square Théodore-Monod

The square you are entering carries the name of one of France's most singular twentieth-century figures, the naturalist and explorer Théodore Monod. Before it was renamed in his honor in twenty eleven, the space was known as Square Scipion. Monod spent his long life deeply connected to the nearby Museum of Natural History, conducting research that ranged from the study of deep-sea crustaceans to sixty years of expeditions across the Sahara desert. He was a man of intense contradictions, serving as a respected scientist while maintaining a lifelong identity as a Christian anarchist who participated in pacifist and environmentalist protests well into his nineties.