Journées du Patrimoine--National Archives

This weekend was Journées du Patrimoine, a kind of Heritage Weekend open house.  Buildings that are usually closed to the public are opened up for tours.  Many of the sights also have special activities for kids.  Pierre researched and decided we should start at the National Archives because it was one of the places with kids' activities.

 

 

You can see the tables for the kids' activities tucked into the gallery.

 

Don't forget that these are the French National Archives and playing or walking on the grass is forbidden.

 

 

The activities were excellent.  They had put the archives' experts to work at the kids' tables.  Lillian is practicing her script so that she can write a secret Latin message.  This message was, of course, sealed.

 Lillian has some nice new glasses.  After our trip to Wisconsin, her old glasses were in bad shape.  They had fallen into the lake at least once and had spent some time in Bo the dog's mouth. 

 Sylvia made a plaster seal with the archives' seal restorer.

 

 The girls played a French history game.  They were the game pieces and walked through the game while rolling an enormous foam die.  Lillian won her round and I learned a thing or two.

 For winning the history game, Lillian won a poster of  the Declaration des droits de l'homme

It is now hanging on the wall in her room.

We signed up for the tour of the archives.  Before we even entered the building it became apparent that it was not a family activity and children were not welcome.  Pierre shoved the tickets into my hands and ran back to the game area with the girls.

Pictures are forbidden.

The man who gave the tour was obviously an expert on the history of the archive buildings.  He knew lots of dates.  He did not talk a lot about what is actually in the archives building.  Besides the state records, there are some pretty amazing historical artifacts under glass.

For instance, the tour guide did not have much to say about this.

This is Marie Antoinette's last letter.  She was told she would be executed and began writing a letter to her sister-in-law asking her to take her children.  I was surprised that the French was very modern and the writing was easy to read.  It is a heartbreaking letter.  She did not finish it and it fell into the hands of Robespierre.

 

By the time the tour was over we were all starving.
We ordered some crepes to go and the girls waited in front of these pretty blue doors.

We sat near the Centre Pompidou and had a picnic. 

Lillian kept saying, "We should have more days like this!"

 

 In other news, this tricky one and her older sister managed to avoid fish Friday in the lunchroom by staying on the playground for two hours.  Clever.  Their mother was not pleased.  It was fish Monday today.  If you check out the following link, you can see why they may be having a hard time September lunch menu and dinner suggestions  The menu has helpful dinner suggestions, too.  It makes me laugh.