Fondé in 1635, under the leadership of Buffon, acquired a high reputation. Unlike other monarchic institutions, he not only survived the Revolution but became one of the largest public scientific institutions: the National Museum of Natural History, which is still in full swing. The book shows the scientific, administrative and political strategies behind this transformation, in which agriculture and livestock farming, as well as classification and collections, played a major role. This shows the importance attached to natural history by the then French political leaders. Emma C. Spary demonstrates in this book that the permanence of the institution as well as its transformation, the maintenance of its spatial footprint as well as its increase, the conservation of specimens and their entry into the collections are the result of the constant action of its actors. It can be seen how, after inserting their activities into the system of hierarchical relations of the old regime, they then negotiated a transformation of relations — between themselves and with the outside world — at the same time as they set out a presentation of the order of nature accorded to the republican ‘utopia’ of natural and social regeneration. But the success of the Museum is also seen as a consequence of the revolutionary rhetoric used by its scientific staff: he was able to suggest that the institution, by giving the spectacle of the natural order, could help to forge an educated and policed republican people. Natural history was thus seen as an indispensable source of national prosperity and individual concern.