Prince Louis Albert de Broglie of Parisian taxidermy shop Deyrolle

0:12Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco, and in today's episode I visit one of my favorite stores in Paris, Deirole, which is also a scientific and educational institution that has existed since 1831. The incredible collection of taxidermy and entomology are like nothing else. To tell me more about this incredible place, I spoke to its owner, eco-entrepreneur Prince Louis-Albert de Brugli.

0:45Prince, first of all, what a pleasure to be here at Deirole, which is one of my favorite shops in Paris or in the world. Thank you. Would you mind taking us back since when you got involved here? It's been a few decades now, but I wonder if you can tell us a bit more about your involvement with Deirole at the beginning. It's interesting. As you say, a few decades is not going to make me young, but it's it's 25 years compared to the 200 years that this institution carries in terms of involvement in what it would call today ecology but of our religion with nature what brought me to dérol was a pure chance of life first i was involved in an estate that is called a chateau de la bourdesier in the lois valley where i created the 35 years ago but became the national tomato Conservatory 31 years ago and he was carrying the issue of diversity.

1:38We were not even talking about biodiversity at that time and I realized very quickly that some people were wanting to patent seeds, others ignored the wealth of diversity of tomatoes and I say it's a very interesting subject that should not be brought up by my nickname which is called Prince Jardini, Prince Gardener, but rather by a scientific institution. And the other had difficulties and was about to be sold to a luxury brand company. And the owners chose me, which was quite awkward compared to this very important luxury company. And I discovered exactly where we're sitting now, in a double ceiling that was there, part of the patrimonia, which was catalogues of what Derell was carrying in terms of material for schools, for scientific institutions, catalogues about zoology, botanic, human body, anatomy means, mineralogy, all kind of things that were needed.

2:45And the fact that Derell was bringing this, and I will go back to the origin of Derell, was also translated in Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, there was a language of how to describe the earth which was the basic how to describe how to be overwhelmed how to be inspired by this incredible scenery if you look at the world of nature the beauty of nature but how to describe it how to observe it in order to understand it and my point was further to that is how to observe it in order to protect it, which is today the worldwide discussion, even though today there is some discussions about whether it's fundamentally important or whether it should be still looked at the old ways, whether humans, where the the people can't find solutions to fix the problem.

3:47In many ways, then, the role is as current as ever, right, in its role, educational role as well, not just as a shop or a museum or whatever people want to call it. Yeah, absolutely true. It's a very modern institution. Why? Why it's modern? Because it's based on three pillars which are very important, which is nature, art, education. Nature is preserving biodiversity, ecosystems, creating new nurturing ecosystems and doing the pedagogy of nature. Art, it's, and this goes back to De Rol, history. First, what De Rol did at the early 18th century, creating the De Moult family, collections for private individuals that were creating their own cabinet curiosité, which later became collections for museums, natural science museums, all over the world.

4:37But Térol has been all and still collections are in museums all over the world. So art is preserving the natural material, immaterial patrimonia of the world. Also raising natural science to the level of art, doing the pedagogy of the beauty. So nature, art and education is how education of course. Térol has brought to schools all over the world, the natural science program, which which led to be translated in Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, English in more than 140 countries. But today it's how you do the education of people. So there are three sub pillars is how you bring innovation to projects.

5:18So you create low carbon footprint projects transition. How do you live in a more frugal way, in a more sharing way? And that is a very important issue today is how to diminish our footprint in our lives. And third is transmission. How do you do the pedagogy of the garments of our responsibility, whether it's individual or collective, and our spirituality? And therefore, the three nature art education, these three pillars, the three sub-pillars of education, lead this company, this institution, this brand, whatever you want to call it, extremely modern. That's the answer. No wonder they chose you to own the place.

6:02And, you know, looking around here, we're in one of the rooms at the hall. I mean, let's talk about taxidermy. It is a form of art. I don't I think probably this is my guess less and less people can do it today. Right. In a way. Well, this is very interesting because it's it is art. It has been art since the Egyptians. It's been art ever since people have looked into a natural science museum and discovered the art of taxidermy. You call it whether it's for birds or whether it's for mammals animals, or whether it's entomology and insects and butterflies. But the most important thing is to recognize that the emotion that you will have, looking at a stuffed animal, is not that the animal would have been killed, which is not the case at the hall.

6:50There are deaths of animals every day. But instead of being buried, they are there, revived in a second life, maybe a third life, in order to show to the people that would come and visualize how it looks like, how it's beautiful, what is their ecosystem where they live in, their habitat. And this is much more easy to do that rather than obviously discover we are just next to the Aylor du Cap, nobody can afford to see them in their habitats, whether you go in Africa or for some of the birds, whether you go to in some places in humid areas. So, of course, we commit here very much with international regulation because we are a scientific institution.

7:43But it's important that people understand that in order to preserve, you have understand you have to approach you have to be able to touch and to um to thank the nature to be therefore so close to you that you understand your mission of preserving rather than of course destroying killing ignoring let's talk about we talk about the educational side of the hall what about in terms of the business side because there are a lot of things for sale that you know from the more expensive, so the cheaper. No, of course, this is extremely, the books are very important. The pedagogy regarding all the, what we produce in terms of new boards and old boards.

8:24So this is one aspect. Of course, people here come to dream, whether you are a small collector starting your collection of mineralogy or butterflies or insects or butterflies and insects are obviously something that people love because there's a whole room, which is most probably the largest entomology room in the world where you draw you pull the drawers and then you understand that you travel to uh latin america in amazonia or to the philippine or whatever then but uh shelves also people love to collect shelves and further to that are mammals so it's less of course for obvious reasons but there are quite a number of people very much attached to the idea of collecting starting their own cabinet Tuesday and natural science mixed with art.

9:14We have, we'll talk about it, a lot of collaborations with artists. Since the surrealists, everybody's seen the movie Midnight in Paris of Woody Allen that was shot here, where Gerard Tuchstein says to her, I mean, where is Hemingway? Or is it Derold? She says Derold because Derold is really the place for all the surrealists. It is indeed. So tell us, is there any object or animal here that is very special to you? Like, I was so in love when I saw the two red pandas there, because I don't know, for some reason I liked and I follow the news about them. So they are potentially my favorites. But what about you?

9:49The lobsters, what do you call the dismantled à la bouchaine, which was a technique that Derold developed with bouchaine, which is how to dismantle a lobster, a long goose or a crab or some also insects. Why? Because the evolution has led all the living spaces to adapt to their habitat, to adapt to the prey, being a prey to her. And it's always interesting to see how this is working here. We are just next to osteology, a skeleton of a snake, a viparist maybe. it's such an interesting thing to understand how we are when you look at the boards of anatomy means us they are part of this huge biodiversity then you understand the magic of evolution and the magic of evolution when it's described into an artistic which i again go back to the equation what is your one of the things that I love is the les éclatés, which is a I know you say that when it's spread and linked with a little wire in copper and then you understand the structure of the animal.

11:06And finally we just like to ask Prince what about collaborations is it very important to you not with schools with artists for example I saw there was a kind of a painting by Johnny Depp as well. How important is that for the hall as well? If first it's extremely important. Why? Number one, we are very close to Montparnasse, the school of Montparnasse arrived all the major artists like Picasso, Picabia, Dali, Ernst, Louis de Villembeau, Nabokov. They all came here. They all were fascinated and they all challenged themselves saying, oh, we collect this. I even remember François-Xavier Alain telling me, well, you have to check in your archives.

11:47I'm sure that I bought the first rhinoceros, rhinocorn before Dali. So there is a game in between the artists is to play with nature as always and Deholt is their best place to be overwhelmed. Number one. Number two, they all the time come very naturally. When Johnny Depp was asked, why did you do that? Why did you come at Deholt? and he said, I'm one of the others that came before me. And he's obviously referring to all the artists when Damien Neurus did an art piece actually here, but so many others, Niki Tafal and Mark Dyan and Nan Goldin and so on and so on. It means that Derold captures their attention and they're very respectful to this institution and we are respectful to the artists.

12:40And when Derold was, had a fire, 80 artists did 120 art pieces which were sold by Chrissy's at the Musée de la Chasse de la Nature and that founded the renovation of the entomology room because we were not properly insured. So it's just to say that the relation with art is extremely important. It's part of this amazing capacity of Déral to bring wonderful talents, whether known or unknown, and it should also lead to creating cabinet curiosité in new museums, mixing natural science, contemporary art and education. Thank you, Prince. And when in Paris, make sure to visit Deirol. For more information, go to deirol.com.

13:25I'm Fernando Augusto Pacheco and this show was edited by Mariella Bavin. Thank you for listening.

13:38Thank you.