Hôtel de Lamballe – a magnificent palace, a madhouse and the Turkish embassy

When you visit the garden Honore de Balzac's house In the 16th arrondissement, if you look down, you'll see a magnificent palace called the Hôtel de Lamballe. Today it's the Turkish embassy, ​​which doesn't exactly impress us, but the palace has a long history that includes balls, an owner who ended her life being torn apart by a crowd, and even a mental hospital where quite a few important people were hospitalized.

Since unfortunately we will not be able to visit this palace (not even during heritage days), but only view it from afar, let me tell you its story, so that we can visit it at least virtually.

The palace of Marie Antoinette's best friend

The Countship of Passy attracted aristocrats centuries before Passy became part of Paris. It is therefore not surprising that as early as the 15th century there was an aristocratic estate here, built on the foundations of a monastery that had stood here during the Middle Ages.

The estate's location, not far from the Seine, made it a prime location, and over the centuries that followed, a long line of nobles lived here, each of whom expanded the estate, built additional wings, and of course took care of a beautiful park right on the banks of the river.

He arrived there at the age of 72 with his young wife, who was 15 when they married (he was a young man of 63). Since he was a particularly unpleasant person (read the article about the Hôtel de Luzon and you will understand why), his wife hoped that her husband would die and she would remain a young widow. Unfortunately, she had to wait 31 years until her 91-year-old husband would be kind enough to leave this world.

When the Duke died, his widow decided to sell the palace and it passed through several hands, until in 1783 it was sold for 110,000 pounds to Princess de Lamballe (Marie-Thérèse-Louise de Savoie-Carignan 1749-1792), and she was the one who gave the palace its name.

Good girl Savoy

Before we continue telling the story of the palace, it is time to say a few words about Princess de Lamballe, and how a struggle for succession led her to her terrible end.

Born Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoy Carignan, the princess was a descendant of the Dukes of Savoy and the Kings of Sardinia, who in the 19th century would unite Italy and become its monarchs. Marie Thérèse was a graceful girl with a good character, or “the good girl of Savoy” for short, who grew up in a convent and devoted herself to prayer and charity.

And here we must quickly skip from Turin, where Marie-Thérèse lives, straight to France, where the Duke of Penthièvre (Louis de Bourbon duc de Penthièvre 1725-1793) resides. The Duke, the illegitimate grandson of Louis XIV, and one of the richest men in Europe, has a problem. His son and heir, Prince de Lamballe, was an extreme womanizer, who before the age of 20 had already visited the best brothels in Paris And sleep with the capital's best theater actresses.

However, the princess was no match for the Parisian theater actresses, and soon after she was abandoned in favor of an unknown actress with whom he fell in love and even sold his wife's diamonds to cover his mistress's debts. In return, the actress gave him a gift of her own – a fatal venereal disease – and so in 1768, about a year after the marriage, the Prince de Lamballe died, leaving his wife a widow at the age of 19.

His widow inherited not only her husband's property but also his venereal disease when she contracted it from him during one of their few attempts to produce an heir. The Duc de Penthiver, taking pity on his son's widow, invited her to the palace of Rambouillet and even invited the best doctors to try and cure the princess. The doctors' efforts were successful and the disease retreated, but its symptoms remained on the princess's unfortunate body.

In 1769, Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, and future Duke of Orléans (Louis-Philippe d'Orléans 1747-1793), decided to marry Marie-Adélaïde, sister of the Prince de Lamballe (Marie-Adélaïde de Bourbon 1753-1821) and one of the heirs to the Duke de Penthiver's vast fortune. Without knowing it at the time, it was this marriage that brought about the tragic end of the Princess de Lamballe 23 years later…

best friends

In the same year that the Duke of Orléans married the sister of the late Prince de Lamballe, his widow arrives at the royal court. As before, the princess was a small pawn controlled by forces greater than herself, and this time it was the daughters of Louis XV, who were looking for a bride to “appease” their dress-obsessed father, and they came to the conclusion that the Princess de Lamballe was the perfect person for this (sound familiar to you from somewhere?).

Luckily for the Princess de Lamballe, Louis XV “found him a new toy” in the form of Countess du Barry And decided that he did not want to marry. Thus the princess was spared the fate of the little and betrayed woman, but because of her position she remained at the king’s court. A year later, a new princess arrived at the court, between whom and the Princess de Lamballe could be found a number of similarities. Both were tools in the hands of courtiers and diplomats, and both came from abroad and were strangers at the king’s court.

With the friends came the prizes, and after Marie Antoinette became Queen of France in 1774, the Princesse de Lamballe was given the prestigious role of head of the Queen's household. In order to be relatively close to the royal court, on the one hand, but also to the City of Lights, on the other, the Princesse de Lamballe decided to buy the palace in Passy in 1783, as it was right on the road between Paris and Versailles.

The princess came to this magnificent palace, which included a magnificent garden that reached as far as the Seine, whenever she wanted to rest from the intrigues of the court of VersaillesRight next to it, her father-in-law, the Duc de Pentivier, lived in the Château de Boulainvilliers, which was later destroyed and on its ruins, among other things, was built Ranelagh GardenTogether they engaged in charity and good deeds, but at the same time, magnificent balls were held in the gardens of the Hôtel de Lamballe on the banks of the Seine.

Murder by courier

This whole idyll was shattered in 1789, six years after the Princess de Lamballe had purchased her palace. In Paris, a French Revolution And Marie Antoinette quickly realizes that what was will be no more, and that France has become a dangerous place.

The Queen and Princess continued to correspond with each other, and in many of the letters the Queen demanded that the Princess remain in England because the situation in France was only becoming more and more dangerous. However, one day, in 1792, a letter arrived from Marie Antoinette in which the Queen asked the Princess de Lamballe to return to France urgently.

Since the Princess de Lamballe was a loyal friend, she did not hesitate for a moment and boarded the ship for France. However, when the Princess arrived in Paris, she was arrested and taken to the La Force prison, which was located in the heart of Marais District (Not far from the Jewish Quarter).

On September 3, a field court was held in the prison, and the Princess de Lamballe was required to swear to accept the values ​​of the revolution. The princess agreed to this, but then she was required to condemn and curse Marie Antoinette, and she no longer agreed to this. As a result, the judges ruled that she should be executed. When she was taken to the courtyard, the mob attacked her and murdered her in a horrific manner (there is quite a bit of evidence that even claims that she was raped and her breasts were cut off).

The mob was not satisfied with the gruesome murder, but cut off the princess's head, put it on a spear, and went north to the Temple Fortress (now the 3rd arrondissement town hall). The reason they went there was because the royal family (Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and their two children) were imprisoned in this fortress. When they arrived not far from Marie Antoinette's bedroom window, they raised the spear with the head of the Princess de Lamballe on it, and the shocked queen saw the severed head of her best friend.

However, the story of the death of the Princess de Lamballe is not as simple as it seems, and in fact is more reminiscent of an Agatha Christie detective novel, in which the real murderer is someone else entirely. Like Hercule Poirot, let me draw your attention to a small but important detail that appeared at the beginning of our story: the sister of the Prince de Lamballe married the Duke of Orleans and was supposed to inherit half of the Duke de Penthiver's vast fortune.

Why only half? Because the Princesse de Lamballe, who was on excellent terms with the Duke of Pentreville, was supposed to inherit the other half. The Duke of Orléans, who was not such a poor man himself (he had founded the The first shopping mall in Palais Royal and earned significant sums of money from it), he was not satisfied with just half of the inheritance.

However, as long as the princess was safely in England, the Duke could not get his hands on her money and future inheritance, so he forged Marie Antoinette's handwriting and signature and wrote a letter demanding that the princess come to Paris. From there, everything worked like clockwork. The princess arrived in France, was imprisoned and murdered by a mob that had been incited for many years by means of pamphlets, printed at the behest of the Duke of Orléans, and contained gross lies about Marie Antoinette and the Princesse de Lamballe (some of which even stated that the queen and her best friend had had a lesbian relationship).

Now that the Princesse de Lamballe had been murdered, the Duke of Orléans had no choice but to await the death of the Duke of Pentiver, which came in March 1793 (surprisingly, he died of natural causes and not on the guillotine, like many of the nobility). Two months earlier, Louis XVI had been executed (after the Duke had voted in favor of the death penalty), and it seemed that the Duke's plan to become ruler of France was about to come to fruition.

However, “the revolution, like Saturn, devours its sons,” and during the Reign of Terror, the status of the Duke of Orléans changed very quickly. From one of the leaders of the revolution, he became a suspect in treason after his son, who served as an officer in the French Revolutionary army, joined General Dumouriez in an attempt to reach an agreement with the Austrians, enemies of revolutionary France.

The Duke of Orléans was arrested in April 1793 in Marseille, and in November of that year he was transferred To the concierge There he was sentenced to death and executed inPlace de la Concorde (It was then called “Revolution Square.”) By the way, he did not get to enjoy the inheritance money, because it went to his wife, who died about 30 years after him…

The High Society Madhouse

After the murder of the Princess de Lamballe, the palace passed from hand to hand until, in 1846, it became the psychiatric clinic of Dr. Esprit Blanche (1796-1852). Dr. Blanche studied medicine in Paris and decided to dedicate his life to treating psychiatric problems.

Dr. Blanche opened his first clinic in 1826 on the summit of Montmartre, in a city villa that had already been used as a madhouse in the late 18th century. If you would like to hear the story of this building, you are welcome to watch In this short video.

As mentioned, about 20 years after he established his clinic In the Montmartre district, where he achieved considerable success thanks to the humane method of treating mental illness that he developed, Dr. Blanche decided to move to a larger location and chose the Hôtel de Lamballe, partly because of its beautiful park. There too, Dr. Blanche achieved success that reached the ears of the French King Louis-Philippe, who appreciated the doctor so much that when he was forced to flee Paris during the Revolution of 1848, he took the trouble to ask his coachman to stop at the Hôtel de Lamballe to greet Dr. Blanche.

In 1852, Dr. Asprey Blanche died, and his place was taken by his son, Dr. Émile Blanche (1820-1893). Like his father, Dr. Émile Blanche believed in treating his patients as humanely as possible. Furthermore, Dr. Blanche, who lived in the same place as his patients, ran a literary salon in his house to which the rich and famous of Paris came, and he even allowed his patients (those who were not psychotic) to stay in the salon, with the aim of connecting them as much as possible to outside society.

Among his most famous patients are:

Poet Gérard de Nerval (1808-1855)

Gerard de Nerval was hospitalized both at the former hospital in Montmartre and in Passy. Unfortunately, the treatment only helped him temporarily and he eventually hanged himself from a street lamp in Paris.

Jewish musician Fromental Halévy (1799-1862)

One of France's most famous opera composers (known to the general public for the opera La Juive), used to play the piano in Dr. Blanche's living room, while he was hospitalized there. His wife, the sculptor Hannah-Leoni Halevy (1820-1884), was also hospitalized in the same clinic. Their daughter Esther died mysteriously in 1866, shortly after staying for about two weeks at the clinic with her mother.

Later, after being widowed and marrying the banker Emile Strauss, Genevieve would become a famous socialite and one of the models for the character of the Duchesse de Guermantes in Proust's famous book series "In Search of Lost Time."

Writer Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)

Maupassant, considered one of the greatest French writers of the second half of the 19th century, and the master of the short story, contracted syphilis, either from his father, who inherited the disease, or from one of his mistresses, and the disease began to affect his mental health.

Guy de Maupassant died on July 6, 1893 and was buried inMontparnasse CemeteryDr. Emile Blanche, who treated him, died about two months later and was buried in the family tomb estate inPassy Cemetery.

From the Gestapo headquarters to the Turkish embassy

After the death of Dr. Blanche, part of the estate was sold and Avenue de Lamballe was built on it (as a result, the palace gardens no longer reach the Seine). The palace itself passed through several hands and its condition gradually deteriorated. In 1921 it was bought by the fighter pilot Count de Limur (André Marie Adrien de Limur 1890-1971), who decided that there was no point in trying to renovate it, but rather to demolish and rebuild a perfect replica of the structure, so that today most of the palace is from the 20th century (only a small part from the 17th century has survived).

During World War II, the German occupation forces confiscated the Hôtel de Lamballe and gave it to the Gestapo. When I wrote this article, I was unable to find any information about what happened at the Hôtel de Lamballe during this period, but it is safe to say that it was not the main Gestapo base, as it was on Avenue Foch (it, like the Hôtel de Lamballe, is in the 16th arrondissement).

Surprisingly, the Gestapo left the Hôtel de Lamballe more or less as it had received it. In 1944, the niece of the Turkish ambassador to France was walking in the neighborhood and came across the Hôtel de Lamballe. She fell in love with the building and the garden and suggested to the ambassador that it become the Turkish embassy in France. After negotiations, the building was bought by the Turks in 1945, and in return the French received another palace in Ankara.

Since that year, the Turkish embassy has been located there, and unfortunately for us as Israelis, it is not possible to visit there (in the current situation, I would not recommend visiting there, not even during the Heritage Days(When the place is open to the general public).

And I can only hope that one day Erdogan will suffer the fate of Princesse de Lamballe or Guy de Maupassant, and Turkey will have a less anti-Semitic ruler. Then perhaps we can celebrate the occasion and raise a glass of champagne in the lovely palace gardens that have seen so much “action” over the past 400 years.

Bonus: Delida's first apartment

Dr. Orna Lieberman added some interesting information to me. Very close to the Hôtel de Lamballe is Ankara Street, so named because of its proximity to the Turkish Embassy. The main entrance to the embassy is at 16 Avenue de Lamballe:

And there is also a side entrance at number 17 rue d'Ankara:

At number 7 of the same Ankara Street, in an elegant building from the 40s, the singer Dalida bought her first apartment, a two-level penthouse. The building, including the balcony, can be seen on the left side of the photograph “Hotel de Lamballe,” above the hotel itself.

This is the apartment that Dalida lived in with Lucien Morris, the man who made her a star. After they broke up, Dalida left him the apartment, and he lived there with his third wife and children until he committed suicide by shooting himself at the age of 41. If you would like to read more about the love story of Dalida and Lucien, as well as about Dalida’s entire fascinating life, you are invited to read Dr. Orna Lieberman’s article Dalida forever.

In this video (thanks, Orna) you can see the interior of the apartment designed by the gifted singer and decorated with treasures she brought from her travels around the world:

https://youtu.be/tbAe0TKoCXc?si=wzmg7DjX_swSHXWm

FAQ