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Origin and history

The Old Hotel Dosne-Thiers, located in Place Saint-Georges in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, was originally acquired in 1832 by Alexis Dosne, a foreign exchange agent, for his daughter Élise and his son-in-law Adolphe Thiers. The latter, the future President of the Republic (1871-1873), wrote his History of the Consulate and the Empire. The hotel, destroyed in 1871 during the Paris Commune due to hostility towards Thiers, was rebuilt between 1873 and 1875 by architect Alfred-Philibert Aldrophe, in a Regency style, thanks to state funding and a recommendation from the Rothschild.

In 1905, Félicie Dosne, sister-in-law of Thiers, bequeathed the hotel and its collections to the Institut de France to make it a library dedicated to the history of France. During the First World War, the building served as a military hospital under the direction of the academician Frédéric Masson, Napoleonian historian. When Masson died, he bequeathed 70,000 pounds, 30,000 prints, and 2,000 items related to the First Empire, greatly enriching the funds.

Today, the Thiers Library, an annex to the Institut de France, preserves 156,000 volumes, manuscripts, and archives covering the Revolution in the First World War. Its exhibitions, open for cultural events, and its collections lent for exhibitions, perpetuate its role as a place of memory. The facades, the honorary stairway, and the former Thiers work office have been listed as historic monuments since 2021.

The hotel, owned by the Institut de France, is visited by appointment or during the Journées du Patrimoine. Its spaces, used for conferences, filming, or exhibitions, reflect its dual heritage: 19th century bourgeois residence and temple of French history.

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