[3] The building, an historic monument from the 16th century, contains furnished rooms from different periods of Paris history, historic objects, and a very large collection of paintings of Paris life; it features works by artists including Joos Van Cleve, Frans Pourbus the Younger, Jacques-Louis David, Hippolyte Lecomte, François Gérard, Louis-Léopold Boilly, and Étienne Aubry, to Tsuguharu Foujita, Louis Béroud, Jean Béraud, Carolus Duran, Jean-Louis Forain, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Johan Barthold Jongkind, Henri Gervex, Alfred Stevens, Paul Signac, and Simon-Auguste.

[4] The land on which the museum stands was purchased in 1544 by Jacques de Ligneris, the president of the Parlement of Paris, who commissioned the architects Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon to build a townhouse.

[5] The mansion was bought in 1654 by the intendant Claude Boislève, who commissioned the architect François Mansart to make extensive renovations in the new classical style.

[5] The new buyer rented the hotel in 1677 to Madame de Sévigné, famous for her letters describing the daily life and intrigues of the Parisian nobility.

[6] The idea of creating a museum of Paris history was launched by Baron Haussmann, who, under Napoleon III, was in the midst of his grand project of building new avenues, parks and squares in the center of the city.

In 1866 he persuaded the city of Paris to purchase the Hotel Carnavalet to house the museum, and assembled a large collection of history objects and documents.

In May 1871, in the last days of the Paris Commune, the Communards set fire to the Hotel de Ville, destroying the building, the city archives, and the collection.

[11] On its lowest level (Rooms S1-S6) the museum displays an extensive collection of art and practical objects recovered from neolithic sites and from the ancient Gallo-Roman of Lutetia.

Other items on display from this period include earthenware cooking pots, early ceramics, wooden tools, necklaces of otter teeth, and carved female figures.

One especially important discovery by Vacquer was the fresco on the wall of the house of a wealthy Roman, with colors still largely vivid, discovered under the current rue de l'Abbaye-de-l'Épée.

[19] The Medieval and Renaissance section (Lower Level, Salles S-7 to S-9) presents displays and objects from the 5th to 16th century, beginning in 451 AD, when Saint Genevieve inspired the resistance of the city against Attila and Huns.

Her tomb, placed in the new Basilica of the Holy Apostles on what is now Mount Sainte-Genevieve, This church became the beginning point of an annual procession to the Île de la Cité.

[20] During the restoration of the cathedral, carried out by Eugene Viollet-Le-Duc and Jean-Baptiste Antoine Lapsus between 1844 and 1864, important objects from the medieval city were discovered and made their way to the museum.

[20] The section displays a collection of sculptural elements, including busts of Saints and apostles, that formerly belonged to the Church of the Saints-Innocents, which was demolished as the neighbourhood expanded.

[20] The gallery also displays a group of six stained glass windows, originally in the chapel of the College of Dormans-Beauvais, built in 1375 by the architect Raymond du Temple.

[22] Objects in the galleries include: The end of the 16th century saw Paris divided during the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598), then rebuilt by a series of strong monarchs.

The Pont Neuf was constructed over the Île de la Cité, adding a major link between the two banks of the Seine[25] In his urban planning, Louis XIV promised to "Do for Paris what Augustus did for Rome."

The Carnavalet Museum has many examples of the work of its students; furniture designed by cabinet-maker Andre-Charles Boulle, noted for its inlays of previous woods and metals, is found in this section.

It was designed by the architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, who planned the elaborate neoclassical woodwork made by Joseph Métivier and Jean-Baptiste Boiston.

Each of the four doors has a sculpted decoration of an animal representing a continent; an alligator for America, a camel for Africa, an elephant for Asia and a horse for Europe.

[32] Public discontent and hunger, and a royal government in Versailles judged out of touch with the hardships of the Parisians, led to the storming of the Bastille in July 1789 and the downfall of the monarchy.

Louis XVI and his family were brought to Paris and imprisoned in the Tuileries Palace, then in the medieval tower on the Square du Temple.

Personal souvenirs of Napoleon displayed in the museum include the case of dishes and silverware which he took with him on his military campaigns, and his death mask.

[39] Following the final downfall and exile of Napoleon in 1815, the restored French king, Charles X faced the political turbulence of the Parisians.

He named Georges Eugene Haussmann, as his prefect of the Seine, and began construction of a new network of tree-lined boulevards and avenues linking new public squares and monuments.

In addition, he built new theatres and concert halls, including the Paris Opera, adding to the city's reputation as a cultural capital.

In the final days of the Commune, its soldiers set fires and destroyed many Paris landmarks, including the Hotel de Ville and the Tuileries Palace.

An important collection of paintings by major illustrators of Paris life in the period, including Henri Gervex, Carlolus-Duran, Louise Abbéma and Jean Béraud was donated to the museum in 2001 by François-Gérard Seligmann, and is displayed in the corridor of the first floor.

[51] The exhibits include: Two unusual galleries in the museum display the distinctive signs that hung in front of Paris shops in the 18th and 19th centuries, illustrating the profession or the product of the shopkeeper.

These range from the signs of wigmakers, locksmiths and the makers of eyeglasses, illustrating their products, to the black cat of the "Le Chat Noir" cabaret in Montmartre in 1881, a popular meeting place for artists, and a model of the Bastille for an early 19th century cafe of that name in the 11th arrondissement.