Hotel de Sens, Paris – not as it seems

The Hotel de Sens in the 4^th arrondissement of Marais in Paris, France, is not as it seems. It is not a hotel.

The Hotel de Sens is a medieval mansion that now holds the Forney Art Library.

It was built as a hotel in 1345 for the archbishops of Sens. It was later called the Hotel Saint-Pol, the royal residence of Charles V, King of France. Subsequently, the kings of France lived in the newly-built Louvre Palace, and the Hotel Saint-Pol was destroyed.

Tristian de Salazar built the current hotel on the same site between 1475-1519 for the archbishops of Sens again.

In 1797, it was sold and privately owned as a home, shop, workshop, and factory over the years. It became a heritage site in 1862, when the city of Paris bought it. It was restored in 1930 and the Forney Art Library was established in the building in 1961. It continues to keep the name, Hotel de Sens.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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