Just off the Champs-Élysées, a new immersive exhibit introduces us to classic literary fables where eloquent animals debate vanity, power, and pride. Framed within the setting of King Louis XIV’s court, their words could just as easily apply to today’s world. That’s the feeling I came away with after a visit to the Cité Immersive des Fables, a new permanent exhibition that brings Jean de La Fontaine’s 17th-century fables vividly to life through an ambitious blend of theater, digital scenography, and historical context. The result is something between a museum, a play, and a philosophical theme park, and it’s far more subversive than its fairy-tale premise suggests.
Tucked away in the back of a nondescript shopping gallery on the Rue de Berri, this immersive “city” reintroduces La Fontaine’s Fables — the clever, poetic stories that every French child studies in school — to a new generation of visitors. English speakers usually know about Aesop’s Fables, yet La Fontaine’s versions — written for the court of Louis XIV — were not moral nursery tales but razor-sharp social commentaries dressed in verse, which were considered cutting edge in their time. It may look like a family attraction, but by the end of this exhibition adults will recognize La Fontaine’s Fables as one of the sharpest critiques of power in French literature.
The Experience
First Impressions
I can’t say that I was optimistic going in. I remembered stories about the ant and the grasshopper and the fox and the crow, but I didn’t really know much about La Fontaine and why he’s so universally adored by the French. I actually went to see if it was truly as accessible for English speakers as the press contact had assured me, and if I would actually learn something instead of being merely entertained by an abstract sound-and-light show such as the Atelier des Lumières. But I was happily surprised that this exhibition somehow succeeds in making France’s literary heritage both fun and thought-provoking.
There’s only one live actor, right at the beginning, to welcome guests and explain how the exhibit works (“Take all of the time you want in each room, but don’t go backwards, only forwards,” he tells me in his accurate but heavily accented English. “Do you get a lot of English visitors?” I asked. “We get people from all over the world,” he tells me, while indulging my request for a selfie (but I’ll admit I didn’t hear a word of English from the other guests on the morning I attended).
What You’ll Find in Each Room
The experience unfolds through a series of rooms, each with its own theme, mood, and cast of characters. At the center of each one is a short, filmed scene illustrating a fable with celebrated French actors — Charles Berling (the sly Fox), Arielle Dombasle (a scheming Wolf), Marie S’Infiltre (a vain, influencer-style Frog), and Alexandre Astier (a weary Lion). La Fontaine himself, played by Laurent Stocker of the Comédie-Française, appears throughout as narrator and observer. They’re performing in French, of course, but you’ll hear their words translated into English through your headset.
If you get there before the film starts (there’s a timer showing how long to wait), there’s plenty else to see and do in each room, including interactive activities for children, quizzes, and educational panels and videos for adults. English captions and translations appear on every screen and sign, making the show fully accessible to international visitors.
“The Lion’s Court” introduces La Fontaine’s favorite theme: power. “At the Lion’s Court, will you be powerful or powerless?” one wall asks. Here, the lion is not always noble — sometimes sad, sometimes manipulative, always symbolic of authority. The poet used the jungle as a mirror for Louis XIV’s Versailles, where courtiers competed for royal favor. “A land where people are whatever the Prince wishes — or at least try to appear so,” one inscription reads, echoing the performative politics of the Sun King’s court.
“The Frogs Who Asked for a King” feels unexpectedly modern. The story, told with humor and irony, depicts restless frogs who demand a ruler from Jupiter — only to regret it when a tyrant devours them. “Better an idle ruler than an oppressive one,” reads the wall text. Actress Marie S’Infiltre’s contemporary version of the frog is a social-media influencer who can’t stop performing for attention. If she seems absurd, verging on annoying, it’s because she’s clearly meant to be.
One room is dedicated to the many fables starring the fox, one of La Fontaine’s favorite animals, which are all about flattery and survival, lessons that haven’t aged a day. Across the room, a bilingual panel quotes La Fontaine’s most famous lines: “The world is full of fools like these, of course: bourgeois copy dukes, dukes copy lords.”
The show culminates in a large projection room with a few chairs and large cushions scattered on the floor, where familiar tales — The Ant and the Grasshopper, The Hare and the Tortoise — swirl across 360° walls to a soundtrack by Bon Entendeur. This part is similar to the Atelier des Lumières experience, and is a good place to just rest for a moment, or wait for others in your entourage to catch up.
The Stories Behind the Animals: More Than Entertainment
While the kids were playing games, dressing up for selfies or coloring animals, I methodically read through each and every info panel. Many unpack the real-world allegories behind the fables, for example explaining how The Lion and the Rat reflected the social hierarchies of French society. Others gave much-appreciated historical content to everything from the major players in Louis XIV’s court, to the aristocratic women who presided over their own literary salons, to the timeline of La Fontaine’s rather chaotic career path.
One panel pays homage to La Fontaine’s contemporaries — Molière, Racine, Boileau, Madame de Sévigné, and Lully — the minds that defined France’s Grand Siècle. In the turbulent intellectual world of 17th-century France, La Fontaine was both insider and outsider: admired by his peers, he published witty erotic tales that mocked the clergy, but then renounced them late in life under Church pressure, and partly to gain admission into the Académie Française. The exhibition treats this with nuance, portraying him not as hypocrite but as a man negotiating survival in an age of censorship. “Ironically,” one panel notes, “the man whose entry was so contested is now one of the most celebrated figures in French literature.”
I think the exhibit would be rather flimsy without all of this additional background information, but then again, I’m a journalist who likes to know the whole back story, so consider your own level of curiosity before deciding if this is for you. 😉
A Mirror for Every Age
La Fontaine’s genius was to turn fables into social commentary. His animals — often borrowed from Aesop or even older Eastern and Middle-Eastern traditions, all credited through a panel showing their global origins — lived in a world of politics disguised as parables. “The world is old,” one panel quotes, “and yet we must still amuse it as we would a child.” The poet’s humor made him safe to read, but his meaning was clear: in a world ruled by kings and courtiers, only an animal could safely speak the truth. Rather than attacking authority outright, La Fontaine let absurdity do the work. As one display explains, “He stood out for the subtlety of his stance: never confrontational, always independent.” His verses were witty enough to survive royal scrutiny but honest enough to endure.
By the end of the 90-minute experience, it’s clear this exhibition is about more than nostalgia or simplistic moral lessons. Yes, children will delight in the talking animals and interactive displays, but adults — especially those of you who have already dabbled in French history — will easily understand the layers of irony and insight. The English translations are excellent, and many of the interpretive texts pose questions that resonate today: What is power? Who defines justice? Can humor challenge authority?
One panel quotes La Fontaine directly: “These fables are a mirror where each of us is portrayed.” It’s a fitting message for our times, when storytelling — and a heavy dose of satirical humor — remain as necessary as ever.
If You Go
Cité Immersive des Fables
5 rue de Berri, 8th (métro George V, Line 1)
Open Tuesday 2–7:30pm, Wednesday–Sunday 10:30am–7:30pm (last entry 6pm). I highly recommend going first thing in the morning, preferably on Tuesday or Thursday, to avoid the crowds.
Duration: about 90 minutes (I spent just under two hours there, but I’m a slow reader).
Tickets from €19.90 (youth €13.90, under 3 free).
There’s a small gift shop, restrooms, and a few lockers (but these were all full when I got there, so try and avoid coming with too many bags or layers).
Wheelchair accessible.
A Note on Funding
French media have reported that one of the exhibition’s investors is Pierre-Édouard Stérin, a wealthy French businessman known for supporting conservative causes, including Projet Périclès (often called the French “Project 2025”). The curators emphasize that the content in the Cité Immersive des Fables was independently developed under academic supervision, with no ideological influence on the exhibition itself. I didn’t detect any trace of his extremist views in the exhibit or I wouldn’t be recommending it, but I still think it’s good to keep an eye on these things, so I’m sharing it here for transparency.
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