In the 19th and 20th centuries, and more specifically between 1880 and 1940, the custom – the fashion ? – spread throughout France of presenting reconstitutions, of homes, professions, crafts, lifestyles, in ethnographic museums as well as in museums of applied arts... These reconstitutions range from Revelations to “show and tell” exhibits, and exhume the past so as to better resurrect it ; at least, such is their explicit justification, which brings its arguments to perfection by installing at the heart of these reconstitutions models, whose impersonation of life is supposed to reinforce the link between the visitor and “his/her” past, “his/her” community. Illusion or constraint ? In reality, these reconstitutions, invested with the responsibility of expressing reality and truth, ensure above all the triumph of localism and its ideologies.