Hôtel Thellusson

Coordinates: 48°52′28.85″N 2°20′17.75″E / 48.8746806°N 2.3382639°E

Jean-Baptiste Lallemand :
The Hôtel de Thellusson in Paris
Hôtel entrance

The Hôtel Thellusson[1] was a luxurious hôtel particulier, built in 1778 by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux for Marie-Jeanne Girardot de Vermenoux (1736–1781), widow of the banker from Geneva Georges-Tobie de Thellusson (1728–1776).[2]

This hotel was situated at 30, rue de Provence, in an English garden between the rue de Provence and the rue de la Victoire. It opened on the rue de Provence with a huge portal with the shape of a triumphal arch, in antique Medicis style, in the axis of the rue Laffitte, at that time called the rue d'Artois. It was visible from the boulevard. Coaches entered the hôtel by a swept drive; there was also an exit in rue de la Victoire.

The central hall was also circular. In the center was a rock and around it a colonnade.

After her death in 1781, Mme Thelusson's eldest son, John Isaac de Thellusson Sorcy (1764–1828) completed the hotel. As they were Genevan nationals, the Thellusson kept ownership of the hotel during the Revolution, but they returned to it only in 1797.

After the Thermidorian Reaction, there was a bal des victimes, a "victims' ball" in the hotel. It was reserved for people with a close relative guillotined during the Revolution.

John Isaac sold the hotel in 1802 to the Prince Joachim Murat, who exchanged it in 1807 with Napoleon Bonaparte for the Hôtel de l'Élysée (which will be renamed Élysée Palace) plus one million francs. Napoleon offered the house to Tsar Alexander Ist as the Russian Embassy in France. The tsar lived there in 1818, and Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, adviser of the tsar, organized prestigious balls and receptions in the hotel.

The house was destroyed in 1826 when the rue Laffitte was extended to the rue de la Victoire.

Notes

  1. ↑ Thélusson gains an accent in French.
  2. ↑ Jean-Marie Pérouse de Montclos (ed.), Le Guide du Patrimoine. (Paris, Hachette) 1994, p. 405; G. Girod de l'Ain, Les Thellusson: histoire d'une famille du XIVe siècle à nos jours, 1977.

Bibliography

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