Paris, Oct. 21st 1997

A new exhibition opened recently in Paris, in the Science Museum of the
Palais de la Decouverte (Av. Franklin Roosevelt, near Les Champs
Elysees), entitled : "La mecanique au temps des automates" (Mechanics in
the days of the Automatons).

It is actually an exhibition of various objects from the collections of
the Musee des Arts et Metiers in Paris (National Technical Museum), which
is closed for renovation until at least 1999.  The exhibition shows, too,
how some parts of the museum will be presented when it reopens.

Two rooms present various tools and machinery from the 18th and 19th
century (incl. a beautiful lathe by Vaucanson), and a specially built
theater shows about 20 amidst the best automatas of the museum : from the
18th century, a wonderful suspended bird-cage with clock, a large organ
clock by Roentgen and Kintzing, the famous automaton "La Joueuse de
Tympanon", by Kintzing, etc.

A short movie shows some of these automatas, but real demonstrations are
made every Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoons.

The exhibition will last until Feb 8th, 1998, and is open Tue through
Sat, 9h30 AM - 6 PM, and Sunday 10 AM - 7 PM.  Closed on Mondays.  A
charge is made at the entrance.  Phone number : +33 (0)1 40 74 81 82

You may read a text in English, by one of the curators, presenting that
exhibition on the web site of the Museum, at :

    http://www.cnam.fr/museum/a/revue/resume/r20/r20a03.html

For Robbie and Jody, and for some other nice people who sent me messages
I did not answer quickly : sorry for not having contributed more to the
MMD these last 3 months, but I was often away from Paris (and from a
computer) either for work, or for sailing or walking in the Alps, or
for any other good reason !  That is also why some improvements and
updates in my Web site, Musica Mecanica, have been delayed; please excuse
me for that.

Best regards from Paris,

Philippe Rouille  (Paris, France)
http://www.cnam.fr/museum/musica_mecanica/