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Origin and history

The Hôtel de Mortagne, located at 51-53 rue de Charonne in Paris, was built in 1661 by architect Pierre Delisle-Mansart for Jacques Nourry, Chancellor of the Duke of Orleans. Originally named Nourry madness, it became the property of Count Antoine de Mortagne in 1711, the first squire of the Duchess of Orléans. This place marked the French industrial history: Jacques de Vaucanson, a mechanic and inventor, lived there from 1746 to 1782 and designed his automatons and looms to weave there. When he died, he bequeathed his machines to King Louis XVI, who installed in 1783 the Cabinet of the King's mechanics, ancestor of the Musée des Arts et Métiers.

In 1785, Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde, a member of the Academy of Sciences, enriched this museum with more than 500 machines. Transferred in 1800 to the priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, the hotel was then transferred to Grégoire, the inventor of a loom to weave velvet, which installed its manufacture there in 1814. After decades of decline, the hotel, which was heavily damaged in the 1960s, was partially restored. Its front and rear facades were listed as historical monuments in 1928, although its visibility from the street was now obstructed by a modern building.

The district of Rue de Charonne, which has been lively since the 17th century, was a major artisanal home, especially for cabinetmaking and mechanics. The hotel of Mortagne illustrates this dual vocation: aristocratic residence and then place of technical innovation. Its history also reflects the urban transformations of Paris, between heritage preservation and modernization, as evidenced by the debates of the 1990s on the restoration of the old buildings of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

A History of Paris sign with numbers 51-53 today recalls its past. Diderot would have located a scene of La Religieuse (1754) in this hotel, although this information remains unconfirmed. The Charles-Dallery Pass now allows us to see its historical facades, the last traces of its central role in Parisian scientific and artisanal history.

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