The hotel of Roquelaure (1709-1740)
It is in 1709 on that the marshal Antoine Gaston, duke of Roquelaure, decides to settle down faubourg Saint-Germain, new district in favour, and acquires the hotel of Villetaneuse September 24th, 1709.
Without proceeding to big(great) changes the first years, Roquelaure increases by it the ground in 1711. It is that in 1724 when the duke of Roquelaure confides(entrusts) the plans of a new hotel to the thought architect Pierre Cailleteau Lassurance (1655-1724). He(It) transforms the hotel radically to extend it and to return it deserving of the ducal row(rank).
After the death of the marshal of Roquelaure, the hotel is sold in July, 1740 in Mathieu-François Molé, first president of the Parliament of Paris.
The Molé (1740-1807) hotel
The hotel takes the name of its new owner. The president Molé, who has the reputation of a rich, honorable and not very society man, appreciates(estimates) nevertheless to have a fashionable inside and makes execute new woodworks and paintings(paints) in the hotel. He(It) is going to appeal to renowned painters: Jean-Baptiste Oudry and Charles-Joseph Natoire who(which) will receive the command(order) of four paintings(cloths). Up to Revolution, different generations of the family Molé mix in property. Seized in 1793 in the arrest of his owner, Édouard-François Molé (guillotined on April 20th, 1794), the hotel is transformed into asylum for scabby, then allocated to the commission(committee) of Agriculture(Farming) and of Arts. In 1795, Convention(Agreement) restores the hotel to the family. Apartments are then rented to diverse people, of whom the count of Hatzfeld the baron Van Hoorn Van Vlooswyck, until 1807.
From Cambacérès in our days...
Having succeeded in Robespierre at the head of the Committee of public Safety(Salute), Jean-Jacques Régis de Cambacérès (1753-1824) becomes, after Brumaire, the right hand of Bonaparte which owes it a big(great) part of its fortune. He(It) replaces Napoleon as soon as this one leaves the capital, manages the Council of State, represents Assemblies, organises justice. Cambacérès is the project manager of Napoleon's big(great) realisations. Richly endowed and honoured, Cambacérès is made Archichancelier de l' Empire in 1804, duke of Parma on March 19th, 1808, big(great) eagle of the Legion of Honor, member(limb) of the Institute, Jean-Jacques-Régis of Cambacérès buys the Molé hotel in 1808. He(It) adds the hotel of Lesdiguières (then of Sully) there, gathering(combining) both properties definitely. He(It) receives whole Europe in his(its) hotel. Official dinners follow one another to the rhythm of two a week, dinners organised in a political purpose for the service(department) of the Emperor there. As Talleyrand, Cambacérès knows that a good cook is worth an army and the table of the archichancelier is one of the most renowned in his/her time. The archichancelier of Empire domiciles(resides) up to its departure in banishment there in 1816.
The hotel is sold the same year to the duchess of Orléans. From 1816 till 1821, Louise-Marie-Adélaïde of Bourbon-Penthièvre keeps(preserves) in the hotel its vocation of big(great) richly adorned manorial house and in fact undoubtedly one of the most beautiful of the faubourg Saint-Germain. Her children, the future king Louis-Philippe and Madam Adélaïde, will not live in the hotel.
In 1823, the duke of Orléans suggests to Louis XVIII exchanging the hotel for wooden cups(cutting) in forest of Bondy and installing(settling) the Storehouse of the Crown there.
Under the July Monarchy, the hotel accommodates the Council of State (1831) then it is allocated to the ministry of Public work (prescription of September 10th, 1839).
The hotel of Roquelaure shelters currently the cabinet(office) of the ministry of the ecological and united Transition the Central Administration of which is grouped(included) in the district of The Defense.
The history(story) of the hotel of Roquelaure is so the one of an old(former) mansion of the become faubourg Saint-Germain the seat(siege) of a ministry. In that respect, she(it) postpones not much of many more history(story) hotels of the district. However, he is one of those who is the best keeping(preserving) because the different occupants did not wish to change the hotel deeply and were eager to preserve the old(former) decorations(sets).
This is the way(That's how) the hotel keeps(preserves) certain classic rigour inherited of XVII ème century. He(It) establishes(constitutes) a precious evidence of the architecture of the reign of Louis XIV. The wealth of the decorations(sets) of certain rooms(parts,plays) in« rocaille style» realised by the ormenaniste Nicolas Pineau (1684-1754) and the architect Jean Baptiste Leroux make of the hotel of Roquelaure an unique(only) place still lived by the memory(souvenir) of its famous owners.
[STOP_TRANSLATION]L’apport original des décorations du XIX ème siècle du règne de Louis-Philippe et du Second Empire, tentant de s’accorder aux autres pièces, est aussi important et complète admirablement la lignée de décoration intérieure civile et publique laissée par deux siècles dans un même bâtiment.
L’ensemble des façades et toitures, ainsi que le portail, le sol de la cour d’honneur et le jardin, font l’objet d’un classement au titre des monuments historiques depuis le 29 avril 1961.