Montparnasse and Pasteur Museum

Having worked with viruses and bacteria in a lab setting for the past few years, my sister Margaret was interested in taking a tour of the Louis Pasteur Museum.  So she and I took the Metro to the Montparnasse area to do a little exploring and check out the Institut Pasteur.

We enjoyed the stroll along the Boulevard Edgar Quinet.  It was pleasant and far from the tourist crowds.

We took a detour through the Cimetière du Montparnasse, with its ornate tombs.

In many cases, the decoration on the tombs contains the work of a famous artist.

Painter Gustav Jundt's tomb, with bronze sculpture by Bartholdi (whose tomb is also in Montparnasse)

Sculpture by artist Niki de Saint-Phalle. The inscription reads "To my friend Jean-Jacques, a bird who flew away too soon"

There are also some famous people for whom Montparnasse Cemetery is the final resting place.  Signs posted throughout the cemetery guide you to their tombs.

Charles Pigeon (inventor of a non-exploding gasoline lamp) wanted to be depicted in bed

Tomb of Porfirio Diaz, controversial Mexican president. 

The headstone of existentialists Sartre and de Beauvoir is covered in kisses and love notes.

As we exited the cemetery we had an excellent view of the Tour Montparnasse.  A 689-foot office building, it towers over the rest of Paris.  When it was built in the early 1970's it was criticized for being too big and aesthetically out of sync with the rest of the Parisian landscape. But I'm sure it offers great views of the city.

After a few more blocks, we arrived at the Musée Pasteur which is located in the heart of the campus of the Institut Pasteur.

Exterior of one of the Institut Pasteur's research buildings

The Musée Pasteur, and bust of Louis Pasteur

The Institut is France's leading medical research center and there were many people walking around wearing labcoats.  Unknowingly, we walked past the security guard toward the museum and were called back to show our identification and obtain some very official-looking name badges.

  
Tours are given on the hour beginning at 2pm.  The museum is located in Pasteur's former house and contains his medical instruments, notes, and some ongoing experiments.  Additionally, his sitting rooms, bedroom, dining room, etc have been left furnished as they were in his lifetime.  It was unfortunate that they did not allow photographs, especially when we reached the final area of the tour -- Pasteur's tomb.  It is one of the most ornate memorials I've ever seen; I found this link to a photo, but it doesn't really do justice to all the gilding and decorative symbolism.

Paris has so many museums and it is easy to overlook some of the lesser-known ones so I am very glad that this was on Margaret's must-see list, and that I got a chance to visit it while I'm here in Paris.