Carnavalet Museum

The Carnavalet Museum occupies two adjacent stone mansions, the Hotel Carnavalet and the Hotel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau, marked by a seventeenth-century triumphal arch on the street. This institution holds the history of Paris, from prehistoric settlements to the twentieth century. In eighteen seventy-one, city officials bought the decaying Carnavalet mansion to prevent its demolition during a period of urban upheaval. They filled the rooms with relics rescued from buildings destroyed during the construction of Baron Haussmann’s wide, modern boulevards.