The Musée Carnavalet

Our walk yesterday also took us to the Musée Carnavalet, one of several free museums in Paris.  The Carnavalet mansion was built in the 1500's with extensive renovation work done in the 1650's by François Mansart.  In 1880 it was officially opened as a museum dedicated to the history of the city.  A statue of Louis XIV (the Sun King) stands in the courtyard.

It's a very comprehensive museum, but unfortunately it is not organized in chronological order because of space considerations (some galleries were better suited to certain exhibits than others).  And several wings were closed for renovation today, so unfortunately we did not get to see the whole museum.  But one of the best exhibits we saw was the sign gallery, containing hundreds of signs from throughout the centuries.

Back in the days when most people were illiterate, signs rarely contained words and instead used pictures to get the point across.  Here you can see a sign for an optician (eyeglasses), a pub (black cat), and a tailor (scissors).

Here is a closer look at the sign for the Chat Noir Cabaret, a popular bohemian bar in Montmartre in the 1880's.  On the right is a sign for A La Tour D'Argent, one of Paris' most historic restaurants.

A large portion of the museum contained reproductions of famous rooms, complete with original furniture and decorative wainscoting. 

But we were more interested in the historical paintings and models showing how Paris used to look in the 1700's and 1800's.  It was particularly enlightening to see this contemporary model of the Bastille, since it gives its name to a square, a Metro station, an opera building, and many other things we are very familiar with. The fortress-turned-prison was destroyed in 1789 so it is nice to finally have an idea of what it looked like from all sides (up to now I had only seen paintings).