Hôtel de Nevers (left bank)


The Hôtel de Nevers, later the Hôtel de Guénégaud, then the Hôtel de Conti, was a French aristocratic townhouse, which was located on the Quai de Nevers, just east of the former Tour de Nesle on the site of the present day Hôtel des Monnaies in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. Construction began in 1580 to the designs of an unknown architect for Louis Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers, although it was never completed as intended. The hôtel was demolished sometime between 1753 and 1771.

Hôtel de Guénégaud

The Hôtel de Nevers was purchased in 1646 by Henri de Guénégaud and transformed by the architect François Mansart into the Hôtel de Guénégaud in 1648–1652. The rue Guénégaud was created on the garden side of the hôtel.

Hôtel de Conti

In 1660, Anne-Marie Martinozzi, Princesse de Conti, who was a niece of Cardinal Mazarin, acquired a hôtel particulier on the Quai Malaquais on the Left Bank of the River Seine, only a short distance downstream from the Hôtel de Guénégaud. Her hôtel became known as the Hôtel de Conti, and two of her sons, Louis Armand de Bourbon and François Louis de Bourbon, were born there. In 1670 she exchanged her house on the Quai Malaquais, as well as her beautiful country house in Bouchet, for the Hôtel de Guénégaud. After the exchange, her old house on the Quai Malaquais became the Hôtel du Plessis-Guénégaud, and her new house became the Hôtel de Conti. The Quai de Nevers was renamed Quai de Conti.
After Anne-Marie's death in 1672, the Hôtel de Conti on the Quai de Conti passed to her son Louis Armand, who had become the Prince of Conti after his father's death in 1666. When Louis Armand died in 1685, he had no descendants, so the title and the house passed to his brother François-Louis de Bourbon. The latter's son, Louis Armand II de Bourbon, inherited the title and the house after his father died in 1709, and after his death in 1727, both were inherited by his son, Louis François de Bourbon. The latter sold it along with adjacent property in 1749 to form the site of a proposed new Hôtel de Ville, a project that was later abandoned. It was used as a garde-meuble for the king until 1768, when authorization was given to build the new Monnaie, for which the first stone was laid in 1771.