Archives nationales: The Hôtel de Soubise & the Clisson Gate
Why is it significant?
On rue des Archives, look for an odd survivor: a pointed Gothic gateway flanked by two round turrets with little pointed roofs, squeezed between later buildings.
Key Facts
| Place | Archives nationales: The Hôtel de Soubise & the Clisson Gate |
|---|---|
| Address | 60 Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, 75003 Paris, France |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.86000, 2.35780 |
| Part of Walk | Princes, Rebels and the Pletzl: The Marais of Paris, from Hôtel de Ville to Bastille |
| Generated | Generated |
On rue des Archives, look for an odd survivor: a pointed Gothic gateway flanked by two round turrets with little pointed roofs, squeezed between later buildings. It was built in the 1370s for Olivier de Clisson, constable of France, and it is one of the very last pieces of a medieval Paris mansion still standing. Then walk round the corner to rue des Francs-Bourgeois and through the great gate into a courtyard framed by a horseshoe of paired columns.
This is the Hôtel de Soubise, rebuilt from 1704 for François de Rohan, prince of Soubise, and his wife Anne de Rohan-Chabot. Courtiers whispered that the money came from Louis the Fourteenth himself, who was said to have been Anne's lover, while the prince looked the other way. Nobody has ever proved it. What we do know is that the family later filled the house with some of the most exquisite rococo rooms in Paris, like the oval salon of the princess, all gilded curves, mirrors and paintings of the story of Psyche.
In 1808 Napoleon decided that the papers of France needed a home, and the Archives nationales moved in. Today kilometres of shelves fill this mansion and its neighbours. Among the treasures: the Edict of Nantes, Napoleon's will, and the diary in which Louis the Sixteenth recorded his hunts, where for 14 July 1789, the day the Bastille fell, he wrote a single word: rien, nothing. He meant there had been no game that day... but history has never let him forget it.
The archives also keep the last letter of Marie Antoinette, written to her sister-in-law in the early hours of 16 October 1793, before she was taken to the guillotine. It never reached Madame Élisabeth. It passed instead into the hands of revolutionary officials, and was only brought to light more than twenty years later.
After the Revolution the Marais of the princes slowly decayed: the great families left, and the mansions became workshops, warehouses and crowded lodgings. Only in the 1960s, thanks to the Malraux law of 1962, did the Marais become one of the first protected historic districts in France, and the long restoration began. Now walk north up rue des Archives to rue de Bretagne, turn right, and look for the green gate of a market.