Musée du Folklore (Folklore Museum)
Showing articles and settings of daily life that were obviously collected and displayed with great love by its post-war staff, the museum is no more than a short block from the Belfry Tower of the Grand' Place, down the Rue Saint-Martin. Its display rooms occasionally use wax models of the Toumaisiens who used the implements they display; its table-top model of Tournai in the 1700s is enchanting; its most affecting sight is of the apparatus that Marie-Therese of Austria had designed for placing abandoned children in convents of the town (a box with hinged doors at both sides, set into the convent walls). With the child went the torn half of a piece of paper; if the poor family or mother were later able to retrieve the child, they presented the other half of the paper as identification. This apparently was Marie-Therese's solution to the problems of Tournai's 18th-century poverty! The museum is an important visit to be ranked high on your list.
Showing articles and settings of daily life that were obviously collected and displayed with great love by its post-war staff, the museum is no more than a short block from the Belfry Tower of the Grand' Place, down the Rue Saint-Martin. Its display rooms occasionally use wax models of the Toumaisiens who used the implements they display; its table-top model of Tournai in the 1700s is enchanting; its most affecting sight is of the apparatus that Marie-Therese of Austria had designed for placing abandoned children in convents of the town (a box with hinged doors at both sides, set into the convent walls). With the child went the torn half of a piece of paper; if the poor family or mother were later able to retrieve the child, they presented the other half of the paper as identification. This apparently was Marie-Therese's solution to the problems of Tournai's 18th-century poverty! The museum is an important visit to be ranked high on your list.
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