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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The house of Richelieu, located in Place des Religiouses, is part of the ambitious urban project launched by Cardinal Richelieu in the seventeenth century. The latter, born in the original village, entrusted the architect Jacques Lemercier with the mission of transforming the place into an ideal city, with a rigorous geometric plan: ditches, ramparts, monumental gates, and a network of symmetrical streets lined with aligned houses. The hotel, built in the second quarter of the 17th century according to Lemercier's plans, bears witness to this order and grandeur desire, with a wing integrated into an adjacent house on the square, and communes added later.

The commons and some alterations date from the 18th century, marking an evolution of the building after its initial construction. The facade and roof of the house were protected by an inscription to the Historic Monuments in 1932, recognizing its heritage value. This building is part of a larger ensemble, reflecting the cardinal's urban heritage, where each architectural element contributes to the harmony of a city designed ex nihilo to embody the power and modernity of the era.

The city of Richelieu, ranked among the new cities of the Ancien Régime, represents a unique case in France by its stylistic unit and its state of conservation. The house, like the other buildings in the Place des Religiouses, illustrates the dialogue between civil architecture and the political ambitions of its founder. His inscription in the title of the Historical Monuments underlines his role in collective memory, both as a witness to classical urbanism and as a fragment of a visionary project interrupted by the Cardinal's death in 1642.

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