Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Hotel des Coulanges is a private hotel built in 1607 on the Place des Vosges in Paris for Philippe I de Coulanges, maternal grandfather of Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, future Madame de Sévigné. It was born there in 1626 in a boudoir located at the end of the family apartment, on the second floor of the wing overlooking the square. She lived there until the age of eleven, before the property was sold in 1637. This hotel should not be confused with another hotel in Coulanges, located on Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, where Marie de Sévigné will live later.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the hotel welcomed personalities such as post-impressionist painter Georges Dufrenoy (1871-1914) and dancer Isadora Duncan, tenant around 1910-1912 with Paris Singer. Duncan transforms the reception room into a dance studio with a monumental staircase to create innovative choreographies. These occupations contrast with the state of subsequent decay of the building, marked by decades of unfinished work and legal conflicts.

In 1963, Béatrice Cottin, daughter of banker Emmanuel Derode, acquired the hotel then in ruins and engaged in restoration work for more than 40 years, without ever completing them. The building, squatted in 1994 and in 2009 by the Black Thursday collective, becomes a symbol of tensions around the right to housing in Paris. After Cottin's death in 2015, the hotel was bought in 2016 by Xavier Niel for 33 million euros, with the project to create a public cultural space called Espace Béatrice Cottin.

Ranked a historic monument since 1926 for its facades and roofs, Hotel Coulanges stands out for its French-style ceilings with painted beams and large stone fireplaces. Its history reflects the social and cultural changes of Paris, from 17th century literary fairs to contemporary issues of heritage and housing. The successive protections (1953 for stairs, 1954 for vaulted gallery, 1967 for a ceiling) underline its architectural and historical value.

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