Carnavalet Museum

This guide to the Carnavalet Museum in Paris follows Madame de Sévigné, who moved into the Hôtel Carnavalet in 1677 and spent her last nineteen years there writing thousands of letters to her daughter about Versailles gossip, plague fears and executions nearby. It then jumps two centuries ahead to a very different resident: Marcel Proust's cork-lined bedroom, moved here piece by piece from his old apartment. Look for the rooms where her words still feel close to the streets outside.