Hôtel de Chimay

The Hôtel de La Bazinière as engraved by Jean Marot in 1658

This hôtel was constructed in 1635 by the entrepreneurs Simon Delespine (d.1680), Martial Baret and Jean Péronne for Macé I Bertrand de La Bazinière, a royal treasurer.

Between 1653 and 1658, the hôtel was modified to the designs of the famous François Mansart. Some of the interior work was carried out by Charles Le Brun, then the protégé of Nicolas Fouquet. It was around 1658, that the building was the subject of an engraving by the architect Jean Marot.

During 1665, the hôtel was the home of Henrietta Maria of France, former queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland, Queen Mother of England, Scotland and Ireland, widow of Charles I, mother of Charles II and James II, sister of Louis XIII, aunt of Louis XIV and mother of the Duchess of Orléans. She later moved out to the Château de Colombes where she died in 1669.

In 1681, the hôtel was purchased by Godefroy Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, the Duke of Bouillon. His wife, Marie Anne Mancini (niece of Cardinal Mazarin) hosted a famous salon at the hôtel where she died in 1714 having lived there since the Duke of Bouillon had bought it. Jean de La Fontaine, a friend of the duchesse de Bouillon, was a visitor. Other famous people of the time that went were Madame de Sévigné, Madame de La Fayette, Pierre Corneille and Molière.

During her inhabitance, Marie Anne had Charles Le Brun and André Le Nôtre embellish the house according to her tastes. Her older son, Emmanuel Théodose lived here and many of his children were born here such as future Duke of Bouillon, Anne Marie Louise, the Princess of Soubise and his youngest child, the future Princess of Craon.

In 1725, the famous adventuress Marie Louise de La Tour d'Auvergne was born here; she was executed in The Terror of the French Revolution.

The Duke's son and successor Charles Godefroy de La Tour d'Auvergne had the building remodelled between 1741 and 1744 by the architect François Debias-Aubry.

During the revolution, it was confiscated from the La Tour d'Auvergne's and given to the state. Their Duchy of Bouillon was also taken but later given back.

During the First Empire, Napoleon I gave the hôtel to Stéphanie Tascher de La Pagerie (1788–1832), the cousin of Empress Joséphine. Stéphanie was given the hôtel on 1 February 1808, after her marriage to Prosper Louis, Duke of Arenburg. The décor was redesigned in the fashionable Empire style.

Sold in 1852, the property was bought by Joseph de Riquet de Caraman (1808-1886), the prince de Chimay from which its present name is derived. Since 1883, the building has been an extension of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, which was set up in 1648 by Charles Le Brun as the Académie de peinture et de sculpture.