Paris, France Folder C/parisC606
Previous | Home | NextA fire in 1871 destroyed archival records, and this Turgot excerpt is the only known rendition of the exterior of Hotel Mouchy, when it was known as Hotel d'Estrées. As is the case with many mansions in France, it has a colorful history. The Hotel was built in 1699 in the Fauberg [suburb] St. Germain, a fashionable new community located across the Seine, to which the elite and nobility were then drifting. The mansion, originally called Hotel d’Estrées after the designer, was erected on Rue de l’Université for a widow marquise of the Noailles family, who in 1702 married the 2nd Duc de Richelieu. His son, the 3rd Duc de Richeleiu, is known for his debauchery and for his invention of mayonaisse for Napoleon during a military campaign. The 3rd Duc was married off to his stepsister, and the wedding feast was conducted in the Hotel d'Estrées. After his wife died of smallpox, he moved on to other debaucheries, weddings, and lodgings, and the mansion reverted to the Mouchy branch of the Noailles family. In 1794 the Noailles occupants of the mansion were guillotined and it was confiscated by the government and transferred to l'Agence des Mines.
