objets trouvés

Thanks to the forever marvellous Nag on the Lake for directing our attention to the romantic and indulgently thoughtful Parisian institution of the city’s central Lost and Found Bureau.
The repository for mislaid personal items collected from the metro and museum networks or turned in by caring individuals that hope possessor and object can be reunited has a long history, sourced by to the reign of Napoleon I, just a spare two decades after the Revolution that radically redefined the sense of ownership. Whereas under the feudal Ancien Régime, lost property of tenets generally reverted to the landlord—and still is in Anglo-Saxon legal frameworks what with possession being nine-tenths of the law (just consider this place where Hoggel resides), finders were no longer necessarily keepers and the right to ownership was enshrined as a fundamental and inalienable one. The curation of the collection and compassion of the staff is rather incredible. The dignity of an individual is of course greater than the sum of his or her things, but I think the greatness of one’s character comes through with these intimate, emotional reunions and allowing things to shift from expendable to indispensable.