Learned Societies. Newspapers. Museums.
Learned Societies. – Among the learned societies of Paris the first in importance is the Institut de France, which has already been described (see INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, vol. xiii. p. 160). The committee of learned societies at the ministry of public instruction forms, as it were, the center of the various societies not maintained by the Government; and the French Association for the Advancement of the Sciences, founded in 1872, is based on the model of the older British society, and like it meets every year in a different town. The other societies may be classified as follows: - 1. Historical or Geographical – History of France, Antiquaries of France (till 1814 known as Celtic Academy), Historic studies, Numismatics and Archeology, Bibliophiles, School of Charters, Ethnography, Geography (1821, and thus the oldest of its class), Asiatic (1822), French Alpine Club (Club Alpin); 2. Natural and Medical Sciences – Anthropology, Zoological Acclimatization (which has the direction of the zoological gardens in the Bois de Boulogne), Entomological, Geological, Surgery, Anatomy, Biology, Medical of the Hospitals, Legal, medicine or Medical Jurisprudence, Practical medicine, Pharmacy, Agriculture, Horticulture; 3. Industrial and Moral Sciences – Encourage ment of national Industry, Statistics, Elementary, Instruction, Franklin 9for the foundation of popular libraries); 4. Positive Sciences and Fine Arts – Philomathic, Physical, Philotechnic, Athnenaeum of the Arts, Sciences, and Literature (1792), Concerts of the Conservatoire de Musique (1795).
Newspapers. – Paris is very largely supplied with newspapers of all descriptions. See NEWSPAPERS, vol. xvii. pp. 423-8.
Museums. – The richest museum in Paris occupies the Louvre, the finest of its palaces. On the ground floor are museums (1) of ancient sculpture, containing such treasures as the Venus of Milo, the Pallas of Velletri (the most beautiful of all statues of Minerva), the colossa group of the Tiber, discovered at Rome in the 14th century, &c.; (2) of mediaeval and renaissance sculpture, comprising works by Michelangelo, Jean Goujon, Germain Pilon, John of Bologna, &c., and special rooms devoted to early Christian monuments and to Jewish antiquities (this last a feature peculiar to the Louvre); (3) of modern French sculpture, with works by Puget, Couston, Coysevox, Chauder, Houdon, Rude, David of Angers, &c.; (4) of Egyptian scupture and inscriptions; (5) of Assyrian antiquities; (6) of Greek and Phoenician antiquities; (7) of engraving. On the first floor ae (1) the Lacaze museum, a magnificent collection of pictures presented to the state by M. Lacaze in 1869; (2) the splendid musee de peinture; (3) the Campara museum; (4) a museum of Greek antiquities; (5) a museum of Egyptian antiquities; (6) an Oriental museum (Persian pottery, Chinese vases, lacquered work, &c.); (7) the Lenoir museum (snuff-boxes, jewels, miniatures, lacquered wares, bequeathed to the Louvre by M. and Madame Lenoir in 1874); (8) the Duchatel room, bequeathed by the widow of the minister of that name (La Source, a masterpiece by Ingres); (9) the Timbal, His de la Salle, and Davilliers collections, consisting respectively of furniture drawing and curiosities, drawings, and pottery, furniture, and tapestry; (1) a mediaeval and renaissance museum, comprising French, Italian, or Hispano-Moorish pottery and terra cotta were, as well as objects in bronze, glass, and ivory- the Sauvageot collection being of note; (11) the museum of drawings and chalks, of which the more valuable are preserved in drawers; (12) a museum of ancient bronzes; (13) the Apollo gallery, adorned by the leading artists who have been employed on the palace, and containing the royal gems and jewels, articles of goldsmith’s work, and enamels. The second floor accommodates the naval museum, the ethnographic museum (African, Chinese, Mexican), part of the French school of painting, and rooms for the study of Egyptian papyrus-rolls.
The museum of the Luxembourg, installed in a portion of the palace occupied by the senate, is devoted to works of living painters and sculptors acquired by the state. They remain there for ten years after the death of the respective artists, that the finest may be selected for the Louvre.
The Cluny museum occupies the old mansion of the abbots of that order, built in the 15th century by Jacques d’Amboise. It was founded by M. du Sommerard, whose collections were acquired by the state in 1843. Increased from year to year since that date, it now contains about 10,000 articles – pieces of sculpture in marble and stone, carvings in wood, ivories, enamels, terra cottas, bronzes, furniture, pictures, stained glass, pottery, tapestry, glass ware, lock-smith work, and jewelry of mediaeval and Renaissance times. In the neighborhood are the remains of the ancient palace of the emperor Julian; in the midst of the ruins, and in the garden which surrounds them has been collected a Gallo-Roman museum, to which have been added many fragments of mediaeval sculpture or masonry, found in the city or its vicinity. The Carnavate museum occupies the mansion in which Madame de Sevigne resided; it is a municipal museum, in which are brought together all objects of interest for the history of Paris. The artillery museum, in the Hotel des Invalides, comprises ancient armor, military weapons, flags, and an ethnographic collection reproducing the principal types of Oceania, America, and the coasts of Africa and Asia. The permanent exhibition of the products of Algeria and the colonies is in the Palais de l’Industrie; and finally the Trocadero palace contains a museum of comparative sculpture and ethnographic galleries for exhibiting curiosities brought home from distant countries by the principal French official travellers.
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