The thrill of la chasse

At the revamped Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris, it is still accepted that hunting and Nature can be mutually beneficial

- John Lewis-Stempel

IT seems an absurdist irony that the most alluring of museums for the Nature lover is situated in the most urban of all places. The Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature has inhabited the 17th-century Hôtel de Guénégaud in the rue des Archives, Paris, since 1967 and, from 2007, incorporated the next door—and equally elegant— townhouse, Hôtel de Mongelas. Yet we must remember that Paris is the city of the intellect and that the musée, now re-opening after a two-year, €1 million makeover, has long possessed aspirations beyond its congenital celebration of hunting and the natural world.

The museum—which, in a very French republican fudge, is private, but open to the public—was founded by the Ardennes textile industrialist and environmentalist François Sommer, and his wife, Jacqueline; the guest of honour at the opening was André Malraux, then minister of cultural affairs, but known as the author of La Condition Humaine.