Hôtel Lambert - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Hôtel Lambert is a hôtel particulier
Hôtel particulier
In French contexts an hôtel particulier is an urban "private house" of a grand sort. Whereas an ordinary maison was built as part of a row, sharing party walls with the houses on either side and directly fronting on a street, an hôtel particulier was often free-standing, and by the 18th century it...

, a grand mansion townhouse, on the Quai Anjou on the eastern tip of the Île Saint-Louis

Île Saint-Louis

The Île Saint-Louis is one of two natural islands in the Seine river, in Paris, France . The island is named after King Louis IX of France ....

, Paris IVème

IVe arrondissement

The 4th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France.Situated on the Right Bank of the River Seine, it is bordered to the west by the 1st arrondissement; to the north by the 3rd, to the east by the 11th and 12th, and to the south by the Seine and the...

; the name, Hôtel Lambert, was a sobriquet that designated a 19th-century political faction of Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

exiles, who gathered there.

Architectural history

The house on an irregular site at the tip of the Île Saint-Louis in the heart of Paris was designed by architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

Louis Le Vau

Louis Le Vau was a French Classical architect who worked for Louis XIV of France. He was born and died in Paris.He was responsible, with André Le Nôtre and Charles Le Brun, for the redesign of the château of Vaux-le-Vicomte. His later works included the Palace of Versailles and his collaboration...

. It was built between 1640 and 1644, originally for the financier Jean-Baptiste Lambert (d. 1644) and continued by his younger brother Nicolas Lambert, later president of the Chambre des Comptes

Chambre des comptes

Under the French monarchy, the Courts of Accounts were sovereign courts specialising in financial affairs. The Court of Accounts in Paris was the oldest and the forerunner of today's French Court of Audit...

. For Nicolas Lambert, the interiors were decorated by Charles Le Brun

Charles Le Brun

Charles Le Brun , a French painter and art theorist, became the all-powerful, peerless master of 17th-century French art.-Biography:-Early life and training:...

, François Perrier

François Perrier

Francois Perrier was a French soldier and geodesist.Perrier was born at Valleraugue , , descended from a family of Protestants, of Cevennes. After finishing his studies at the Lyceum of Nimes and at St...

, and Eustache Le Sueur

Eustache Le Sueur

Eustache Le Sueur or Lesueur , one of the founders of the French Academy of Painting, was born in Paris, where he passed his whole life....

, producing one of the finest, most-innovative, and iconographically coherent examples of mid-17th-century domestic architecture and decorative painting in France.

Both painters worked on the internal decoration for almost five years, producing the gallant allegories of Le Brun's grand Galerie d'Hercule (still in situ) and the small Cabinet des Muses, with five canvases by Le Sueur that were purchased for the royal collection (now in the Louvre) and the earlier ensemble, the Cabinet de l'Amour, which in its original configuration featured an alcove for a canopied bed upon which the lady of the house would receive visitors, according to the custom of the day. Significantly the alcove was eliminated about 1703. All the ensembles featured themes of love and marriage. However, the paintings have since been dispersed.

.

The entrance gives onto the central square courtyard, around which the hôtel was built. A wing extends to the right at the rear, embracing a walled garden.

At the same time, Louis Le Vau constructed a residence for himself adjacent to the Hôtel Lambert. He lived there between 1642 and 1650. It was where all of his children were born and his mother died. After the architect's own death in 1670, his hôtel was bought by the La Haye family, who owned the other residence as well. Both buildings were then joined and their façade

Facade

A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....

s combined.

In the 1740s, the Marquise du Châtelet

Émilie du Châtelet

-Early life:Du Châtelet was born on 17 December 1706 in Paris, the only daughter of six children. Three brothers lived to adulthood: René-Alexandre , Charles-Auguste , and Elisabeth-Théodore . Her eldest brother, René-Alexandre, died in 1720, and the next brother, Charles-Auguste, died in 1731...

and Voltaire

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

, her lover, used the Hôtel Lambert as their Paris residence when not at her country estate in Cirey. The marquise was famed for her salon there. Later, the Marquis du Châtelet sold the Lambert to Claude Dupin and his wife Louise-Marie Dupin, who continued the tradition of the salon. The Dupins were ancestors of writer George Sand

George Sand

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...

, who, because of her relationship with the Polish composer Chopin, was also a frequent guest there of the 19th-century Polish owners of the property.

The political salon

In 1843, the hôtel particulier

Hôtel particulier

In French contexts an hôtel particulier is an urban "private house" of a grand sort. Whereas an ordinary maison was built as part of a row, sharing party walls with the houses on either side and directly fronting on a street, an hôtel particulier was often free-standing, and by the 18th century it...

was bought by Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski of the powerful family of Polish

Poland

magnate

Magnate

Magnate, from the Late Latin magnas, a great man, itself from Latin magnus 'great', designates a noble or other man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or other qualities...

s. Two of its members, Konstanty Adam

Konstanty Adam Czartoryski

Prince Konstanty Adam Czartoryski was a Polish szlachcic. Colonel since 1809 in the Duchy of Warsaw and Brigadier General since 1815 in Congress Poland....

and Adam Jerzy Czartoryski

Adam Jerzy Czartoryski

Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski was a Polish-Lithuanian noble, statesman and author. He was the son of Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski and Izabela Fleming....

, were leaders of the liberal aristocratic faction of the Polish Great Emigration

Great Emigration

The Great Emigration was an emigration of political elites from Poland from 1831–1870. Since the end of the 18th century, a major role in Polish political life was played by people who carried out their activities outside the country as émigrés...

, which came into being after the collapse of the November Uprising

November Uprising

The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...

of 1830–1831 in Poland. The political group was formed around the latter, and his palatial dwelling lent its name to the faction.

The political beliefs of the Hôtel Lambert faction were derived from the May 3rd Constitution that the members supported. The Hôtel Lambert played an important part in keeping the "Polish question" alive in European politics by promoting the Polish cause. It also served as a safe harbor for Polish emigrants and royalists, exiled from their country after the unsuccessful uprising against Russia. Among the notable politicians taking part in Hôtel Lambert's activities were Władysław Czartoryski, Józef Bem

Józef Bem

Józef Zachariasz Bem was a Polish general, an Ottoman Pasha and a national hero of Poland and Hungary, and a figure intertwined with other European nationalisms...

, Henryk Dembiński

Henryk Dembinski

Henryk Dembiński was a Polish engineer, traveler and general.Dembiński was born in Strzałków, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 1809 he entered the Polish army of the Duchy of Warsaw and took part in most of the Napoleonic campaigns in the East. Among others, he took part in the Battle of Leipzig in...

, Karol Kniaziewicz

Karol Kniaziewicz

Baron Karol Otto Kniaziewicz was a Polish general and political activist....

, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz

Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz

Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz was a Polish poet, playwright and statesman. He was a leading advocate for the Constitution of May 3, 1791.-Life:...

, Władysław Stanisław Zamoyski, and Władysław Ostrowski. Activist Leon Kaplinski

Leon Kaplinski

Leon Kapliński was a Polish painter and political activist.Born 1824 in Lisów not far from Warsaw, Leon was the son of a small landowner and an eminent freemason Jan Kapliński. The Kaplińskis were a Frankist family; his grandfather Eliasz Adam Kapliński was one of the last known Frankists. Leon...

was also a member.

.

Initially a political think tank and a discussion club, the political faction also started to work on the preservation and promotion of the Polish culture. A Polish language

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

library, an historical society, two schools teaching Polish (one for girls, one for boys), and several other notable social and cultural organizations were founded next to the hôtel. Within time, it became one of the most important centers of Polish culture in the world, especially after the January Uprising

January Uprising

The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Russian Empire...

, when the Polish language and culture became heavily persecuted in Poland itself.

Among the notable guests and patrons of the Hôtel Lambert were some renowned artists and politicians of the epoch, including Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

, Zygmunt Krasiński

Zygmunt Krasinski

Count Napoleon Stanisław Adam Ludwig Zygmunt Krasiński , a Polish count, is traditionally ranked with Mickiewicz and Słowacki as one of Poland's Three National Bards — the trio of great Romantic poets who influenced national consciousness during the period of Poland's political bondage.-Life and...

, Alphonse de Lamartine

Alphonse de Lamartine

Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine was a French writer, poet and politician who was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic.-Career:...

, George Sand

George Sand

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...

, Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....

, Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

, Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

, Eugène Delacroix

Eugène Delacroix

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...

, and Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...

. In fact, Chopin's "La Polonaise" was composed exclusively for the Polish ball held there every year.

The Polish library, founded in the Hôtel Lambert, still exists, although it was moved to a different place after World War II.

20th/21st centuries

The Hôtel Lambert was discreetly split into several luxurious apartments. It was once the home of actress Michèle Morgan

Michèle Morgan

Michèle Morgan is a French film actress, who was a leading lady for three decades.- Career :Morgan was born Simone Renée Roussel in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, a western suburb of Paris....

, of Mona von Bismarck

Mona von Bismarck

Mona Travis Strader , known as Mona Bismarck, was an American socialite and fashion icon. She was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1958.-Early life:...

, and of the Alexis von Rosenberg, Baron de Redé, who rented the ground floor from 1949 until his death. De Redé entertained his lover Arturo Lopez-Willshaw (1900–1962), who continued to maintain a formal residence with wife Patricia in Neuilly

Neuilly

Neuilly is a common place name in France, deriving from the male given name Nobilis or Novellius:...

. Redé and Lopez-Willshaw's dinner parties were at the center of le tout Paris. In 1956, at de Redé's Bal des Têtes, young Yves Saint-Laurent provided many of the headdresses, a jesture which boosted his career. In December 1969, de Redé had his most famous ball, the Bal Oriental, with guests like Jacqueline de Ribes

Jacqueline de Ribes

Comtesse Jacqueline de Ribes is a French socialite and fashion designer. She is also a member of the International Best Dressed List since 1962.-Early life:...

, Guy de Rothschild

Guy de Rothschild

Baron Guy Édouard Alphonse Paul de Rothschild was a French banker and member of the Rothschild family. He chaired the bank Rothschild Frères from 1967 to 1979, when it was nationalized by the French government, and maintained possessions in other French and foreign companies including Imerys...

, Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

, Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French former fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex-symbols of the 1960s.In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer...

, Dolores Guinness

Dolores Guinness

Dolores Guinness born 31 July 1936 in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany, is a German born Freiin , socialite, fashion icon and jet set member of the 1950s and 1960s. She is also a member of the International Best Dressed List since 1970...

, and Margrethe II of Denmark

Margrethe II of Denmark

Margrethe II is the Queen regnant of the Kingdom of Denmark. In 1972 she became the first female monarch of Denmark since Margaret I, ruler of the Scandinavian countries in 1375-1412 during the Kalmar Union.-Early life:...

.

In 1975, the Czartoryski heirs sold the Hôtel Lambert to Baron Guy de Rothschild

Guy de Rothschild

, whose wife, Marie-Hélène de Rothschild

Marie-Hélène de Rothschild

Marie-Hélène de Rothschild was a French socialite who became a doyenne of Parisian high-society and was a member of the prominent Rothschild banking family of France....

, was a close friend of de Redé; they used it as their Paris residence. In September 2007, Prince

Prince

Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...

Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Thani, brother of the Emir of Quatar bought the Hôtel Lambert from the Rothschilds for the purported sum of about 80 million euros ($111 million). The prince's plan for a comprehensive overhaul of the building has sparked controversy and became the subject of legal action brought by French conservationists. The scheme reportedly includes plans to install lift

Lift

Lift may mean:* Lift , a mechanical force generated by an object moving through a fluid* Lift , rising air used by soaring birds and glider, hang glider and paraglider pilots for soaring flight...

s, an underground car park, and a number of security measures, including digging under the garden

Garden

A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has...

and raising the 17th-century garden wall about 80 cm. Former tenant Michèle Morgan criticized the plans in a interview, suggesting that super-rich clients wanting a tailor-made luxury modern residence should consider a larger site on the outskirts of Paris rather than a cramped position limited on all sides by the river

River

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

Seine

The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...

and listed monuments.

However, Alain-Charles Perrot, the architect

Architect

in charge of the project, suggests that there is an element of racism in objections to the plans. (Incidentally, another mansion by Le Vau, the Hôtel de Hesselin, dating from 1642, was demolished in 1934 by its wealthy American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

owner, Helena Rubinstein

Helena Rubinstein

Helena Rubinstein , a Polish born Australian-American business magnate. She is the founder and eponym of Helena Rubinstein, Incorporated, which made her one of the world's richest women.-Early life:...

, and replaced with a luxury

Luxury real estate

Luxury real estate is the real estate market niche targeted at the highest socio-economic group of consumers. -Definition:The characteristics that define luxury real estate differ among countries...

block.) Indeed, the Lambert, a UNESCO-listed site, was divided into apartments by the Rothschilds, and parts of the wooden structure are rotting; the staircases are sagging, and the paint is cracked and discolored. Thierry Tomasi, the prince's lawyer, has claimed that the installation of air conditioning will preserve the paintings and hinder cracking.

Architectural history

The political salon

20th/21st centuries

See also