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Hôtel de Charost
The Official Residence of His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador to France.
The Hôtel de Charost seen from the gardens.
General information
Location	Paris, France
Address	39, rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré 75008 Paris, France
Current tenants	His Majesty's Diplomatic Service
Construction started	1722
Completed	1725
Client	Paul François de Béthune-Charost, marquis de Ancenis.
Technical details
Floor count	4
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Antoine Mazin

Hôtel de Charost is a hôtel particulier located at 39 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. Since 1814, it has been the official residence of the ambassador of the United Kingdom to France. It is located near the Élysée Palace.

History

1720-1803

With the death of Louis XIV, the French court began to shift back to Paris, prompting aristocrats to search for residences near the capital but outside the crowded, seedy city center. At that time, the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré was a winding road to the west of Paris, starting at the edge of the city and passing through fields and market gardens toward the village of Roule and along the route to Versailles. It had the fresh air, space, and proximity to Paris sought by the aristocrats, and soon became home to fifteen hôtels particulier.

One such aristocrat was Paul François de Béthune-Charost, marquess of Ancenis, Captain of the King’s Bodyguard, and son of Armand de Béthune, the 3rd Duke of Charost. Ancenis hired Jean Antoine Mazin, the King's own engineer and director of plans, who had just finished work on the Hôtel Matignon, to design his new residence. Mazin presented Ancenis with the completed plans on April 20, 1722, with work beginning that same year. It was built entre cour et jardin, with an entrance on the street, the house set back on the other side of the courtyard, and the largest front of the house facing the garden.

The street entrance was centered between two pavilions, with the stable block to the west, on the right, and the kitchens to the east, on the left. The cour d'honneur was directly ahead from the entrance, in the middle. On the right of the cour d'honneur was the cour de l'ecurie, on the left, the cour de service, each separated from the center by a arcade of five arches. The stable pavilion held four carriages and approximately twenty five horses on the ground floor, servants rooms on the first floor, and stores and haylofts in the attic. On the ground floor of the east pavilion were the kitchen, its associated rooms, and a smaller carriage house, with servants rooms and stores above.

The hôtel had rooms for Ancenis, his father, his wife, and their six children. Charost's apartment on the first floor spanned the whole of the house on the garden side, an enfilade of chapel, ante-room, reception room, bedchamber and closet. Ancenis' suite on the same floor overlooked the courtyard, while his wife's was below the Duke's on the ground floor. The second floor housed the next generation, who would move downstairs as rooms became available, while the attics housed servants and the basements, stores.

The house remained largely the same from its completion until Armand Joseph, the 5th Duke, decided to lease the property in 1785 to a distant relative, Auguste Marie Raymond d'Arenberg, comte de la Marck. The comte took a nine year lease and demanded alterations to make the house more habitable and fashionable. Under his purview, the hôtel's eighteenth century interior decor was completed by such projects as enclosing the hall with entrance doors and windows, substituting larger glass panes for the previous 36 lights in the majority of the windows, minor room rearrangements, installing running water in the kitchen, and replacing the parterre with a lawn. The comte also planted what has always been known as the "English Garden." In 1787, La Marck commissioned a 220 page inventory of fixtures, which is an important document in the history of the house.

The comte was unable to complete his lease due to the French revolution, and in 1792, sublet the hôtel to the Portugese Ambassador, Dom Vicente de Sousa Coutinho, who died within months. La Marck's creditors then seized the property and sealed the house, leaving only a skeleton staff behind. Shortly thereafter, in January 1793, King Louis XVI was guillotined in the place de la Revolution, scarcely 500 yards from the hôtel. As an exile, La Marck's property was subject to confiscation, and in July 1795, the house's contents were put up for auction. As the true owner, the 5th Duke of Charost eventually reclaimed his property from the government, however he chose not to take up residence and instead leased the premises.

In 1799, the Duke leased the hôtel to the French government, for use as an office by an agency responsible for administering military hospitals. After the 5th Duke died in 1800, his widow, the Duchesse de Charost, continued to lease the property. Notably, in late 1802 or early 1803, the property was leased to the British Ambassador, Earl Whitworth. The house's first tenure as a British Embassy was short lived, however, as British relations with Napoleonic France ended in May 1803, shortly before war was declared.

1803 to 1814

Within weeks of Earl Whitworth vacating the hôtel, the Duchesse received a generous offer from Pauline, the youngest sister of Napoleon Bonaparte. Pauline's husband, General Charles Leclerc, had recently died of yellow fever, and she was tired of living with her brother, Joseph. She desired a grand Parisian residence of her own, despite a lack of funds with which to pay for it, and the fact that the Earl's lease had not yet expired. Although the marriage would not become public until November, Pauline married Camillo Borghese, 6th Prince of Sulmona in August 1803, in a clandestine ceremony in the Hôtel de Charost, where Pauline was already living. Although the hôtel was stipulated as Pauline's property in the marriage contract, she had yet to pay for it, and it became the Palais Borghese,after her new married name.

In 1804, when the First Empire was proclaimed, Pauline became an Imperial Princess and the hôtel an official royal residence. In April 1804, Napoleon settled Pauline's debts.

Napoleon paid 300,000 francs of the 400,000 francs purchase price, and Borghese borrowed the rest from her brother and sister. Borghese added two large wings to the south side of the house, facing the garden. The west wing was built to house Borghese's collection of art, while the east wing became the state dining room.

1814 to Present

In 1814, the British government instructed the Duke of Wellington to find a permanent site for the British embassy. The government purchased the hôtel and its contents, sans the Borghese paintings, from Borghese and paid her in instalments of Louis d'or for the equivalent of 275,000 pounds. Borghese passed the gold onto Napoleon, who had been exiled to Elba following the Treaty of Fontainebleau. His dramatic return that climaxed the next year at Waterloo was partly financed with the sale of this house to the British.

Although the Duke of Wellington was Ambassador for only five months in 1814, he entertained lavishly, buying new silver and Sevres china for the house.

Notable Events Occurring At the Embassy

• 3 October 1833: Hector Berlioz married Harriet Smithson.
• 25 January 1874: W. Somerset Maugham was born.
• 15 April 1874: Lord Randolph Churchill married Jennie Jerome.
• 11 November 1944: Winston Churchill lunched with Charles De Gaulle after a stroll down the Champs Elysées.

Gallery

• 
  Dining Room
• 
  Throne Room
• 
  Salon Pauline
• 
  Bust of Queen Victoria in the Throne Room

External links

• Media related to Hôtel de Charost at Wikimedia Commons

Charost Category:Buildings and structures in the 8th arrondissement of Paris Category:Houses completed in 1725 Category:Baroque buildings in France