La Salpêtrière - Paris, France

March 2019 - mon voyage to the motherland! Your permission to bore you with some family history, s'il vous plaît. Thibodeaus in North America are descended from French people who, in the early 17th century, departed western regions of France on the Atlantic Ocean. The Acadians, as they were called, established settlements in North America, the most famous of which was Port-Royal in present-day Nova Scotia. Later, Acadians settled areas of present-day Maine, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton Island.

 

 

Pierre Thibodeau (1631 - 1704) was the first Thibodeau to arrive in North America. I'm descended directly from grand-père Pierre. Actually, he had 16 children, so roughly 21% of the current American population descends from him. Nevertheless, check out this astonishing resemblance!   

 

OK, the boring and gratuitous family history est fini. In March 2019, my family and I were lucky to visit Paris. Here's my bride and me at an obscure monument called La Tour Eiffel. I doubt you've heard of it.

Let's get down to business, shall we? On our second-to-last day in Paris, we swung by the famous (infamous?) Salpêtrière. Enjoy!

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INSTITUTION: La Salpêtrière

LOCATION: Paris, France

OPENED: 1656

CLOSED: Still open!

DATE OF VISIT: March 7, 2019

 

 

Before we hopped on the train that took us to the hospital, we saw this poster. One doesn't need to speak French to know that the sponsor of this exhibit does not have a rosy view of psychiatry. Vous êtes d'accord?

La Salpêtrière opened in the 16th century as a gunpowder factory (salpêtre translates to saltpeter, a component of gunpowder). In 1656, it was converted to a catch-all welfare facility - a combination penitentiary/poorhouse/asylum. The famous building pictured here is the hospital chapel, built around 1675. I don't know the dude in the black jacket.

 

The chapel - l'église Saint-Louis - is still open for services!

 

Philippe Pinel (1745 - 1826) is a major figure in the history of La Salpêtrière and French and European psychiatry. For a good deal of their history, the Europeans pursued rather brutal solutions to the problem of madness. You know - imprisonment, whipping, beating, bleeding, blistering, and so on (Bedlam, anyone?). History has it that Pinel flexed his humanitarian muscle and innovated a kinder, gentler approach to the problem of madness. A famous 1876 painting by Tony Robert-Fleury depicts Pinel liberating the insane; the Pinel statue outside the entrance of La Salpêtrière invokes the same legend. Pinel is thus considered a pioneer of "moral therapy," which emphasized kindness, compassion, respect, and benevolence. The Pinel-as-liberator legend is probably wrong in important ways, but who am I to stand in the way of a good story? Pictured is the Pinel statue, the 17,449th most visited in all of Paris.

 

Aside from the good Doctor Pinel, a veritable who's who of European psychiatry staffed La Salpêtrière over the years. This includes Jean-Étienne Esquirol (1772 - 1840), Bénédict Morel (1809 - 1873), Georges Gilles de la Tourette (1857 - 1904), Pierre Janet (1859 - 1947), and some guy named Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Oh, and let's not forget Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893), who delivered famous lectures on hysteria at La Salpêtrière. There is allegedly a Charcot museum at La Salpêtrière; I searched for it, but to no avail. The black box appears in lieu of a photo of a museum I couldn't find.

 

A tribute to Salpêtrière staff who died during the Second World War.

 

Mes enfants admiring their souvenir (a rock, I guess?) from La Salpêtrière.

 

 

 

 

La Salpêtrière is still open! It is now home to a sprawling medical complex - a modern teaching hospital with roots in a 17th century poorhouse.

 

FOR MORE: Check out this short documentary on the long history of La Salpêtrière. It's in French, but you can ask YouTube for auto-translated subtitles. C'est tout!