1st Day at the Central Library, National History Museum, Paris

Bibliotheque, Museum d'Histoire Naturelle Paris
22/08/2011

On Sunday, on the way back from the Louvre, I negotiated a NAVIGO card at the RER station near the Cite Universitaire. 5 Euro for the electronic card then 18.85 Euro for a weeks recharge for unlimited travel on bus, metro, tram or train (and I even saw a bicycle being hired with one). Convenient but you have to be travelling a lot to make it worth while. My two trips a day to the Central Library and back @ 1.30 Euro, plus any sightseeing on the weekend, just makes it. The Carnet was a good deal as well, but not quite as "convenient". I have noticed a lot of Parisians just use the Carnet tickets. Much cheaper if you only have a few trips per week.

Today was the first day I got access the Lesueur archived documents and sketches. Both Sarah Thomas and Vivone Thwaites had warned me that I would probably need to go through all the "boxes" to make sure that I did not miss any gems. Today the boxes held sketches from Lesueur's later "Le Havre" stage with dates on the notes for the sketches ranging from 1833 through to 1844, and the locations mentioned were Le Havre and Rouen. Mainly drawings of univalves, bivales and fossils. Definitely working up to a taxonomy text-book of some kind. Notes interleaved with the sketches  were on the taxonomic detail and from an English speaker (as well as Lesueur's french notes).

The painstaking detail in the very small drawings was incredible. Reading the minute writing and the fine detail gave me eye-strain and a head-ache after a relatively short time; actually producing these would have required good eyesight and a strong light.

I noticed a number of strange things as I worked through the archived drawings; given the dates and subject matter Lesueur  was back in France at Le Havre and presumably reasonably well provided for, yet the drawings are on small pieces of paper, sometimes drawn on both sides, and the paper is of varying quality. I originally assumed these were earlier sketches when paper would have been a scarce commodity on board ship but given the dates this was not the case. These may be the preliminary sketches on "scrap" paper with the final worked sketches elsewhere. 

Back to the Central Library tomorrow for more boxes.