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Origin and history

The hotel of Bretonvilliers is a former mansion built between 1637 and 1642 on the island of Notre-Dame (now Île Saint-Louis) in Paris. Sponsored by Claude Le Ragois de Bretonvilliers, secretary to the Council of King Louis XIII and financier, it was designed by architects Jean Androuet du Cerceau and Pierre Le Muet. The interior was created by renowned artists such as Simon Vouet (1643), Sébastien Bourdon (1663), and Mignard and Poussin. The hotel, with gardens and terraces, became famous for its successive beautifications, notably under the impulse of Marie Accarie, widow of Bretonvilliers, whose facade on garden was engraved by Israel Silvestre in 1652.

From 1719, the hotel was rented at the Ferme générale, housing administrative offices such as the General Office of the Aydes and a printing house headed by Gilles Lamesle. Lavoisier sat there on the Preparatory Committee of the Farm Council. Seized during the Revolution in 1790, the building served as a printer for Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours in 1791, then as a gunmaker in 1793, before being sold by lottery in 1795. Demolished in 1840 and 1874 for the drilling of Boulevard Henri-IV and the construction of the Sully Bridge, today there is only one pavilion that has been listed as a historic monument since 1986.

The hotel illustrates 17th century aristocratic architecture, combining residential and administrative functions. Its history reflects the political and urban upheavals of Paris, from the Ancien Régime to the Revolution, to the Haussmannian transformations. The current, though fragmentary, remains bear witness to its past prestige and its role in the economic and cultural history of the capital.

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