Marine Museum

Paris has a museum devoted to the sea & its Navy. The glory days of the French Navy were over centuries ago & never matched the British with any consistency. But such details never stop the French from memorializing it.

And what's any historically based museum worth its salt without LGF?

















LGF made his own personal contribution by commissioning a personal barge. What with all his military campaigns & barges not being built overnight & his eventually being overthrown (twice), he never got to use it.

However, his nephew Naploeon III did. This history LGF to N3 is pretty convoluted. You'll have to seach it out for yourself.








Good King Henry IV is here. He built Place des Vosges, remember? He's one of my favorites.


























The museum is filled with scale models of these 17th & 18th century frigates, loaded really loaded with cannons. This one has three rows on both sides.















Here's close-up, a bit blurry (no tripod, sorry). Think of it...all these cannons, each manned by at least a 3-man crew. Piles of cannon balls & powder nearby. All this weighs tons & tons. And...the ship is completely dependent on the wind. This activity does not sound like fun.










Virtually all the models are shown with no sails. Here's one with full sail, gives you a better picture of what a complicated affair these old frigates are.

Those small sheets are ceremonial, not laundry.














Here is Poseidon's wife, a sea-goddess. Somehow she plays a role here. I posted this photo to son Jeff's Facebook page. We'll see how FB reacts.




















Here is a portrait of Le Compte de Toulouse, legitimate son (the description took pains to point that out) of Louis XIV at age 12.

He was portrayed at the precise moment that he was saying: "Daddy, could I have one of these for my Bar Mitzvah?"












There was a display of lighthouses & light house technology, the transition from bon fires to rotating lamps with fresnel lenses.






















Queen Victoria visited France in 1858.
Apparently it was a big deal. Again CNN was occupied elsewhere so we're dependent on an artist's rendering.

The huge frigate in the left is French. Has to be big, this is a French paining. The smaller frigate on the right is British, but as a visitor it is also flying the French tri-color. The cannons are firing a salute.


There's a tiny boat about a quarter up just to the right of center that carries the Queen. Detail in the next photo.

The Queen (in white) in her barge. That's Prince Albert beside her. Didn't he invent pipe tobacco?













Here's a shot of the museum's workshop, where they make or refurbish all these models.














Here are models of some of France's proud World War II fleet. Proud until November 27, 1942 when most of these extinguished ladies were scuttled in Toulon harbor to avoid them falling into the hands of the Nazis. (Sort of a self inflicted Pearl Harbor) They spent the rest of their days sitting on the harbor bottom until the end of the war, then sold for scrap.

The French military of the last 125 years or so does not have an illustrious history, starting with the Dreyfus Affair.





And here's a gander at models of their current modern fleet. Now why don't a couple of these bad boys mosey across the Mediterranean to Syria to sort out Al-Assad without anyone coming crying to the Americans?











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The Marine Museum is located in the Trocadero buildings, that wonderful vantage point across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, completed in 1889. We had only seen it at night this trip until I took a few shots.




Here it is with all the fountains flowing.
















That total view gives you no appreciation how big this tower really is. Here's a telephoto shot of the base with the cars giving you some scale.

BIG!













Still feeling ambitious, I decided to walk along the Metro line towards the apartment. Metro lines often follow streets even though they're underground.

One of the plusses of walking the neighborhood of a major monument is that it pokes out to greet you in unexpected places. Here are a few shots.

















Another peek.





















It's getting late in the day, the sun went behind a cloud. So most of the day's color is gone. What the heck, let's get rid of it all.



















That's all for this post, folks!