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Origin and history

This house, located in the city of Richelieu, illustrates the ambitious urban planning launched by Cardinal Richelieu in the seventeenth century. The cardinal's native village was transformed into an ideal city, designed according to a rigorous geometric plan with ditches, ramparts, monumental gates and symmetrical streets. The architect Jacques Lemercier, also in charge of the castle, drew up the plans, while entrepreneurs such as Jean Barbet made the constructions, including this house around 1633.

The house was built for Arnoul de Nouveau, Grand Master of Mails and Superintendent General of Posts, who still owned it in 1656. Its architecture has peculiarities, such as a false vaulted porch in the middle and a cellar entrance located under it. The lack of homogeneity of the cornices and the subsequent transformations, including a turn of the 19th century staircase, show successive changes. The building, now in poor condition, has maintained a facade and roof inscribed in the Historical Monuments since 1932.

Richelieu's urban project was part of a desire for modernity and control, reflecting the cardinal's power. The houses, aligned and standardized, had to embody order and grandeur, while sheltering an administrative and aristocratic elite. This mansion, although modified, remains a testament to this architectural and political ambition, linked to the growth of postal networks and the centralization of power under Louis XIII.

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