paris
Carnavalet, now, is also the Liberation of Paris in August 1944, May 68, the construction of the periphery and the end of the shanty towns that were formerly called "the Zone", beyond the old fortifications of Thiers, the evocation of the first municipal campaign for a mayor of the whole of the capital with Jacques Chirac in 1977, "the first since the Municipality", recalls the historian. The museum even becomes a collective family album in front of the images of Notre-Dame on fire, or those of the demonstration of January 11, 2015, after the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher attacks, as well as the tribute to the victims of Bataclan, Republic Square. The choice was made not to show too harsh images, but the contemplation of Parisians.
Topics such as air pollution are even mentioned.
“A museum of the history of Paris, it would be arbitrary to stop it on a specific date, justifies the curator.
It is logical that it evolves, through events that resonate in recent collective memory.
But we are aware that, for this period, space remains reduced.
And the photos are fragile in the light, the works will turn a lot.
»A museum in motion.
Where Paris has never been so alive.
ZOOM ON ... the Revolution, a real business
The “guillotine” earrings are exhibited in the part devoted to the French Revolution of the Carnavalet museum.
LP / Yves Jaeglé
Not in very good taste but, let's face it, we smile in front of these “guillotine” earrings, worn with a small gilded scaffold in the revolutionary years. This is because the Revolution, a period which has always constituted "the DNA of the museum", recalls Philippe Charnotet, conservation officer, also sold. The latter explains to us that after 1789, a marketing or "commodification" of the Revolution was born.
Pierre-François Palloy, master mason and public works contractor, responsible for coordinating the demolition of the Bastille, had the idea of selling it in spare parts in the form of models made from real stones, as by-products. The permanent collections show one of these models of the fortress. In 1793, the authorities believe that Palloy embezzled part of the funds granted to raze the Bastille. Imprisoned for a few months, he saves his head.
Hubert Robert's famous painting, “the Bastille in the first days of its demolition”, painted in 1789, still stands in its splendor in the center of the course.
The painter of ruins was ideal for immortalizing the fortress in a monumental vision.
However, it housed only 7 prisoners on the eve of the Revolution.
The great painter, declared "suspect" for obscure reasons, was also imprisoned, almost at the same time as the demolisher Palloy, before becoming curator of the future Louvre museum in 1795.
Carnavalet Museum - History of Paris
, 23, rue de Sévigné (Paris IIIe), from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. except Monday.
Free reception in the permanent collections.
The
reservation
is required at least during the subsequent offering period.