ABSTRACT The notion of a history of life has been the subject of extensive debates in France, from the turn of the nineteenth century to the dawn of the twentieth century and beyond. In this paper, I analyze how the organization of buildings and collections within the Paris National Museum of Natural History (MNHN), and their successive transformations up to the present, have reflected concepts and controversies over this history. After a brief overview of the constitution of the Museum, this chapter studies the organization of the Museum’s paleontological, zoological, and comparative anatomy collections, and the devices through which scientific ideas and debates about evolution have been displayed and presented to the public. This paper will focus more particularly on the settings of three major collections of zoological specimens: (1) Georges Cuvier’s “Museum of Comparative Anatomy,” which was opened to the public in 1806; (2) the Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy Gallery, which was founded by Albert Gaudry in 1898; and (3) the Great Gallery of Evolution, which was inaugurated in 1994. I will argue that organizing these exhibits involved theoretical choices, taxonomic methods, scientific practices and rhetoric of displays, as well as ideological choices that connected natural history to its intellectual and sociopolitical background. Through the examination of these different settings over a period of more than two centuries and their present use, I will question today’s choices of the Paris Museum regarding the meaning and roles of these galleries, involving patrimonial conservation, public entertainment, and diffusion of scientific knowledge in the public.

Abstract Most buildings of architectural heritage in Paris and its surroundings are built with Lutetian limestone. Several historic buildings of the ‘Vexin Normand’ region show Lutetian limestone in the upper parts of their walls, while the lower parts are built with a chalk known as ‘Pierre de Vernon’. The ‘Pierre de Vernon’ appears up to the first metre, although in exceptional cases it can reach the middle height of a building. Commonly, chalks exhibit low durability due to their high porosity. However, ‘Pierre de Vernon’ is supposed to have greater durability than other chalks because of its historic use for basement construction. The objective of this research was to understand the use of the ‘Pierre de Vernon’ in the lower part of the constructions. A petrophysical characterization of Vernon chalk and Lutetian limestone was carried out, focusing mainly on the differences in porosity and water uptake. Salt crystallization tests were done to contrast their response to decay. Colour and roughness measurements and scanning electron microscope observations were performed. Results show that the different porous networks of these two limestones lead to a high contrast in their hydric properties and responses to decay, and the use of Vernon chalk in the lower sections of buildings has been found to be appropriate.