French Museums

I like going to museums abroad, first, because I like going to museums in general, but secondly, because it's always interesting to see how different cultures treat the same subject matter. For example, take natural history museums: in the U.S., natural history museums are designed around the idea of telling a story: this is what this area looked like 50 million years ago, this is what it looked like 50,000 years ago, this is what it looked like during the Ice Age; here's a sabre-toothed tiger eating a mastodon, etc.

French natural history museums, at least the couple I've seen, seem to be designed around the idea: here are a bunch of dead things in boxes.

For example, have you ever wondered what a pangolin looked like?

Want to see some stuffed domestic dogs?

Or four-legged birds? (part of the 'montrous animals' collection)

Or just browse the Hall of Dead Birds?

This museum was BIG, and had just about any animal you can think of, stuffed and mounted.

Another museum I went to was the Flaubert Museum, created from Flaubert's childhood home. In addition to being a museum of his writings (see the dead parrot he wrote about in 'A Simple Heart'!), and a collection of the curiosities he had purchased (see a stuffed alligator!), it was (and this was actually fascinating), a museum of 19th century medical practices.  For example, here was a mannequin used by doctors to practice for aiding in childbirth.

An instruction manual for doctors:

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