The Comtois Museum in Besançon History and Tour

The project for the Musée Comtois was launched in 1946 with strong support from the government and opened its doors at the Palais Granvelle in 1948. After the city acquired the Citadel in 1958, it took the name “Musée populaire comtois” when it moved to the Front royal de la Citadelle in 1960.

As a museum of ethnography and regional history, it draws inspiration in part from the National Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions, established in Paris in 1937 during the Popular Front era. But it also, and above all, arose from the interest of a priest, Father Jean Garneret, in a rural culture undergoing profound change. Trained in field ethnology, he embarked on a vast collection of artifacts as early as the 1930s, before being appointed in 1948 as the director of the museum’s scientific project by the Direction des Musées de France. With the support of the Folklore Comtois association, he assembled collections covering various aspects of Comtois society as well as a significant documentary archive.

His love for people, which inspired his calling to the priesthood, also led him to collect and document everything that constitutes the folk heritage of the Franche-Comté region. He was thus instrumental in the creation of four museums between 1943 and 1985: the Peasant Museum in Corcelles-Ferrière (Doubs), the Franche-Comté Museum in Besançon, the “Museum-Park” in Petite-Chaux (Doubs), and the Franche-Comté Open-Air Museum in Nancray (opened in 1988 and specifically dedicated to rural architecture).

At the same time, Father Garneret continued his research. He drew, photographed, interviewed, and collected data. He published several books and, in 1947, founded the journal *Barbizier*, an almanac that became a leading journal of regional ethnology and is still published today. This work to preserve the region’s heritage is now carried on by the Folklore Comtois association, of which he is the founder.

For more than 75 years, with the help of local heritage preservation organizations, the museum has been collecting and studying more than 100,000 photographs and artifacts that reflect the rural and urban traditions and skills of Besançon and Franche-Comté. Since the 2000s, the museum has shifted its focus toward ethnology and society, moving beyond the strictly regional scope it had maintained until the end of the 20th century: it is also a museum open to the world and contemporary societies.

Today, the Musée Comtois draws on its heritage while continuing to evolve: a museum for the people and a regional museum, it is also a museum of society, one that continues to examine social and economic changes and takes an anthropological look at the major themes that shape every human being’s life: being born, growing up, eating, working, enjoying oneself, believing, and dying…

The museum studies, appraises, restores, photographs, and digitizes the numerous and varied works in its collections. It is also dedicated to promoting and showcasing this heritage through exhibitions, publications, and outreach activities.

A true repository of collective memory for a border region with a complex, rich, and human history, the Musée Comtois invites visitors to draw connections between traditions—both living and lost—and their contemporary way of life… But also to reflect on how to pass this legacy on to future generations.