La chasse et La Commune

It is a bit odd to put these two together, but we did on Wednesday. First, a visit to the Musee de la Chasse et La Nature, and then down to the Hotel de Ville and an exhibition of etchings, photographs, broadsides, and handwritten descriptions of the Paris Commune of 1871.

La Musee de la Chasse

The Musee de la Chasse inhabits an old hotel particuliere in the Marais. It is beautifully and richly restored, and full of the most amazing and amusing stuff. It was described (not by us) as a, "stuffed cornucopia of taxidermy, fine art and antique firearms. Here, the eternal struggle of man versus beast is displayed in a manner so sophisticated and eclectic even die-hard PETA members might cop to admiration." I'm not sure about the PETA members, but we thought it was terrific, even as we acknowledged a frisson of uneasiness at the obvious upper-classness of it all. 

Each room had a name such as the "wild boar room" or the "bird room" or even the "unicorn room." In each was a collection of objects that in some way represented that theme...and hunting. Some objects were old, some new, and always something unexpected. Someone has a sense of humor or taste for the absurd: a whole display on rabbits that included a video, morphological info, and an old toy rabbit.  The raptor room was small, but the ceiling was covered with owl heads and feathers in a vaguely arts and crafts pattern. Imagine a whole area on bird whistles, each identified as the bird they imitate and made of glass or wood. The glass ones looked like laboratory experiments gone wild.

I even enjoyed the gun rooms. Rows and rows of antique hunting rifles. Crossbows from the middle ages and identified with a moving cartoon of the name of the weapon that morphed into a drawing of a shooting crossbow.

And, of course, the stuffed animals in every room. Gorillas, leopards, a polar bear, and on and on. Even a fox nestled in one of the gorgeous old needlepoint chairs.

La Commune

Of a vastly different note, is the display at the Hotel de Ville on this the 140th anniversary of the Paris Commune. I admit I only knew of the Commune as the cause for which all those young men died in Les Miz. Turns out it's a particularly scandalous part of French history and to this day a cause celebre for many Frenchmen and any Socialist or Leftist.

In 1870 Napoleon III led France into a disastrous war with Germany that ended with Paris in ruins, a humiliating defeat, and the end of Napoleon III. In the wake of this misery, a group of Paris intellectuals led working class Parisians in a revolt that set up a socialist government in opposition to the "republication" government that had decamped to Versailles. It lasted about two months. The Versailles troops retook Paris from the Communards at the barricades. The Versailles government then proceeded to murder somewhere between 10,000 and 50,000 Parisians. Most of the executions were peremptory, and without trial. Many were deported to New Caledonia. It was a vastly naive and romantic revolt with an appalling end.

Manet painted a picture of just one of the dead Communards. It's at the Orsay.