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Origin and history

The Hotel Bouhier de Savigny is a private hotel built around 1640 in Dijon by a member of the Maison Bouhier de Savigny. Located at 12 rue Vauban in the city's protected area, it embodies bourgeois classical architecture with its court of honor, windows decorated with pediments, and carved windows. Its portico, added around 1785 by Jean Vivant Micault de Corbeton, reflects the changes made in the 18th century. The building has been listed as historic monuments since 1928.

The French Revolution marks a dark turning point for the hotel. In 1794, the revolutionary André-Antoine Bernard, dit Pioche Fer, settled there after the confiscation of the property of Jean Vivant Micault de Corbeton, president emigré of the Parliament of Burgundy. Pioche Fer, seduced by the luxury of the place (well-stocked cellar, rich furniture), accelerated the condemnation of Micault, guillotine on 17 March 1794. After the fall of Robespierre, he was accused of looting 537 bottles of great wines, including Chambertin, and of breaking precious dishes.

The hotel also houses a cultural legend: the library of Jean Bouhier de Savigny (1673–46), President of Parliament and Academician. Gathering 35,000 books and 2,000 manuscripts, he welcomed poets and writers. Its rosewood rays, draped with silk, house rare editions of Henri Estienne or Antoine Vérard. At his death, his collections were dispersed, sold to Clairvaux Abbey in 1784. A sculpted medallion of a cat, recalling its coat of arms, always adorns the portico.

The successive owners reflect the political history of Burgundy: the Bouhier family of Savigny in the seventeenth century, then Jean Vivant Micault de Corbeton, Marquis and lord of many lands, until his tragic death in 1794. The hotel, symbol of power and culture, thus becomes the scene of revolutionary upheavals, between confiscations, abuses and loss of an invaluable library heritage.

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