Hôtel de Sens: The Archbishops' Medieval Palace
Why is it significant?
At the end of the street, a castle from a fairy tale: pointed turrets with slate cones, a Gothic archway, a square tower, and in front of it a formal garden of clipped hedges. The Hôtel de Sens is one of the very last medieval private mansions still standing in Paris.
Key Facts
| Place | Hôtel de Sens: The Archbishops' Medieval Palace |
|---|---|
| Address | 1 Rue du Figuier, 75004 Paris, France |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.85350, 2.35880 |
| Part of Walk | Princes, Rebels and the Pletzl: The Marais of Paris, from Hôtel de Ville to Bastille |
| Generated | Generated |
At the end of the street, a castle from a fairy tale: pointed turrets with slate cones, a Gothic archway, a square tower, and in front of it a formal garden of clipped hedges. The Hôtel de Sens is one of the very last medieval private mansions still standing in Paris.
It was built between about 1475 and 1519 as the Paris residence of the archbishops of Sens. That sounds strange today, but until 1622 Paris did not even have its own archbishop: the bishop of Paris answered to Sens, a small cathedral town in Burgundy, and its archbishops needed a grand house for their visits to court. The turrets and battlements were for show more than for war... though in the age of the Wars of Religion, a little show of strength did no harm.
In 1605 a famous tenant moved in: Marguerite de Valois, Queen Margot, the first wife of Henry the Fourth, whose marriage had been annulled, now over fifty and still the subject of every scandal at court. The story goes that in 1606 one of her young favourites was shot dead at the door of her carriage by a jealous rival, right in front of this house. Margot demanded the killer's head and got it... and then left the house, unable to stand the place any longer.
Search the façade above the street: a cannonball is lodged in the stone, with a date carved beneath it: 28 July 1830, a souvenir of the Three Glorious Days, the July Revolution that toppled King Charles the Tenth. Since 1961 the building has housed the Bibliothèque Forney, a library devoted to decorative arts, posters, wallpapers and crafts. A restoration a few years ago left the stone so bright and clean that some Parisians joked it looked like a theme-park castle.
Judge for yourself... then walk a few steps north along rue du Figuier, turn right into rue Charlemagne, and right again into rue des Jardins-Saint-Paul. On your right, behind a school playground, a long, battered wall of rough stone will appear, older by three centuries than anything you have seen so far.