The Chancellery d'Orléans and the Mystery of the Disappearing Salons

The reopening of a palace in Paris to the general public is something that is not often encountered, but every now and then we witness an event like this, where palaces that were previously inaccessible to the public, such as Hotel de la Marine, or those that were closed for many years for renovation, such as Carnival Museum, reopening to the public after keen anticipation.

At the opening event that took place about a year and a half ago, Paris still did not show up, for the simple reason that the palace in question no longer exists.

On the evening of October 19, 2021, dignitaries from the fields of conservation, art and heritage, along with government officials and members of high society, received Paris, a festive invitation to witness the reopening of the luxurious salons of the Hôtel de la Chancellery d'Orleans, located at 19 rue des bons enfants in Paris.

However, anyone who tried to reach the above address discovered that they were standing in the middle of a road that ends at the eastern front of thePele Royale, since the Chancellery was demolished 100 years ago, to make way for the expansion of the Bank of France. So where did the invitees end up, you ask? Here is the story of the reincarnation of the disappearing salons.

The Duke, the Cardinal and the Concubine

In 1701, Louis XIV's brother died, Philippe I of Orléans, known as Monsieur. He was succeeded by his son, Duke Philippe II d'Orléans, who, upon the king's death 14 years later, would become Regent of France for eight years until King Louis XV came of age.

The Orléans had two main palaces, one not far from Versailles (Château de Saint-Clair) and the other the Palais Royal, located directly opposite the palace. The LouvreWhen Philip becomes regent, he will move the royal court there from the palace. Versailles.

In 1702, Philippe purchased the Hôtel de la Roche-Guyon, adjacent to the Palais Royal, whose back yard opened onto his gardens. He decided to give the modest building to his close confidant, Cardinal Guillaume Dubois (1656-1723). The cardinal received permission to demolish the hotel, which was considered of mediocre quality, and build a new and luxurious hotel in its place, on the condition that upon his death the building would revert to the Duke.

The architect who would become the Regent and one of the most important of this period, Germain Boffrand (1667-1754), was hired to build the hotel. In 1703, the plans for the new hotel were approved, and in 1704, construction began, which was completed about two years later. In 1706, the cardinal finally moved in, but not for long.

A full year had passed since the cardinal had moved into his new home, and he had received notice from the duke that he must vacate the premises, clear it of his belongings, and relinquish his rights to the property. On the very day the cardinal left his beloved home, a mysterious new tenant came up the front steps, holding a child in her arms.

To understand who the mystery woman is, let's go back to 1702. Shortly after the Duke purchased the place and before he gave it to the Cardinal, he had a bastard son named Jean-Philippe.

The child's mother, Madame Marie-Louise Madeleine Victoire Le Bel de La Boissière de Séry (1684-1748), was the Duke's mistress, and it was she who accompanied their son to live in the Hôtel in the Cardinal's place.

If you ask “Why now?”, the answer is that around the same time that the Cardinal finished building his house in June 1706, the King signed a decree recognizing the Duke’s bastard son as a legitimate son with all that that implied, and therefore the Duke had to provide him with housing befitting his new status.

Was everything planned and coordinated with the cardinal, who was only serving as a figurehead for the construction of a residence for the duke's bastard son, and if so, was he even aware that the duke was using him for this purpose? According to a letter written by the cardinal shortly after the evacuation order, one gets the impression that he left his home feeling humiliated, exploited, and robbed, and that all his investment in the place had gone down the drain.

While one was in a state of great happiness, the other could not believe her good fortune. Madame de Serres did not expect the flood of gifts that the Duke showered upon her, since receiving the cardinal's house was only the beginning. In addition, she received a sum of 20,000 livres, a house in Sèvres not far from the Château de Saint Cloud, and the house of Argenton, for which she took the title of Countess d'Argenton. But all this good fortune did not last long.

At the king's request, the duke was forced to get rid of the countess and so, less than three years after moving to the hotel, she was forced to leave him and Paris.

The new tenant who was lucky enough to move into the Hôtel d'Argenton was Charlotte de Boutroux, Princess of Montauban, but due to lack of funds she was forced to sell the building back to the Duke after a while. His son, Louis d'Orléans, gave it to his chancellor, Marc Pierre de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson (1652-1721). His son, the Marquis de Voyer (René Louis de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson 1694-1757), would become a significant figure in the history of the place when he inherited it upon the death of his parents in 1752.

Small but magnificent – ​​the salons of the Chancellery d'Orleans

Cardinal Dubois, who was responsible for the construction of the hotel, did not have time to actually design the interior spaces of the building and the first to begin the task was the Countess d'Argenton. To this end, she recruited some of the talented artists of the period, such as the painters Antoine Coypel (1661-1722), who painted the ceiling of one of the salons, Jean Lemoyne (1638-1713) and Jean-Baptiste Belin de Fontenay (1653-1715).

However, as mentioned, the Countess did not have enough time to complete the decoration and the Princess of Montauban continued the work of designing the hotel's interior with the help of the architect Germain Beaupren, with the large salon he designed being the most luxurious room in the house. The one who left his mark on the place and finally brought the salons to their current appearance was the Marquis de Vieux.

The Marquis de Villiers was one of the greatest patrons of artists of his time. He had the rare ability to communicate at eye level with people of all classes, to assist them, and even to generously reward artists who earned his trust.

One of them was his friend the architect Charles De Wailly (1730-1798), whose studies the Marquis financed from his own pocket in Rome, where Wailly received his classical training. The Marquis' investment in Wailly paid off a few years later, when he recruited him between 1760 and 1762 to design the salons in question in the Transition style, which is the transitional style between Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Charles de Vaillié was one of the leading architects in France at the time, and as someone who had trained in Rome, he was one of those who contributed greatly to the development of the neoclassical style in France.

Among his best-known works are the opera Palace of VersaillesAlthough the opera was designed by the king's architect, Ange Jacques Gabriel, de Wyly contributed to the design of its decorations and the influence of the Chancellery is evident in its design, especially the combination of simulated marble with gold as Wyly did in the Chancellor's bedroom.

A good example of the use of this motif can be found mainly in the foyer of the opera. Another motif, which can be found along the walls of the opera hall and which was taken from the great salon of the chancellery, are the halved chandeliers attached to a mirror that gives the effect of a whole chandelier in its reflection.

The building, which at that time had changed its name to the Hôtel de Ville, was small but magnificent, consisting of two floors and an attic, and was slightly raised from the street. The four rooms that had recently reopened were located on the ground floor and some faced the gardens of the Fell Royal. The architect Wylie did not accept smooth walls in all the rooms, and in some he actually stylistically updated what his predecessor had done. 

The reason these salons are so important is their design innovation. In the 18s, the Louis XV style (of which Beaupre was one of the forefathers) declined, and this decade marked the transition from this style to the neoclassical style. During this transitional period, the style was called Gout-Greque – the Greek taste (after the Roman antiquities discovered in Greece and Italy in the early 15th century) and Willy designed the salons in this innovative style with Louis XIV Baroque influences, influences that would not survive as the style matured. So, let’s take a virtual tour of the Chancellery salons.

The rooms of the Chancellery d'Orleans

The large living room

This room was already designed according to the plans of the architect Germain Beaupre from 1745 in the style of Louis XV. The architect Wylie adapted it to the new fashion. The walls of the living room consist of three arches on each of the four walls of the living room, some of which are doors, some of which are windows and some of which are mirrors. These arches are decorated with masquerades and war helmets – a motif taken from the Baroque style of Versailles. In the space between the arches, the artists Goyer and Deleuze painted beads in a geometric lattice based on the lattice decorations originally designed by the architect Beaupre. 

Between the wall and the arch, medallions in the form of war shields were installed, essentially replacing the original medallions, inside which were the initials CM, belonging to the previous owner, Charlotte de Botero, Princess of Montauban, who was the one who commissioned the original salon from the architect Beaupren. 

The ceiling had already been painted during the time of the Countess d’Argenson by the painter Antoine Quappel, who depicted a mythological scene called “The Triumph of Love over the Gods.” Willy designed not only the walls of the living room, but also its furniture, including eight armchairs in an innovative and original design, decorated with a poppy flower motif and upholstered in Aurora-colored fabrics – a kind of light pink combined with blue flowers.

The curtains in the room match the upholstery of the armchairs and are sewn from the same fabric. Although the furniture disappeared before the revolution, and any attempt to find it seemed hopeless, in 2012 and 2016, while the rooms were in the initial process of restoration, two of the armchairs designed by Wiley were found in antique markets, something that could definitely be described as a find. 

the dining room

The dining room was designed with a clear Baroque influence. A person standing there could be mistaken for one of Louis XIV’s salons at Versailles. Perhaps the only thing that reminds us that this is a neoclassical room are the four sphinxes – two on each side – that adorn the cornice above the mirrors, and between them a medallion with the initials MV of the Marquis de Vieux and his wife Constance de Mailly. 

Originally, these cornices were supported by two Caryatids that rose from the floor to the cornice and were sculpted by the sculptor Augustin Pajou (1730-1809), who was responsible for all the sculptures and reliefs in the building, some of which are displayed inside the salons and some in the foyer. A marble pedestal decorated with bronze with a jug on top, now in the Wallace Collection in London, was originally made by Pajou for the Chancellery, and is considered an example of neoclassical design.

The dominant recurring motif that adorns the walls of the dining room are the ten marble-like columns, made of a mixture of alabaster and plaster against a background of walls coated with polished white plaster resembling marble. To create the marble effect, Bauman Armand was used, who also took part in the plaster decorations of the ceiling, together with the artists Bausto and Brancourt, who created a decorated ceiling centered on an oval medallion with a painting by Lagrena.

Jean-Jacques Lagrenée (1739-1821) painted the goddess of youth Heba pouring nectar to Jupiter in 1772, but this was not the original painting that adorned the ceiling of the room. The ceiling was originally painted by the great Rococo artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) between 1767 and 1769, but his painting seemed a little pale and too soft-subjected to the Marquis de Villiers, and Fragonard preferred to abandon the project rather than try to please his employer. Fragonard's ceiling, then, survived only 3 years before being replaced by the current one.

bedroom

Of the series of salons, the bedroom was designed last in 1767 and was the original of the four salons and its design was not based on an existing decoration by the architect Beauferin. De Wiley drew inspiration from the Italian Baroque, especially that of Francesco Borromini, to which he was exposed during his stay in Rome. 

In this room too, de Wiley chose to use the arch motif so characteristic of the central living room, among which he chose hemispherical niches as a recurring motif. The use of niches along the length and width of the room may have stemmed from the need for a large niche for the bed.

To give the niches a sense of depth, the artists Goya and Deleuze painted an oyster at the top against a geometric lattice similar to the one they painted in the grand salon. Inside the niches, above the four doors, rest pairs of angels in various scenes sculpted by Peugeot, who a few years later designed similar angelic figures for the Opera at Versailles inspired by the Chancellery.

On either side of each niche, de Wiley designed columns with cornices supporting the cornice. The deliberately different scale of the decorations in this room was an attempt by the architect to break the rules of classical architecture and thereby give the room a less rigid and more dramatic character.

The ceiling was decorated in 1769 by the painter Louis-Jean-Jacques Durameau (1733-1796), with a scene taken from mythology depicting the awakening of Aurora – the goddess of dawn.

In the large niche is a bed known as a Polish-style bed (Les à la Polonaise), which is unique in that the canopy is attached to it rather than mounted on the wall above it, allowing the bed to be placed anywhere in the room. This bed is not original to the room and is intended to imitate the Marquis' bed, which was richly decorated with military motifs such as helmets and swords.

Foyer living room

This is actually the first of the series of salons, but it is located last on the tour. This salon is painted entirely in Trompe-l'œil, a painting that gives the viewer the false impression that it is a physical element such as a cornice or a statue, through various techniques of light and shadow and perspective.

This room was painted in the neoclassical style by Gabriel Briard (1725-1777), Pierre Hyacinthe Deleuse (1725-1777), and Jean-Baptiste Goyer. The latter two painted the decorative elements in the various salons. The room is surrounded by eight Ionic columns, between two of which there is a console table of blackened and gilded wood designed by the architect Wylie.

Between this and the other salons, there is an exhibition room on the walls of which is printed a replica of the arabesque-decorated walls of the toilet of the Marquise de Vieux. This decoration, which has not survived, was designed by the architect Wylie and painted by the painter Michel Bruno Blenger.

From the Hotel de Via to the Hotel de la Chancellery d'Orleans

The Marquis de Viall died in September 1782. His four children inherited the building and rented it to their mother, not before removing some of the furniture and decorative elements. In fact, from that moment on, the magnificent building began a process of decay that accelerated about a year later, with the death of the Marquis de Viall. Since the Marquis' son was too young to move in, most of the furniture was sold at auction for 30,000 livres and the building was left almost empty.

When the building was sold in 1752 to the Comte d'Argenson, the contract stated that if no descendants of his family remained, the building would revert to the Duc d'Orléans. Since the Marquis had no heirs, the building was offered to him for rent. The Duc d'Orléans was traditionally responsible for the finances of the kingdom and it was he who appointed the Chancellor who managed the Crown's finances, so when he rented the building in 1784, he decided to make the place officially his Chancellery, and since then it has been called Hôtel de la Chancellery d'Orléans.

From the moment the hotel became a chancellery, it lost its status as a hotel particulare (a municipal mansion) and was divided into apartments, archives, and offices that served the chancellor and his staff. 

Naturally, the place began to lose its glamour and artistic assets, such as the front porch, which was replaced by stairs. The room that suffered the most from the changes was the dining room, which lost its caryatids – the statues that supported the cornices on which the sphinxes sit – and a reorganization of the walls. In addition, the mirrors were replaced by doors and various elements, such as two sphinx tables designed by architect Wylie, were sold.

From the Cardinal's House to a Brothel - the Chancellor Plunges into Doom

The period in which the place was used as a nursery was short, as a few years later it broke out. French Revolution.

The Duke of Orléans (nicknamed Aglietta) ironically supported the revolution, and in 1791 the building that symbolized the monarchy's mismanagement of the economy was rented by him to Antoine Pierre Beaufort, who installed billiard tables and turned the place into a club. However, following the revolution, the Orléans family, which was one of the richest and most powerful in the kingdom, was cut off from the government and began to lose its assets.

As a result, the Chancellery was put up for auction. A year later, when the Duke was already imprisoned by the revolutionaries and awaiting his sentence, the building was sold again for a paltry sum to Alexis Arnaud, who had previously worked there as a financier in the Chancellery's service.

Although he terminated the lease on the club, he continued to run the place as a pleasure and gambling house that hosted all the celebrities of the time, as well as the leaders of the revolution. The place deteriorated so much that it began to appear in police reports as one of the most questionable gambling houses and brothels in the city. At one point, a restaurant was built on the site, which led to the digging of a well and the installation of stoves in the foyer, as well as the removal of mirrors and the opening of passages between the rooms. 

The Chancellor in the 19th century

Until the accession of Louis XVIII in 18, the place continued to be used as a club while it managed to get rid of its bad reputation, but its days were numbered.

In 1819, the place was rented by Pierre Alexandre Delaunay, who decided to turn the building into a hotel with a luxury restaurant – not before it had undergone a thorough renovation. This was actually the first time since the death of the Marquis de Vieux that the place had undergone renovation. The place, known as the French Salon, was a fashionable meeting place and hosted mainly foreigners who enjoyed its luxurious decoration and central location. 

The central location became less fashionable over the next decade, and the area suffered from decline, leading to the hotel's closure. The Chancellery was sold to the piano builder Jean-Henri Pape (1789-1875), who divided the premises into apartments and set up a workshop there.

He used to hold concerts in the salons. But he was not satisfied with this, and decided to add 3 more floors to the Chancellery building and built a shop on the side facing Rue de Valois. After a short time, he rented the premises to those who would be its tenants throughout most of the 19th century – the editorial staff of the newspaper La Constitucion – which was located in some of the salons. Its printing house was located in the basements, which were significantly expanded to accommodate the heavy mechanical equipment.

Pape tried to turn the remaining salons into a covered arcade, but this idea did not work. During Pape's 30 years of ownership of the Chancellery, he caused it considerable changes and damage. For him it was a profitable asset and he had no appreciation for the special place he held.

However, miraculously, the salons survived Pape, who sold the place in the middle of the century to investor Zeno Pastre, who continued to rent the place to the newspaper's editor while continuing to cause damage to the building, which was manifested in the replacement of the marble floor with parquet in the dining room and the removal of one of Gabriel Briar's painted ceilings.

To Parisians of that time, the building was no longer known as a convent, but as the headquarters of the newspaper La Constitucionelle, which was frequented by political and literary figures such as Balzac.

In 1866, the Chancellery, which had passed from hand to hand for 160 years, finally passed to its last owners when Zeno's heirs sold the building to Baroness Louise Pierre Tenard, who had inherited a large fortune after being widowed at a young age.

The place continued to be rented to the newspaper's editorial staff under their ownership, but the building's fate took a positive turn with their departure in 1879.

After decades in which old Paris was demolished by Baron Haussmann to make way for the grand boulevards, the remaining buildings suddenly received a more respectable status as those that had survived the urban revolution, and the Chancellery regained the status it had gained in the 18th century.

The area became fashionable again and the jeweler Jacques Gustave Sandoz, who already had a shop in the nearby Palais Royal, rented the premises. Sandoz began documenting the building, whose photographs were published in the newspapers, and as a result, a renewed interest in the place began. From that time on, tenants were asked to respect the building and preserve its paintings and decorative elements.

The place became so famous that at the end of the 19th century the place was rented by the Association of Decorative Arts, who although found the place in poor condition (especially the ceiling paintings), opened galleries there where decorative art was displayed. While they were satisfied, the Baroness thought differently and decided to evict them from the place in order to rent it at a higher price to the Linotype printing machine company, which became the last tenant in the place.

The Chancellery ended the turbulent 19th century battered, with signs of age evident, but its salons still survived in surprisingly good condition. Its brief grace was to end with the arrival of the 20th century.

The last days of the chancellorship

In 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte founded the Bank of France. Eight years later, the bank was located in the Hôtel de Toulouse, located in the district of the Palais Royal, right next to the Chancellery. Since the Revolution, the premises had housed the printing works of the National Archives, and to house the Bank of France, they were moved toHotel de Soubise and the Hôtel de Rouen located inMarais.

By the end of the 19th century, the need to expand the bank, open access roads for vehicles, and dig underground vaults for France's vast gold reserves had already arisen. However, it was not until 1912 that discussions began between the bank's architect, Alphonse Defrasse (1860-1939), and the authorities about how and where the bank could expand.

The shadow of the bank began to threaten the chancellor, but the plans at this stage did not threaten his future, but they did threaten the future of the Place Royale, which was suffering from decline in those years. The idea put forward was to turn the Place Royale gardens into a stock exchange complex, with a road running through it from the Louvre to the Opera district, which would cross the gardens.

These plans were met with fierce opposition and ultimately did not come to fruition. At the same time, the bank had already begun its expansion towards Rue Baif on the northern part of the bank, Rue Radziwill on the western part and finally the expansion also included Rue Petits Enfants at number 19, next to the Chancellery. The bank's expansion reached right up to the northern facade of the Chancellery, but all this was not enough to realize the original expansion plan and the architect Despras began to run out of ideas.

In a last-ditch attempt to save the Chancellery, he proposed that the building be incorporated into the new addition and become part of the Governor's residential complex, but this plan was also scrapped because it did not meet the need for access roads.

With no other choice, he decided that to preserve the Hepla Royal and its treasures, the Chancellery had to be sacrificed. He claimed that the owner of the place, Baroness Louise Pierre Tenard, was only interested in profits and, since she had no other value for the place, would not object if the building was demolished to make way for the bank's expansion. He was wrong.

The Baroness, who was already in her late teens by 1914, responded by initiating a process to convert the Chancellery into a conservation building, thereby bringing the French Conservation Organization into the picture. The organization, which had been following the Bank's plans with concern for years, jumped at the opportunity and immediately declared the building a conservation building, causing a great uproar. This was the first time that the Conservation Organization and the government had come into direct conflict, threatening the Bank's expansion plan. 

A war of attrition began between him and the bank, which dragged on until mid-1915. During that year, the idea of ​​dismantling the saloons in question and moving them to another location was raised. This was not a new idea – the Carnival Museum had already explored this possibility several years earlier.

Initially, this plan raised objections because there was concern that it would not be possible to dismantle the ceilings with their paintings, because they are attached to the structure and are very fragile. In addition, the proposal did not state where the dismantled salons would be moved. The bank's architect, Alphonse, calmed the concerns and personally guaranteed that the ceilings and all the other decorations would be dismantled without damage.

In addition, the Baroness died that year and the following year her only wife passed away, so that all obstacles facing the bank were removed. As a result, the Conservation Committee met again on July 9, 1915, and recorded in the minutes: “The Committee, under these conditions and in accordance with the conclusions of the report, believes that there is no objection to the expropriation of the Chancellery d’Orléans building and its removal from its location.” The fate of the Chancellery was sealed.

The disappearing salons 

Discussions over the terms of the demolition continued for another six years, including the amount of compensation to the Baroness' heirs for the loss of the property. A debate arose as to which of the salons should be saved and what would happen to the important architectural elements. It was finally decided that the bank would carefully remove and completely restore three salons and the foyer, under the supervision of the Department of Historical Monuments.

On July 1, 1923, the date for the final evacuation of the Chancellery was set, and eight days later the demolition work began.

The bank's architect, Alphonse Depras, approached the task of dismantling the salons with a sense of sacredness, leading a team of experts. The decoration was carefully cleaned and dismantled: first, the movable parts such as doors, windows, lintels, mirrors, and decorative parts that could be removed in their entirety, such as cornices and ornaments, were dismantled.

Then, the medallions, sphinxes, and walls were removed, and finally the complicated task of dismantling the ceilings, which were divided into sections and lowered with the help of supports, was undertaken. Openings were cut in the walls of the building to allow the large decorative pieces to be removed. Certain architectural parts that could not be detached, such as the columns of the foyer, were copied in place. 

The delicate dismantling work, during which the original architectural elements designed by Beaupren were discovered, took many months and was only completed in January 1924. The dismantled decoration was sent to the bank's warehouses in the Parisian suburb of Asnières-sur-Seine, where it was cleaned, polished, and packed into 104 crates, then sunk into oblivion.

The bank successfully fulfilled its first commitment to dismantle and store the salons, but it failed to fulfill its second commitment – ​​to reinstall them in their entirety in a new location. The replacement of the bank's governor, the retirement of the bank's architect, Depras, the stock market crash and the Great Recession that followed, led to the various plans put forward for reinstalling the salons not coming to fruition.

In 1951, the architect of the new bank, Paul Tourneau, proposed building a new Hôtel Particulier on the bank premises, with the facades of the Chancellery restored, where the salons would be located. This ambitious plan was not taken seriously and was shelved.

In the 40s, after all ideas and plans for their reinstallation had been postponed for about XNUMX years, the preservationists who had tried to advance the project realized that the bank would no longer fulfill its commitment, which led to reflections of regret for having agreed to the demolition of the Chancellery in the first place.

This realization made them take matters into their own hands, and stop waiting for the bank's mercy. As a result, the idea of ​​installing the salons in an existing building was first raised. The problem was finding a place with precise dimensions that would fit. One of the main obstacles was the ceiling height, which rose to 6.46 meters.

Various names of significant historical sites were thrown into the air: theLouvre, Chateau de Vincennes, Saint-Cloud, the Carnaval Museum – where they even offered to rent the courtyard of Henri IV to install the salons – but nothing came of it. In 4, the bank agreed to lend the Louvre the reliefs of the doors of the grand salon and the sphinxes of the dining room for an exhibition on the works of the sculptor Pejou.

This was the first time the general public had been given a glimpse of the Chancellery, which sparked a new public interest in the salons. After nearly eighty years of failed attempts, the project of restoring the Chancellery now seemed completely lost. It was then that the plot took a turn.

The salons find a new home

Over the years, there was one figure who was very active behind the scenes in the attempts to install the salons. This figure, who admired the work of architect Willy, made it his life's mission. Bertrand du Vignaud was a well-known preservationist who headed various preservation organizations and was active in preserving historic sites and recruiting donors for various projects in the field.

In the early 2000s, he was appointed head of the World Monuments Fund (WMF), which is responsible for preserving historic sites around the world. Upon taking up the prestigious position, he decided to put an end to the chancellery fiasco and take on the task of reinstalling the halls as a personal project, no matter what. As head of the organization, he had, beyond good will, both the power and influence and the financial means to finance the project, at least in part.

He asked the bank's director, then Jean-Claude Cliché, for special permission to approach and examine the dismantled decoration stored in Asnieres. When he got there, he was amazed to discover a real treasure. Although in pitiful condition, by his definition, but certainly with potential for restoration and reinstallation.

From bitter experience, he knew that it would be difficult to arouse interest among decision-makers, so instead of persuasion and speeches, he decided, in the first stage, to build a model of the rooms to illustrate the project. In the second stage, he decided to look for a place to house the rooms. He realized that without finding a suitable location to install them, he would not be able to move forward with the decision-makers, and wasting more years of Sisyphean work was out of the question for him.

The place he found was the Hôtel de Rohan, or rather the ground floor of the hotel, which at the time housed the printing house of the National Archives, the same printing house that had moved there after vacating the Hôtel de Toulouse to make way for the Bank of France. In a strange historical cycle, both sites had been pushed out by the bank, but now it was the printing house’s turn to make way for the Chancellery.

The Hôtel de Rouen and its neighbor, the Hôtel de Sauvage, are part of a palace complex that belonged to the Rouen-Sauvage family in the Marais district and were built by the architect Pierre-Alexis Delamair (1676-1745), around the same time that the Chancellery was built by Germain Beaupre, who also worked on the complex when he designed the luxurious salons at the Hôtel de Sauvage.

This is why the location was found suitable, as it had similar characteristics such as the style and construction technique, the proportions and the fact that both were Parisian hotels built for the same purpose – as residences for the ruling elite. The complex in the Marais had served as the seat of the National Archives of France since the early 19th century, but in the early XNUMXs, plans to move the archive to a new, modern building on the outskirts of Paris were underway, and the printing house located on the ground floor of the Hôtel de Rouen was to be vacated.

Another advantage was that the rooms on the first floor of the hotel had been stripped of their decoration before the printing house moved in, leaving the walls completely bare. On the second floor, however, magnificent 18th-century salons survived, so that with the chancellery installed on the ground floor, the entire building could become a new museum of 18th-century decorative arts.

To convince the French authorities and bank, he had to conduct an expensive feasibility study, and to do so, he turned to American philanthropists who provided funding for the preliminary stages. This phase, which lasted about ten years, prepared the ground for the complex project.

As the project architect, he appointed the head of the Organization of Historical Monuments, Paul Bernaud, and together they prepared a comprehensive plan for the re-installation of the rooms. Their efforts bore fruit, when in 2011 an agreement was signed for the implementation of the project, signed by the French Ministry of Culture as the owner of the property, the Bank of France as the owner of the decoration, and the World Monuments Organization, headed by Bertrand du Vigneault, as the project manager.

The project was launched. The best restoration artists were hired to carry it out, led by the Atelier de la Chapelle and the Atelier Arcan, under the management of the Italian Cinzia Pasquali. They began their work in a large and sophisticated hangar in Montreux, to which the boxes were transferred from the bank's warehouse, where they were temporarily set up to begin an initial restoration and to assess what needed to be done. During this time, some of the decorations were displayed to the general public in the showrooms of the Hôtel de Sauvage.

The Hôtel de Rouen was obviously not an exact fit, and adjustments were required to install the rooms, such as the order of the rooms, which was organized differently. Another significant problem, which may have been the greatest obstacle to finding a suitable site over the years, was the height of the ceiling, with the Chancellery's decoration rising to a height of 6.46 meters, while the rooms in the Hôtel de Rouen are only 5.90 meters high.

To solve this problem, they had to lower the floor of the building, destroying the original basement arches and replacing them with a concrete floor, which required special permission from the Conservation Department. Even that wasn't enough, and they also had to replace the wooden ceiling with a thin concrete ceiling. Here, too, special permission was needed.

Other problems were the size of the rooms, which did not match that of the Chancellery, and the narrower window openings. With much effort and thought, they found solutions to these problems. For example, the walls of the rooms in the Hôtel de Rouen were partially demolished and in their place steel beams were built on which a frame sat on which the ceiling was installed. The same ceiling, which had already undergone restoration in Montreux, was raised by a hydraulic mechanism and fixed there, after which the restorers worked on the work of connecting the various parts of the painting. On the steel beams they installed plaster walls on which the decoration was installed.

You can see the restoration work in this short video:

From oblivion to flourishing – salons reopen to the general public

The entire project took about 10 years – from 2011, when the boxes that stored the decorative pieces were first opened, until the grand opening in 2021. At the same time as the salons were installed, the facade was renovated, as was the lobby of the Hôtel de Rouen, which incorporated sculptures and architectural elements that were scattered throughout the Hôtel de la Chancellery d'Orléans. After ten years of work and an investment of 20 million euros, the salons were ready for the grand opening.

And so, on the evening of October 19, 2021, the invited and distinguished guests, led by Bertrand du Vigneault and Minister of Culture Rosaline Chelou, arrived at the Hôtel de Rouen at 87 Rue du Temps in the Marais district, to watch the salons for the first time in 100 years.

Stefan Bern, Prince Amin Aga Khan, Prince Charles Henri Lebkovitch – a direct descendant of Louis XIV – and many other dignitaries stood at the festive evening and marveled not only at these magnificent salons but also at the extraordinary work of their restoration and installation.

100 volatile and tiring years came to an end that evening, granting Paris yet another unprecedented cultural and artistic treasure.

Practical information

The Chancellery is not yet open to the public on a regular and free basis, as the project as a whole is not yet complete. The second-floor salons are still awaiting renovation, and efforts to restore some of the original furniture to the Chancellery, which stands largely empty, are still underway.

However, there are two free tours on the first two Saturdays of each month at 14:00 PM, limited to 20 people per tour.

To book the tour, please log in toThis link.

Entrance is through the main gate of the Hôtel des Sauvage, located at 60 rue Franck Bourgeois in the Marais district of Paris. Please approach the hotel entrance a few minutes before the tour begins, which begins there.