Description of the attraction
The Edith Piaf Museum is not an ordinary one. This is not a state or municipal museum, which seems incredible: Edith Piaf was the flesh of Paris and probably deserved to be remembered by Paris. People adored her; when the great singer died, forty thousand people accompanied the funeral procession, blocking traffic, and one hundred thousand gathered in the cemetery. But there is no city museum, but there is a private one, which was founded by Bernard Marchois, a longtime admirer of the singer and the head of the Friends of Piaf association.
Marshua met Edith Piaf in 1958. He was sixteen, and Piaf was forty-three, and she had five years to live. For these five years, Marshua has been around as a devoted fan. After Piaf's death, he bought the apartment on the Rue Crespin du Gast, in which the singer lived in 1933, collected her personal belongings (he kept something, her friends and relatives gave something) and opened a museum in 1977.
The museum occupies two rooms in the apartment in which Marshua lives permanently. You can't just come - you need to call in advance, agree on a certain time and get the code number on the door to the entrance. The visitor goes up to the fourth floor (there is no elevator), he is greeted by Marshua and taken to the museum. There are two possibilities: to hear the owner's explanations (but only in French), or alone to the accompaniment of Edith Piaf's songs, examine the exhibits for thirty minutes.
A life-size image of Piaf cut out of cardboard - 1 m 47 cm, shoes of size 33, a concert dress (black, she performed only in black), a huge toy bear donated by her last husband Theo Lamboucas, boxing gloves of Marcel Serdan - the deceased beloved of the singer, very there are many portraits of her, letters, handbags, cosmetics, jewelry … Here, an intimate and strange atmosphere is rare for museums - it must be because the apartment is residential. You can buy books about Piaf, her notes, postcards, photographs, bookmarks. The museum is free to visit, but donations are welcome at the exit.
Fans of the singer can also visit her grave at the Père Lachaise cemetery and the monument at the Edith Piaf square. The monument by Lisbeth Delisle was unveiled in 2003, on the fortieth anniversary of the death of Piaf, it was erected near the Tenon Hospital, where Edith was born.
