Morning:
Musée des Arts décoratifs (Fashion and Textiles section), 107 Rue de Rivoli
Guided tour of the exhibition ‘Christian Dior, couturier of dreams’.
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs is celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the House of Dior with a major retrospective showcasing over 400 dresses by the great couturier, as well as numerous documents and works of art that influenced his work (E. Vigée Le Brun, Winterhalter, Monet, Brassaï).

Afternoon:
‘Vimy – Notre-Dame-de-Lorette’ tour by coach with a guide.
Canadian National Memorial erected on the site of the Battle of Vimy Ridge (9–12 April 1917).
Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, France’s largest national necropolis: nearly 45,000 soldiers are laid to rest in the cemetery and the seven ossuaries.
An impressive international memorial, the Ring of Remembrance, was unveiled on 11 November 2014.

After several years of closure, the reopening of Blérancourt Castle has some surprises in store for us. It will be an opportunity to see or discover its monumental gateway and the delicately decorated corner pavilions of the terrace, remnants of the 17th-century castle: a former aristocratic summer residence, designed by the French architect Salomon de Brosse.
Then, some new features await us: the restoration includes the reopening of the Anne Morgan Salon, fitted out in 1924, named after the director of the American humanitarian organisation during the Great War in the Aisne. And furthermore, the very recent discoveries of significant archaeological remains of the curtain walls (13th century), the fortified house (14th century), and the four-arched bridge (16th century).
Finally, a visit to the Franco-American Museum and the new, modern collection and exhibition spaces.

Afternoon:
Guided tour of the castle-museum. The former count’s castle and its Gothic halls offer an excellent example of 13th-century civil and military architecture. It houses the Boulogne Museum: the section dedicated to Egypt and the magnificent Greek vases will be of particular interest to us, but the museum also displays objects (Alaskan masks in particular) from non-European civilisations, and a very rich collection of Flemish, Italian and French paintings and sculptures dating from the 15th to the 19th century.

Morning:
Exploring the Canal Saint-Martin with the Récollets lock and the various footbridges, the Arsenal marina, then, on the Seine, passing by Île Saint-Louis, Île de la Cité, the Louvre, and the Musée d’Orsay.

Complementing the ‘Italian hours’ devoted to painting, offered this year in museums across our region, the exhibition presents a collection of drawings and prints assembled by Antoine Vivenel, most of which have never been seen before, illustrating the richness of Italian painters’ styles and the variety of drawing techniques.

Guided tour of the Alexandre Dumas Museum, which houses the memorabilia of the ‘three Dumas’:
General Dumas, the Revolutionary officer born in Saint-Domingue; his son Alexandre, born in Villers-Cotterêts, a prolific author – among other works – of *The Three Musketeers*; and his grandson Alexandre, author of *The Lady of the Camellias*.

Guided tour of the Pavillon Henri II, an outbuilding of the former castle of François I.
Its interior decoration is exceptionally rich: panelling, coffered ceilings, sculptures, murals and ornamental motifs in gold leaf... Built in the 16th century, possibly by Philibert Delorme, it was extended and renovated in the mid-18th century by the Duke of Orléans.

On Wednesday 18 January at 2 pm, a presentation of the new rooms in Champlieu was arranged for us at the Vivenel Museum.