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 7th, 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! :-)
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