To spot the Natural History Museum, look for a stately ochre building with grand windows framed by ornate stonework and a flight of stone steps leading to double doors.
Right now, you’re standing in front of a place bursting with stories almost as wild as some of its creatures. Imagine it’s 1838: the world is on the edge of scientific adventure, and a geologist named Henri Coquand is teaming up with an extraordinary group of Aix locals-including a very determined widow, Madeleine Carle. After her pharmacist husband passed away, Madeleine convinced the city to buy his bizarre collection of exotic birds and curiosities. Suddenly, what had been a trove of oddities in her living room was about to become the very heart of the first cabinet of natural history here in Aix-en-Provence.
It all started in two rooms at the city hall, filled with bones, feathers, minerals, and the bubbling excitement of discovery. Picture the scientific hustle and bustle-early curators like Coquand and his successor Léon Martin passing through the musty halls with arms full of fossils, new donations arriving from local dignitaries, and, of course, the first visitors pressing in to see wonders from near and far. The opening was even announced by the local newspaper-fitting for a museum that would soon become the pride of the town.
But the glory days didn’t last forever. As the years rolled on, the treasures lost their shine, dust gathered, and visitors trickled away. It looked like the museum might become just another curiosity. That is, until 1892, when Louise Rostan d’Abancourt-whose energy could have powered half of Provence-offered the city a colossal collection of minerals, shells, fossils, and prehistoric objects. Her donation, and another from her friend Dr. Philippe Aude, revived the museum. Suddenly, the little collection had outgrown its home, moving to a bigger room called the “Louise Rostan d’Abancourt Hall,” but even that soon filled to the rafters.
Louise was relentless, fighting for a real building until her last breath-only it wasn’t finished before she died in 1903. Imagine the excitement in 1905 when at last the new museum on boulevard du Roi-René opened its doors. Five thousand people poured in that very day alone! The halls rang with children’s laughter, excited footsteps, and the wide-eyed awe of seeing dinosaur eggs for the first time.
Through the decades, the museum survived wars, fires, army occupations, and collections being hidden away for safety. Once, in 1944, flames threatened its very existence-some collections were lost forever, but enough remained to let the story continue. In the wild 1950s, the discovery of actual dinosaur eggs near Sainte-Victoire mountain made the museum famous across France.
The riches inside would leave any explorer green with envy: over 70,000 fossils-including dinosaurs like titanosaurs and rhabdodons, ancient crocodiles, and tortoises; a paléobotany collection to make any botanist swoon; and a treasure trove of North African archaeological relics. Some of these items are so rare they’d make Indiana Jones raise an eyebrow!
There’s a dizzying number of zoological specimens as well-over 500 mammals, almost 2,000 birds, and nearly 90,000 mollusks. The museum even boasts an herbarium with 300,000 plants and some very curious items from the world of ethnology, from Pacific island dioramas to West African masks that somehow escaped decades of turmoil and disappearance.
Today, though the museum itself is closed to the public and the collections are scattered in various spots, its spirit endures-quiet but alive, just waiting for the next visitor to marvel at its wonders after so many years. Let’s hope the future brings a new home, and maybe, just maybe, a few fewer dinosaur eggs to trip over.
