I was led to suspect that the city’s funds might be limited by need for restoration and maintenance in this free museum after we blundered into some rooms in the second building (the former Hotel LePeletier de St. Fargeau) that showed ongoing renovation with wallpaper half-stripped and worker’s equipment on the floor.The museum itself is not newly founded but it did consist of only the mansion of the Hotel de Carnavalet for most of its life, since Baron Haussmann suggested such a repository be established in the 1880s. Its most famous former resident was Madame de Sevigne whose letters to her daughter are a major source of data about 17th-century court life.

The Hotel Carnavalet underwent extensive renovation in the late 1980s, so perhaps the St. Fargeau is now enjoying its restorative turn. The latter is a late Victorian edifice joined to the Carnavalet by a gallery on the first floor.Entry is on the ground floor of the Carnavalet on which the Grand Salon de l’Hotel d’ Uzes exhibits the splendor that was pre-revolutionary aristocratic excess. This room, designed by Claude- Nicholas Ledoux in 1767, illustrates what disgruntled Parisians rebelled against those living with ornate, over-the-top gold, crystal, and opulent "stuff." Two of Madame de Sevigne’s rooms have been recreated and have a couple of her portraits.

When you leave the Carnavalet side for the St. Fargeau, the exhibits represent Parisian life after 1789. The rooms depicting French Revolutionary times are full of its symbols on numerous artifacts including furniture and plates. Highlights include Napoleon Bonaparte’s 110 piece picnic case and, on a somber note, his death mask. The interior of a famous jeweler Fouquet and Proust’s cork-lined room that enabled him to write in silence are exhibits here,along with a multitude of photos and paintings that capture essential elements in the Paris scene throughout the 19th century that saw the rise of the bourgeoisie,the defeat of the Prussian War, and the stirrings of accelerated modern urban life.

After viewing this massive encapsulation of the ups and downs of Paris Past, if able, stroll southeast to the perfect square, the lovely Place des Vosges, where you can see more history, Hugo Museum, and French beauty at its finest.

So we went to see Musee Carnavalet instead. This is a museum of the history of the city of Paris, and it has several rooms on the first floor with gold vignettes on the walls and crystal chandeliers – these are rooms from Hotel d’Uzes (1768). Upstairs are Salon Louis XV, salon Bouvier, and souvenirs de Marie-Antoinette. On the first floor there is an exit to a large French-style garden with bushes beautifully trimmed into swirls and hanging gardens all along the walls of the inner courtyard. The rooms upstairs have furniture, paintings, and models from the 18th century, but in the evening, the most beautiful thing are the gardens, with gorgeous patterns that you can see from an open window and ivy covering the walls of the building, making it look magical in the light of the projectors.

Next we were off to Place des Vosges, where, in the middle behind the tall fence, there was a show with tigers and men in Renaissance clothes on the horses. You’ve never seen so many people in one place in Paris. Kids were on their dad’s shoulders and having a blast. The best seat in the house had the windows facing the Place.