Letters, manuscripts, scores...

There is a rather discrete Paris museum (one of 140), more or less hidden behind this entrance (222, boulevard Saint-Germain), the Museum of Letters and Manuscripts.

Hundreds of original documents are visible, others hidden, but multimedia points all over the place allow further access and explanations. As photos without flash were allowed, I took a few. (Not always easy - glass covered documents, reflections...)

The top picture is part of Einstein’s calculations of relativity (… or the God’s equation?)

There are of course some French Royal documents, including these ones by François I and Catherine de Medici.

There is some kind of “testament” that Louis XVI wrote the day before he tried the escape which was stopped at Varennes and a letter by Marie Antoinette where she defends herself from the “Affair of the Necklace”.

… and a letter by Doctor Guillotin, the man indirectly responsible for their beheading….

… a letter from the future Napoleon, addressed to Josephine, with a  lot of erasures, signed by his initials, Napoleon Bonaparte.

You find a number of documents by more recent statesmen, e.g. Georges Clemenceau…

… Charles de Gaulle.

Some “souvenirs” from WWII, like letters written and sent from Auschwitz, a decoding (Enigma) machine, a telegram signed Rommel…

.. a letter by Churchill, and the by Eisenhower signed telegram that “The mission of the Allied Force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7^th, 1945.”

Two Italian letters: One by Casanova, one by Vasari, Renaissance painter, but better known as maybe the world’s first art historian and critic.

You will of course find a lot of scientific documents. Here are two volumes (of the total of 17) of the those days’ controversial “Encyclopedia”, which was published by Diderot and D’Alembert between 1751 and 1772, part of the “Enlightenment”, which led to… a lot.

Here are some documents where we can see how Newton made his divisions, how Montgolfier planned his balloon, how Linnaeus (Linné) classified flowers…

… some drawings by Edison…

… and again some Einstein documents.

Do we classify Freud among the scientists?

Of course authors are very present, here some samples by Molière, Racine, La Fontaine…

… Chateaubriand, de Maupassant…

… Victor Hugo…

… Verlaine, Proust, Saint-Exupéry… 

 … a Hemingway manuscript, letters by Jack London and Mark Twain (his real name was Samuel Langhorn Clemens).

There was a temporary exhibition on Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" and the original manuscript scroll could be seen. 

  

Of course one finds also documents linked to art - letters by Rubens, van Gogh…

… Monet, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rodin…

… and a letter by Frida Kahlo – with some kisses - where she aks for a delay of a Diego Rivera exhibition.

Among composers, we can find letters and scores by Bach, Mozart…

… Beethoven (definitely in need of deciphering), Schubert…

… Verdi, Liszt.

There is the storyboard by Hitchcock for the film “Stage Fright”.

Several documents referred to “Titanic” including a telegram from the White Star Line to a US senator, where they – immediately after the accident – assured that all passengers were safe...  with the possible idea of a last minute change of the insurance value.

... and there is a lot more! :-)