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Origin and history

The Hotel des Comédiens ordinaires du roi originates in a palm game built in the early seventeenth century by Louis Audran, an officer of Louveterie d'Henri IV, on a land offered by the king as a reward for his talents. Located at 14 rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie (then rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain), this place, known for its parts, passes into the hands of masters like Jean Binart and Jean Godrot, then of the Ledoux family after 1636. The decline of the game of palm under Louis XIV, which preferred billiards, prompted the owners to rent the room for shows.

In 1688, the brothers Etienne and François Ledoux sold the building to the French Comedians, who shaved it to build a new theatre designed by architect Francis II of Orbay. Inaugurated in 1689 with Phèdre and Le Médecin in spite of him, he became the official hall of the Comédie-Française until 1770, under the name of Hotel des Comédiens ordinaires du Roi. The old place causes its abandonment: the room is destroyed, replaced by a courtyard, while the adjacent buildings are converted into houses, workshops and offices.

In the 19th century, the street was renamed rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie (1834), and a commemorative plaque was affixed in 1886. The only protected vestige, a high relief of Minerve (1689), placed on the façade, was classified as a historical monument in 1928. In 2021, a rehabilitation preserves the original structure while developing houses and offices, perpetuating the theatre memory of the place.

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