Carnavalet Museum

We had “formule petit déjeuner” at a café near the hotel before heading to the Louvre by metro. As we drew into each station there was spooky Halloween music played along with the station announcement which I enjoyed! We had bought our Louvre tickets in advance so were able to walk straight in, but I was disappointed that the “Écoles du Nord” section, which includes Northern Renaissance art, was closed off. I asked why and it’s due to staff shortages. However it was not advertised as closed on their website, so I’m going to send a stiff email of complaint. We looked around the French medieval and 16th and 17th century artists, however when I decided that it was time for a nice coffee at Angelina’s, we found that it is closed for refurbishment. Oh dear oh dear! It was time to cut our losses and we walked a couple of kilometres to the Marais, where we went to the Carnavalet Museum on the Rue de Sevigny. When we were on our revolutionary walking tour in June, our guide had pointed out (through a window) the statue of Louis XIV in full Roman regalia which is in the courtyard of the museum, but we couldn’t go in because it was closed that day. So this was a good opportunity to take a closer look at Louis, and to have a look round the rest of the museum which is about the history of Paris. It was really interesting, set in a couple of the many “hôtels” of the district, which were the mansions of the well-off inhabitants of the area. One of these was Madame de Sevigny, who held literary salons there in the 17th century. There were many rooms from other “hôtels” carefully reconstructed in the museum to preserve them. There were also a lot of paintings and maps of Paris as it evolved and expanded through the centuries, which James particularly enjoyed. On the top floor was a section on the French Revolution, which I have been learning about this year, so that was worth a look. And there’s more to see, but we both felt that we had seen enough for one day. 
It was very pleasant to revisit the Place des Vosges, now very autumnal compared to the hot day when we visited it in June. Later we had a lovely dinner near the hotel.