The Comtois Museum in Besançon History and tour

In 1946, with strong support from the government, the Comtois Museum project was launched, opening its doors in the Granvelle Palace in 1948. After the city acquired the Citadel in 1958, it was renamed the "Musée populaire comtois" (Comtois People's Museum) when it moved into the Citadel's Front Royal in 1960.

A museum of ethnography and regional history, it was partly inspired by the National Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions, created in Paris in 1937 during the Popular Front movement. But it was also, and above all, born out of the interest of a priest, Abbé Jean Garneret, in a rapidly changing rural culture. Trained in field ethnology, he embarked on a vast collection of artefacts in the 1930s, before being appointed in 1948 as the museum's scientific project manager 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 an extensive documentary archive.

His love for people, which inspired his vocation as a priest, also led him to collect and record everything that constitutes the popular memory of the Comtois region. He was thus responsible for the creation of four museums between 1943 and 1985: the Musée Paysan in Corcelles-Ferrière (Doubs), the Musée Comtois in Besançon, the Musée-Parc in Petite-Chaux (Doubs), and the Musée de Plein Air des Maisons Comtoises in Nancray (opened in 1988 and dedicated specifically to rural architecture).

At the same time, Abbé Garneret continued his research. He drew, photographed, interviewed, and collected information. He published several books and, in 1947, created the journal Barbizier, an almanac that became a leading regional ethnology journal, which is still published today. This work to preserve regional heritage is now continued by the Folklore comtois association, of which he is the founder.

For more than 75 years, with the help of local heritage preservation associations, the museum has been collecting and studying more than a hundred thousand photographs and objects representative of the rural and urban skills and traditions of Besançon and Franche-Comté. Since the 2000s, the museum has shifted its focus toward ethnology and society, expanding beyond the regional scope it had imposed on itself until the end of the 20th century. It is now a museum that is open to the world and to contemporary societies.

Today, the Musée comtois embraces its heritage while continuing to evolve: a museum for the people, a museum of the region, it is also a museum of society, which continues to examine social and economic change and takes an anthropological look at the major themes that punctuate the life of every human being: being born, growing up, eating, working, entertaining oneself, believing, dying...

The museum studies, appraises, restores, photographs, and digitizes the numerous and varied works in its collections. It also has a mission to disseminate and promote this heritage through exhibitions, publications, and communications.

A veritable collective memory of a border region with a complex, rich, and human history, the Musée comtois invites visitors to make the connection between traditions (both living and lost) and their contemporary way of life... But also to reflect on how these traditions will be passed on to future generations.