Charenton (asylum)

The Jardin botanique de l'École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort is a botanical garden operated by the École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort, and located on the school's grounds at 7, avenue du Général de Gaulle, Maisons-Alfort, Val-de-Marne, Île-de-France, France. It is open to the public; an admission fee is charged. The garden was first established in 1766 as the school's jardin des plantes under the direction of Honoré Fragonard, and in 1771 began to classify plants according to the botanical system of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656–1708). In 1801, it began to specialize in silkworm cultivation and honey production. By 1882, when the herb garden moved, it contained about 1,600 species classified according to the "Baillon system". During World War I the garden was converted to grow vegetables; though subsequently restored, it was reduced in area by about 4,000 m2 in 1930. Garden restoration began in 1960 and accelerated in the late 1970s. Today the garden contains collections of herbs and toxic and medicinal plants, with a particularly strong collection of melliferous plants (those used for honey production) and beehives, as well as a seed bank containing 1,813 accessions representing 1,700 species (as of 1994).

École Vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort (French pronunciation: ​[ekɔl veteʁinɛːʁ də mɛzɔ̃ alfɔʁ]) is a station on line 8 of the Paris Métro in the commune of Maisons-Alfort, named after the nearby École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort, the national veterinary school founded in 1765. The station opened on 19 September 1970 with the extension of the line from Porte de Charenton - Écoles to Maisons-Alfort - Stade. Also nearby is the Musée Fragonard d'Alfort, a museum of anatomical oddities.

The Musée Fragonard d'Alfort, often simply the Musée Fragonard, is a museum of anatomical oddities located within the École Nationale Vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort, 7 avenue du Général de Gaulle, in Maisons-Alfort, a suburb of Paris. It is open several days per week in the cooler months; an admission fee is charged. The École Nationale Vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort is one of the world's oldest veterinary schools, and the museum, created in 1766 with the school, is among France's oldest. The museum attracted incredible international attention since the school's founding and was a critical component of the school's identity in the eighteenth century. It opened to the public in 1991, and today consists of three rooms containing a large collection of anatomical oddities and dissections, most of which date from the 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to animal skeletons and dissections, such as a piglet displayed in cross-section, the museum contains a substantial collection of monstrosities (teratology) including Siamese twin lambs, a two-headed calf, a 10-legged sheep, and a colt with one huge eye. The museum's most astonishing items are the famous "écorchés" (flayed figures) prepared by Honoré Fragonard, the school's first professor of anatomy, appointed in 1766 and in 1771 dismissed from the school as a madman. His speciality was the preparation and preservation of skinned cadavers, of which he prepared some 700 examples. Only 21 remain; all are on display in the museum's final room. These exhibits include: The Horseman of the Apocalypse - based on Albrecht Dürer's print, it consists of a man on a horse, both flayed, surrounded by a crowd of small human foetuses riding sheep and horse foetuses. Monkeys - A small monkey, clapping, accompanied by another monkey holding a nut in hand. The Man with a Mandible - inspired by Samson attacking the Philistines with an ass's jaw. Human foetuses dancing a jig - three human foetuses, arteries injected with wax. Goat chest - a goat's dissected trunk and head. Human head - blood vessels injected with coloured wax; blue for the veins, red for the arteries. Dissection of a human arm - a teaching exhibit, with muscles and nerves separated, and blood vessels injected with coloured wax (blue for the veins, red for the arteries).The second director of the veterinary school, Philibert Chabert, was at first credited with, and later condemned for, having extended the collection substantially to include studies of foreign, aquatic, and avian specimens. Many of these specimens were extracted during the French Revolution and redistributed to National Museum of Natural History (France) and the École de Santé.

The National veterinary school of Alfort (French: École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort or ENVA) is a French public institution of scientific research and higher education in veterinary medicine, located in Maisons-Alfort, Val-de-Marne, close to Paris. It is operated under the supervision of the ministry of Agriculture. This is one of the four schools providing veterinary education in France. See detailed article Veterinary education in FranceThe school was established in 1765 by Claude Bourgelat and moved to its current location in 1766. The school received immediate international recognition throughout the eighteenth century, and was especially famous for its collection of anatomical and natural history specimens. In 2007, ENVA came close to the University; she was a founding member of the PRES Université Paris-Est ; she became an external school of the university of Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne in January 2012. Today the school contains about 700 students, 75 lecturers, and 45 researchers. It also contains a most unusual museum, the Fragonard Museum, and a garden, the botanical garden of the National veterinary school of Alfort; both are open to the public. This site is served by Paris métro station École vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort.

Fort de Charenton is a fortification built in 1842 in the community of Maisons-Alfort, and part of the Paris defences planned by Adolphe Thiers. After the fall of Napoleon I in 1814, and again after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Paris was occupied by foreign forces. To counter new invasion and occupation, defensive works were planned. In 1841 a new fortified enclosure of Paris was proposed, becoming known as the Thiers wall after its chief proponent, prime minister Adolphe Thiers. The plan involved the construction of a new fortified wall around an expanded Paris, the Thiers wall proper, and the building of sixteen new forts a few kilometers farther out. The Fort de Charenton was planned as part of this system. Presently occupied by the National Gendarmerie, the fort saw passing regiments as well as foreign occupation forces at the time of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and the Second World War.

The Bois de Vincennes (French pronunciation: ​[bwɑ d(ə) vɛ̃sɛn]), located on the eastern edge of Paris, is the largest public park in the city. It was created between 1855 and 1866 by Emperor Napoleon III. The park is next to the Château de Vincennes, a former residence of the Kings of France. It contains an English landscape garden with four lakes; a zoo; an arboretum; a botanical garden; a hippodrome or horse-racing track; a velodrome for bicycle races; and the campus of the French national institute of sports and physical education. The park is known for prostitution after dark.

The Charenton Metro-Viaduct is a railroad girder bridge located in the French department of Val-de-Marne in the Île-de-France region. It links the communes of Charenton-le-Pont and Maisons-Alfort, crossing the Marne river, as well as the A4 autoroute and 103 departmental road. First put into operation in 1970, the viaduct is used by trains on line 8 of the Paris metro. The total length of the viaduct is 199 m. Made up of steel beams resting on concrete piers, the viaduct has a continuous gradient, due to the difference in level between the two banks of the Marne. It was renovated for the first time in 2011.

Maisons-Alfort–Stade (French pronunciation: ​[mɛzɔ̃ alfɔʁ stad]) is a station on line 8 of the Paris Métro in the commune of Maisons-Alfort. The station opened on 19 September 1970 with the extension of the line from Porte de Charenton–Écoles. It was the eastern terminus of the line until its extension to Maisons-Alfort–Les Juilliottes on 27 April 1972.

The canton of Maisons-Alfort is an administrative division of the Val-de-Marne department, Île-de-France region, northern France. It was created at the French canton reorganisation which came into effect in March 2015. Its seat is in Maisons-Alfort.It consists of the following communes: Maisons-Alfort

Alfortville (French pronunciation: ​[al.fɔʁ.vil]) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 7.6 km (4.7 mi) from the center of Paris.

The Gare de Charenton was a former French railway station on the Paris–Marseille railway, located in the commune of Charenton-le-Pont . It opened on 8 August 1849. In 1942 it was closed and immediately demolished.

Maisons-Alfort (French pronunciation: [mɛzɔ̃ alfɔʁ] (listen)) is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 8.4 km (5.2 mi) from the center of Paris. Maisons-Alfort is famous as the location of the National Veterinary School of Alfort. The Fort de Charenton, constructed between 1841 and 1845, has since 1959 housed the Commandement des Écoles de la Gendarmerie Nationale.