Parisian art lovers, ignoring the new administrative name, ''Musee National du Moyen Age,'' still know it as the Musee de Cluny. It remains charming.
History is next door, literally.
The first room is dominated by early 16th-century tapestries from Brussels. The flowers and shrubs handled with miniature-like clarity spring up rhythmically in a kind of Te Deum as a magnificent overture to the medieval world. A few steps away, visitors are treated to its glitter. In a small room, stained-glass panes from Romanesque and Gothic churches can be seen at close range, as no monument ever allows you to do, revealing the astonishing boldness that medieval draftsmanship could have. The huge head of a bearded man smiling at the cost of some immense effort in the midst of his distress is the latest arrival.