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Key figures

Origin and history

The Verger-Tarin Museum, also known as the Verger-Tarin House or Lions Hotel, is a 15th century mansion located 7 rue des Sous-Chantres in Autun. Originally, Cardinal Rolin had a building built there in 1475 to house choir children and their masters, between two pre-existing walls. The street later took the name of Sous-Chantres in 1791, with reference to its occupants. The building changed hands several times, notably in 1791 when it belonged to a man named Jossier, then was acquired at the Restoration by knight Pasquier, commander of the local national guard.

In 1845 Louise-Philiberte Verger-Tarin, widow and niece of the knight Pasquier, inherited it. She lived there with her two single sons, Victor and Henri, until their death. Victor died in 1913, leaving the hotel to his niece Marie Bachelet, without descendants. In 1933, the latter sold the home and its furniture to the Eduan Society, reserving the right to live there until his death in 1939. The Eduan Society then made it a museum, before the city of Autun n.

The museum, dedicated to ethnology and bourgeois life of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was reorganized in 1980 after a period of abandonment. Between 2001 and 2002, it hosted guided tours and theatre activities, but structural damage (such as the collapse of the kitchen ceiling) made it inaccessible from 2011. The building, modest for an easy home, preserves architectural elements from the 16th and 19th centuries, such as a wooden gallery, stone lions on the facade, and period furniture ( tinned copper, Louis XV furniture, Empire, or Restoration).

The collection reflects the daily life of a bourgeois family: the kitchen exhibits copper and tin utensils (XVIIth–XIXth), while the living rooms and rooms feature Louis XVI, Empire or Regency furniture, family portraits, and an 18th-century library. The staircase, decorated with landscapes and portraits, leads to rooms such as Mademoiselle's bedroom (restaurant style) or a bedroom with a Polish bed. Despite its present state, the museum remains a rare testimony of the provincial art of living in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The history of the building, marked by successive transformations, also illustrates the social changes of Autun: from accommodation for children from choir to bourgeois residence, then to museum. The Verger-Tarin, a family without direct heirs, allowed by their legacy the preservation of a movable and real estate heritage today threatened by lack of maintenance. Local sources (Grivais, Berthollet) underline its importance for the ethnological history of Burgundy-Franche-Comté.

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