Hôtel de Soubise
Encyclopedia
Mansion
A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...
entre cour et jardin (ɑ̃ːtʁ kuːʁ e ʒaʁdɛ̃), located at 60 rue des Francs-Bourgeois
Rue des Francs-Bourgeois
Rue des Francs-Bourgeois is one of the longer and more interesting streets in the Marais district of Paris, France.Starting near Centre Georges Pompidou , the road is considered trendy, with numerous fashion boutiques. Rue des Francs-Bourgeois is one of the few streets which largely ignores...
, in the IIIe arrondissement
IIIe arrondissement
The 3rd arrondissement of Paris, situated on the right bank of the River Seine, is the second smallest in area after the 2nd arrondissement. The arrondissement contains the northern, quieter part of the medieval district of Le Marais...
of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
The Hôtel
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...
de Soubise was built for the Prince and Princess de Soubise
Soubise
Soubise can refer to:* Soubise sauce, a béchamel-based sauce containing strained or puréed onions* Soubise, a commune of the Charente-Maritime département, in France* Benjamin de Rohan, duc de Soubise , Huguenot leader...
on the site of a semi-fortified manor house
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
named the Grand-Chantier built in 1375 for connétable Olivier de Clisson
Olivier de Clisson
Olivier de Clisson , nicknamed "The Butcher", was a Breton soldier, the son of the Olivier de Clisson who was put to death in 1343 on the suspicion of having wished to give up Nantes to the English.- Biography :...
, that had formerly been a property of the Templars. The site previously contained the Hôtel de Guise, the Paris residence of the Dukes of Guise, a cadet branch of the House of Lorraine
House of Lorraine
The House of Lorraine, the main and now only remaining line known as Habsburg-Lorraine, is one of the most important and was one of the longest-reigning royal houses in the history of Europe...
. It was the birth place of the last Duke, Francis Joseph, Duke of Guise
Francis Joseph, Duke of Guise
François Joseph de Lorraine , Duke of Guise, Duke of Alençon and Duke of Angoulême, was the only son of Louis Joseph de Lorraine, Duke of Guise and Élisabeth Marguerite d'Orléans, suo jure duchess of Alençon.-Biography:Born at the Hôtel de Guise in Paris to the daughter of Gaston d'Orléans and the...
, the son of Élisabeth Marguerite d'Orléans, Duchess of Alençon. He died in 1675 and the Guise estate passed to Marie de Lorraine who died at the Hôtel in 1688 having been born there in 1615.
On March 27, 1700, François de Rohan, prince de Soubise bought the Hôtel de Clisson, lately de Guise, and asked the architect Pierre-Alexis Delamair
Pierre-Alexis Delamair
Pierre-Alexis Delamair was a French architect, theorist and city planner, whose ambitious plan for a rational restructuring the center of Paris, 1737, never came to fruition, as it would have required the demolition of the existing city to be replaced with an ideal city.Delamair was the son of...
to remodel it completely. Works started in 1704. His wife Anne de Rohan-Chabot
Anne de Rohan-Chabot
Anne de Rohan-Chabot was a French noble. A member of the House of Rohan, she was wife of the Prince of Soubise. It was she would bought the lordship of Soubise into the junior line of the Rohans. She was a short term mistress of Louis XIV...
, one time mistress of Louis XIV (their affair is thought to have funded the purchase of the building) died here in 1709.
Hercule Mériadec, Prince of Soubise (son of François) was responsible for some interior décor at the Hôtel de Soubise engaging Germain Boffrand in the process. This dates from the 1730s. Improvements were made to celebrate the marriage of Hercule Mériadec to Marie Sophie de Courcillon
Marie Sophie de Courcillon
Marie Sophie de Courcillon was a French noblewoman and Duchess of Rohan-Rohan as well as Princess of Soubise by marriage. She was the grand daughter of Philippe de Courcillon, better known as the marquis de Dangeau. She was praised for being a cultured woman for the age and held a fashionable...
, grand daughter of the famous marquis de Dangeau.
It was the home of Louis XV's friend Charles de Rohan, prince de Soubise; his daughter Charlotte Élisabeth Godefride de Rohan
Charlotte Élisabeth Godefride de Rohan
Charlotte de Rohan was a French aristocrat who married into the House of Condé, a cadet branch of the ruling House of Bourbon, during the Ancien Régime. She was Princess of Condé by her marriage...
, future princesse de Condé was born here in 1737 as was the Princess of Guéméné
Victoire Armande Josèphe de Rohan
Victoire de Rohan, Princess of Guéméné was a French aristocrat who was the governess of the children of Louis XVI of France. She is known better as Madame de Guéméné...
in 1743.
Interiors by Germain Boffrand
Germain Boffrand
Germain Boffrand was one of the most gifted French architects of his generation. A pupil of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Germain Boffrand was one of the main creators of the precursor to Rococo called the style Régence, and in his interiors, of the Rococo itself...
, created about 1735-40 and partly dismantled, are accounted among the high points of the rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
style in France (Kimball 1943: 178). They constituted the new apartments of the Prince on the ground floor and the Princesse on the piano nobile
Piano nobile
The piano nobile is the principal floor of a large house, usually built in one of the styles of classical renaissance architecture...
, both of which featured oval salons looking into the garden. These rooms that have changed very little since the 18th century, including the Chambre du prince, Salon ovale du prince, Chambre d'apparat de la princesse and the very fine Salon ovale de la princesse with gilded carvings and mirror-glass embedded in the boiserie and ceiling canvases and overdoor
Overdoor
An "overdoor" is a painting, bas-relief or decorative panel, generally in a horizontal format, that is set, typically within ornamental mouldings, over a door, or was originally intended for this purpose.The overdoor is usually architectural in form, but may take the form of a cartouche in Rococo...
s by François Boucher
François Boucher
François Boucher was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture...
, Charles-Joseph Natoire
Charles-Joseph Natoire
Charles-Joseph Natoire was a French painter in the Rococo manner, a pupil of François Lemoyne and director of the French Academy in Rome, 1751-1775...
, and Carle Van Loo.
Since a Napoleonic decree
Decree
A decree is a rule of law issued by a head of state , according to certain procedures . It has the force of law...
of 1808, this residence has become the property of the State. Nowadays it hosts the Musée de l'Histoire de France (Museum of French History) and a part of the French National Archives.