Exposition Nationale d’Angers, 1895

The Exposition nationale d’Angers was the ninth in a series of Angers expositions dating back to 1835. The conseil municipal decided on it in 1894, after consulting the population, to coincide with the concours régional agricole held in the city in 1895, and voted 500,000 francs for the project. Calling a provincial exposition “nationale” allowed exhibitors from anywhere in France, although most came from the lower Loire region. The council chose the Champ-de-Mars, now the place du Général-Leclerc, a trapezoidal parade ground in front of the Palais de Justice and adjoining the Jardin du Mail. There the municipal architect Aïvas built a temporary palais in wood, decorated with staff, ceramics, faïence and stained glass. The galleries enclosed an English garden with ornamental water and music cafés, and closed in a hemicycle that housed the modern art. The exposition opened on Sunday 12 May 1895 in the presence of the préfet, the day after the horticultural show.The exposition closed on 30 September, the day after a grand historical cavalcade, L’Anjou à travers l’Histoire.

Exhibits were organized in sections for modern and retrospective art, eight groups running from Éducation, Enseignement et Arts libéraux (Groupe I) through Mobilier, Tissus, Industries extractives, Outillage, Alimentation and Agriculture to an Exposition ouvrière (Groupe VIII), plus the horticultural show and a separate school exhibition with 371 individual exhibitors. Reported exhibitor totals differ with the counting basis, from “nearly 800” to a breakdown of about 1,000 industrial, 400 school, 700 artistic and 200 retrospective-art exhibitors. The administration was municipal: Dainville, director of the École régionale des beaux-arts, served as commissaire général, with commissions for fêtes, publicity and attractions. The attractions commission set the fees paid by private concessionaires.

Much of the exposition’s popular life lay outside the palais. The principal attractions were a Village algérien with a Moorish café, weaving workshop and a troupe of about forty; a Salon du Cycle; and electric pyrotechnic fêtes with illuminated fountains in the Jardin des Plantes. In the Jardin du Mail stood the Tour Rochereau, a bolted wrought-iron tower about 30 metres high, billed as a little Eiffel Tower, which cost 50 centimes to climb and paid a quarter of its receipts to the city. On 23 June the new 1,800 m³ balloon L’Exposition d’Angers ascended from the Mail before a large crowd. Financially the exposition was a popular success but a municipal loss: receipts reached about 80,500 francs by 25 June, and the archives chronicle reports total costs of 543,786 francs against a deficit of 218,501 francs. Contemporaries also complained that the simultaneous Bordeaux exposition drew national attention away from Angers.

The Incubator Exhibit

The infant-incubator exhibit at Angers was not Alexandre Lion’s; Lion was at Bordeaux and Amsterdam the same season. It was run by M. A. de Miomandre and Mme Jeanne de Miomandre under the name Œuvre de la propagation des couveuses d’enfants. This independent Paris enterprise kept a nursery of twelve couveuses in the couple’s apartment at 158, avenue Parmentier (later at 8, avenue de la République) and had already opened a branch at Toulouse. At Angers they installed a small pavilion, described in the press as a “réduction” of the Paris establishment and later as the “chalet” or “salle des couveuses.” It stood in the Jardin du Mail near the Tour Rochereau, outside the main palais. Inside were several couveuse models, gavage equipment, a balance, a milk sterilizer and feeding bottles. The apparatus was described as Tarnier’s; by late June the Miomandre adaptation was also being demonstrated, heated by a hot-water reservoir warmed by a small stove or gas burner and fed by air ducts.

The pavilion took in its first infant on June 2nd, a premature Angevin weighing 2,150 g who reached 2,550 g by June 25. The Nantes account says the operators at first had difficulty obtaining infants, and early reports describe only this one child. Local physicians Guichard fils, Monprofit and Quintard visited with a group of midwives in mid-June. On June 25th, Dr Monprofit of the École de Médecine gave a free public lecture beside the pavilion. He presented the couveuse as a “médicament” for weak and premature infants only, to be kept at 30 to 37 °C, and cited mortality of 66 per 100 before couveuses against 3 per 100 with them. That lecture does not appear among the exposition’s official conferences, and the Nantes account indicates that the 3 per cent figure applied to infants of seven months’ gestation and beyond. Twins born a month early were admitted on July 15. By August 19 the Petit Courrier claimed nine infants saved and a tenth in care, credited Dr Quintard with their care, and noted a place still available. In mid-September the pavilion was still open daily with the twins on view, even though the Miomandres had opened a second exhibit at Nantes on August 11. The paviliion’s closing date and final patient tally are not known; it most likely closed with the exposition on September 30

The exhibit had official standing. The Groupe I jury, in agreement with the class 13 jury, gave the œuvre a diplôme de médaille d’argent; the jury’s general report calls it “essentiellement utilitaire” and notes Tarnier’s approval and support. It held catalogue no. 112, the last number in Groupe I, and does not appear in the exhibitor list of the Écho de l’Anjou guide. Together these suggest it was admitted late, after the gallery installations were registered. The Tarnier endorsement rests on the exhibitors’ own materials: the only Tarnier letter published, signed “Docteur J. Tarnier,” was written before he had visited the Paris nursery, and the “J” is likely a press error.

Official Sources

• Cointreau, Édouard. Ville d’Angers. Exposition nationale de 1895. Rapport général de M. Cointreau, membre du jury supérieur, rapporteur général. Angers: Germain et G. Grassin, 1895. BnF: https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb302554780. Retrieved 25 Oct 2026. (Official jury report. Primary for award and classification. Tarnier endorsement repeated.)
• Le vrai guide illustré de l’Anjou et de l’exposition nationale d’Angers. Angers: l’Écho de l’Anjou, 1895. “Liste des exposants, Premier groupe,” Gallica: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k55422634. Retrieved 25 Oct 2026.

Angers Press

All Petit Courrier items: Angers daily newspaper, digitized by the Archives départementales de Maine-et-Loire (presse locale ancienne). Issues are dated one day ahead of composition (“hier” = issue date minus two days). Coverage of the couveuses is largely promotional.

• Le Petit Courrier, 7 Jun 1895, “A travers l’Exposition: Couveuses d’enfants.” (Promotional feature. Reproduces the “Docteur J. Tarnier” letter, authenticity unverified; Tarnier writes before visiting the Paris nursery.)
• Le Petit Courrier, 15 Jun 1895, brief on visitor numbers. (Press notice.)
• Le Petit Courrier, 22 Jun 1895, lecture announcement. (Press notice.)
• Le Petit Courrier, 25 Jun 1895, “L’ascension de L’Exposition d’Angers”; “Conférence sur les Couveuses d’enfants.” (Reportage; balloon crew includes “de Miomandre, directeur des couveuses d’enfants.”)
• Le Petit Courrier, 26 Jun 1895, “Le ballon L’Exposition d’Angers.” (Miomandre’s dépêche of 24 Jun.)
• Le Petit Courrier, 27 Jun 1895, “Les Couveuses d’enfants.” (Report of Monprofit’s lecture; weight data. Previously mislabeled as La Petite Gironde, 1 Aug 1895.)
• Le Petit Courrier, 30 Jun 1895, “L’Exposition de 1895: Les Couveuses d’enfants.” (Press notice; receipts to 25 Jun.)
• Le Petit Courrier, 15 Aug 1895, “Liste des Récompenses, Premier groupe (Suite),” no. 112. (Official award list as published. Printed digit unclear; 112 confirmed by Groupe I numbering.)
• Le Petit Courrier, 19 Aug 1895, “Les Couveuses d’enfants.” (Promotional; tally of nine saved and a tenth in care. Masthead date not seen in crop.)
• Le Petit Courrier, 15 Sep 1895, “L’Exposition de 1895: Salle des Couveuses.” (Promotional; twins admitted 15 Jul.)

Regional and National Press

• Le Phare de la Loire (Nantes), 13 May 1895, “L’Exposition d’Angers: l’ouverture officielle.” (Reportage; Lebon inauguration announced for 26 May, whether it occurred is not confirmed.)
• Le Phare de la Loire, 14 May 1895, “L’Exposition nationale d’Angers: son inauguration.” (Reportage; text of mayor’s speech, describing Groupe I as covering enseignement, arts libéraux, économie sociale, hygiène, assistance publique.)
• Le Phare de la Loire, 29 Jul 1895, “Les couveuses d’enfants: Une exposition à Nantes.” (Secondhand for Angers, drawing on Angers papers. Stratified mortality figures attributed to Tarnier.)
• Le Phare de la Loire, 22 Sep 1895, “Maine-et-Loire: L’Exposition d’Angers.” (Reportage; closing date, weekly finances, cavalcade.)
• La Mayenne (Laval), 2 May, 11 May, 15 May, 27 Sep, 3 Oct 1895. (Regional notices; attractions preview, opening, cavalcade, removal of exhibits from 1 Oct.)
• L’Union libérale, 22 Jun and 27 Sep 1895. (Regional notices; balloon announcement, cavalcade.)
• La Liberté (Paris), 24 Aug 1895, “Variétés: L’exposition d’Angers.” (Descriptive account of site and classification. Opening date of 15 May conflicts with other sources.)
• Le Réveil Bônois (Bône, Algeria), 22 Jun 1895, “Les couveuses d’enfants.” (Reprint of an unidentified Angers paper; physicians’ visit; Tarnier apparatus; “Howard et Mégrier,” probably Auvard. Subsidy passage ambiguous as to which Œuvre.)

Secondary Sources

• Bertoldi, Sylvain. “Une tour Eiffel angevine: la tour Rochereau.” Vivre à Angers no. 272 (Oct 2003); Archives patrimoniales d’Angers, chroniques historiques. https://archives.angers.fr/chroniques-historiques/les-chroniques-par-annees/2001-juillet-2010/une-tour-eiffel-angevine-la-tour-rochereau/index.html. Retrieved 24 Oct 2026. (Archivist’s chronicle. Source for cost and deficit figures and exhibitor breakdown; dates of 1 May to 1 Oct conflict with primary sources.)
• Janin, C. “Il y a 130 ans, l’exposition nationale crée l’événement à Angers.” Le Courrier de l’Ouest / Ouest-France, 2 Nov 2025. https://www.ouest-france.fr/pays-de-la-loire/angers-49000/il-y-a-130-ans-lexposition-nationale-cree-levenement-a-angers-fc3344e2-b66e-11f0-9097-68e77b575996. Text supplied by researcher, 24 Oct 2026. (Journalism based on an Archives patrimoniales exhibition. Source for “near 800 exhibitors” and palais materials.)

French primary sources were machine-translated, then checked against the originals and edited by the author. Portions of this page were drafted with machine assistance; the final text was reviewed, verified, and edited by the author. Click here to learn more.

Last Updated on 10/25/26