Hôtel de Broglie-Haussonville

Hôtel de Broglie-Haussonville is a historic private mansion at 35 rue Saint-Dominique in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, standing in the heart of the Faubourg Saint-Germain district.

What makes this address stand out in Faubourg Saint-Germain?

The Faubourg Saint-Germain was once lined with dozens of aristocratic townhouses, and only a fraction still stand largely intact today. The Hôtel de Broglie-Haussonville is one of them, sitting close to the Palais Bourbon and the seat of the French National Assembly, in a neighborhood that mixes ministries, embassies and centuries-old private residences.

When was the mansion built?

The plot's story begins in 1613, when a gardener named Robert Mauqueron and his wife Barbe Cottin bought the land and put up a modest first house. The building visitors recognize today is younger: in 1720, Achille de Broglie acquired the property for 35,000 livres and had the current mansion constructed between 1720 and 1726, giving the Broglie name — one of France's oldest noble houses — a permanent foothold on this street.

How did the Haussonville family become linked to the house?

Broglie descendants sold the estate in 1810 to Baron Jean-Nicolas Corvisart, personal physician to Napoleon Bonaparte and Empress Joséphine. The property changed hands again on 3 April 1818, when Jeanne-Marie-Thérèse Falcoz de La Blache, Countess d'Haussonville, purchased it for 163,000 francs. Under the Haussonville family the mansion took on the appearance it largely keeps today: Joseph d'Haussonville and his daughter-in-law, Louise-Albertine de Broglie, commissioned a thorough renovation from architect Hippolyte Destailleur in the mid-19th century.

Why do art lovers mention this house alongside Ingres?

Louise-Albertine de Broglie, Viscountess d'Haussonville and a resident of the mansion, sat for one of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres's most celebrated portraits. The canvas itself now hangs in the Frick Collection in New York rather than in Paris, but its subject's home remains this very address, which is why art-history enthusiasts walking the Faubourg Saint-Germain often pause here.

What is the building used for now?

The 20th century turned the mansion from a private residence into an administrative one. A property company bought it in 1921 and converted it into office space, and from 1945 it housed the French state's general directorate for civil administration and public service. After the state eventually put the building up for sale, the National Assembly acquired it in 2016 for 63 million euros, folding it into the institutional cluster it maintains in this part of the city.

Can visitors go inside?

Because the mansion now serves as an institutional annex to the French parliament, it has no permanent exhibition and no ticketed entrance for individual visitors. Most people experience it from the street, walking along rue Saint-Dominique, where the facade and carriage gate still give a clear sense of the scale and style of an 18th-century aristocratic residence.

Frequently asked questions

Where exactly is the Hôtel de Broglie-Haussonville? It stands at 35 rue Saint-Dominique in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, in the Faubourg Saint-Germain district near the Palais Bourbon.

Who originally built it? Achille de Broglie built the mansion in its present form between 1720 and 1726, on land first developed in 1613 by a gardener named Robert Mauqueron.

Where does the "Haussonville" part of the name come from? From the d'Haussonville family, who bought the property in 1818 and had it remodeled in the mid-19th century by architect Hippolyte Destailleur.

Is the mansion open to tourists? No — since 2016 it has belonged to the French National Assembly and serves administrative functions, so it is normally viewed only from the outside.