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Origin and history

The hotel of the governor of Dombes is a mansion located in Trévoux, in the department of Ain, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Built on a steeply raised terrain, it dominates the Saône and rests on old courtesines. The building, composed of several bodies, incorporates vaulted basements and sources channeled to the dock. Its history is linked to that of the former currency hotel, established at the end of the 16th or early 17th century, whose structures it partially reused.

The entrance gate, dated from the 18th century, once opened on a courtyard framed by an orangery and a pigeon tree. The governor's residence and the administrative premises occupied the main body, the oldest part of which, from the seventeenth century, was renovated in the eighteenth century. In 1658, the Grande Mademoiselle stayed there during her visit to Trévoux. After the Dombes joined France in 1762, the hotel remained occupied by the governor until the Revolution, as evidenced by documents from 1768 and 1770.

In 1783, the nearby, disused currency hotel was sold and demolished, while the government hotel temporarily housed a printing house during the Revolution. In 1787 a certain Germondy set up a cotton mill there. In the 19th century, the building became a free school for girls, founded in 1817 by Mrs. Guichard and run by the Saint Charles sisters until the early 20th century. The cochère was listed as a historic monument in 1933, and the site was listed in 1935.

Today owned by the municipality, the hotel illustrates the successive transformations of a place of power into an educational space, reflecting the social and economic changes of Trévoux, the former capital of the Dombes principality. Its architecture combines medieval heritages (courtesy), classics (Portail du XVIIIe) and industrial adaptations (filature), while preserving traces of its administrative role under the Ancien Régime.

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