I don’t know whether to count this as a triumphal day when I went to two museums or a loser day when I failed to make it to all parts of a single museum. Both the Le Cabinet d’histoire du Jardin des Plantes and the Grande Galerie de l’Evolution are technically part of the Natural History Museum, but they’re in different buildings in different parts of the Jardin des Plantes, and have separate admission charges. So let’s just say two museums, shall we?
So: the Grande Galerie de l’Evolution shows the diversity of life through lots of stuffed animals (pardon me: taxidermy). I suppose that there is some educational intent – there are lots of smaller cases around the edges of the space which will tell you about things like the process of preparing zoological specimens (neat-o), life forms found near undersea geothermal vents (something I always think that I should be interested in, but can’t really pay attention to), or different types of wool (yawn). But the star attractions are the dramatic parades of animals, arranged by geographical area, marching around in the wide central space. I soon gave up trying to read anything and instead just wandered among the critters, thinking profound thoughts such as:
- Oh, right. Now I remember my phobia of taxidermied fish.
- Baby giraffe!
- Ummm… taxadermied rhinos bear a striking resemblance to taxidermied fish. Great, a new phobia.
- Baby elephant!
Although the animals themselves tend to be a bit scraggly, with some disturbing cracks, the presentation alone is worth a visit. They’re all standing on the floor with you, so you can compare heights (profound thought: giraffes are TALL), and there is nary a sign of the cheesy dioramas favored by most natural history museums. Context is provided by unobtrusive video displays – be sure to watch the video about the life of Siam the elephant and slowly realize that it’s him, stuffed and looming above the three-minute highlight reel of his existence. The signage is in French, but it’s not too problematic to understand – most of the words are similar enough to English (like, did I really need to translate the name of the museum?), and if you’re all gung ho, you can buy a guide in English. The floor plan explains a lot of the conceptual arrangement of the gallery, and is available in English - including the charming and rather risqué admonition not to touch the exhibitions because “the exposed animals are fragile.” I know that I’m always in a fragile state when I expose myself...
