The Carnavalet Museum

Wow!  I guess the shorter and more frequent posts didn't work out so well.  We had house guests for a week and then I had some heavy duty work to do.  Despite the fact that it feels like I'm here to play, I do have work and it gets in the way of the fun Parisian stuff.  Ah well.  All play and no work would make me dull, right?

Our walk through the Marais was leading us to the Carnavalet Museum.  The Carnavalet is a museum for and about Paris, focusing on The Revolution but including Louis XIV-period rooms all the way through the belle epoch.

The museum opened in 1880 in the Hotel Carnavalet, a mansion built by the President of the Parliament of Paris in the mid 1500's and was later purchased by the widow of Francois de Kernevenoy who was later known as Carnavalet.  By the late 20th century, the museum was bursting at the seams so the mansion next door was purchased and the two became one museum.  Our visit to the Carnavalet was a bit helter skelter and half the museum was closed that day, but we had an interesting visit nonetheless.  The first room we entered was filled with antique shop signs.  There were hundreds of them hanging from the walls and ceiling.

This was my favorite!

Le Chat Noir

Next we wandered through the mansion where we saw the luxury of the Louis (XIV, XV and XVI that is).  There are a lot of furnished rooms that let you get a feel for the opulent life of the kings and nobles before the Revolution.  Some of the rooms have been moved from the mansions at Place de Vosges.  There was a lot of flowery wallpaper, carved wood, massive fireplaces , ornate chandeliers, brightly colored walls with embellishments, and amazing parquet floors that rolled and groaned beneath our feet.

A chandelier in an opulent room

Another chandelier, another point of view

Detail of bright yellow room with ornate wall decor

We saw maps and scale models of historic Paris and a few paintings and busts.  But the things that caught my attention more than anything were the windows.   I love the old windows!  They were multi-paned and had colored glass and you could tell a lot of the panes were old because the glass was wavy and had bubbles in it!  There were also many different designs. 

Window with round leaded glass panes

You can really see the color in the panes in this one - plus a nice view of the courtyard!

Another design and more of the courtyard

 

A set of doors with a floral motif

 

When we finished perusing the interior, we headed to the courtyard.  There is a beautiful portico between two wings with a formal garden on each side:

Portico between wings

From the portico, looking into the garden

Garden detail

Impeccably landscaped and well-manicured!

We really enjoyed the Carnavalet Museum, but like almost everything else, we'd like to go back and see the part we missed!

As we exited the museum, we were treated to a typical Parisian street scene:

The band was lively and had attracted quite a crowd.  We watched them for a bit, then wandered off deeper into the Marais accompanied by the usual city sounds and a little music.