Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits

The Musee des lettres et manuscrits was a private museum on Boulevard Saint-Germain that displayed tens of thousands of handwritten letters, scores and manuscripts from literature, music and history. Collector Gerard Lheritier opened it in 2004 and paired original notes by Napoleon, Marie Curie, Mozart and Proust with vitrines that turned handwriting itself into the exhibit. In 2014 the parent company Aristophil collapsed in a vast investment-fraud scandal, the museum shut soon after and the collection was auctioned by court order. Anyone searching for the address today finds empty rooms and references to ongoing proceedings. The case is remembered in France as the largest collector affair of recent decades and is part of Paris's economic history.