Entrepreneurs des Fêtes
Hôtel de Longueville
Géricault Life
Portrait of Ferdinand Guillemardet, French Ambassador to Spain (detail), Goya Lucientes, oil on canvas 1799, Louvre.
The Goya portrait invites us to focus on the red, white, and blue adornments and badges of the Republic. Civic officials dressed in variations of this costume. At balls and other forms of entertainments, especially those attracting the elite, uniforms such as this would have been common.
Entrepreneurs des Fêtes at the Hotel de Longueville, 1798
Entrepreneurs des Fêtes à la Maison Longueville aux Citoyens Membres composant le Directoire exécutif, Pluvôise 23 An 6, (Feb. 11, 1798); Image courtesy of the Archives Nationales (France) AF/III/275
This invitation by the entrepreneurs des fêtes to the “citizens serving in the Executive Directory,” which effectively ruled France from November 1795 until late 1799, confirms the enduring importance of the Hôtel de Longueville as both a cultural and commercial center. As we have noted, Théodore Géricault’s father worked at the Hôtel de Longueville. Jean Baptiste Caruel, Théodore’s maternal uncle worked and lived at the Hôtel de Longueville. Détailleur, himself, was one of the entrepreneurs des fêtes. At seven in the evening of February 13, 1798, the festivities would begin with a triumphal ceremony followed by a dress ball. In subsequent issues we will provide more details of the varied entertainments offered at the Hôtel de Longueville during Théodore’s time in Paris.
Entrepreneurs des Fêtes à la Maison Longueville aux Citoyens Membres composant le Directoire exécutif, Pluvôise 23 An 6, (Feb. 11, 1798); Image courtesy of the Archives Nationales (France) AF/III/275
Jean Marie Détailleur and Anisson Duperon Lease, 1792
On January 26, 1792, Jean Marie Détailleur, the adjudicaire-général of the Hôtel de Longueville, signed an agreement to lease a substantial section of the Hôtel de Longueville to Étienne Anisson Duperon, a senior administrator in the government of Louis XVI. Anisson Duperon was guillotined in 1794.
The 1792 lease agreement included a plan which has been modified with extra text to indicate specific parts of the structure: 1/ Palace of the Hôtel de Longueville; 2/ Robillard Tobacco Factory; 3/ Cour de Bal, or Ballroom Court; 4/ the arrow and letter to indicate north; and 5/ Ballroom on the Premier Étage, or second floor, a space occupied formerly by Anisson Duperon’s Republican Wallpaper Manufactory.
Plan du Rez de Chausée (Lease – Ground Floor plan). Bail M. Detailleur à M. Duperron, 26 Janvier 1792 – Image courtesy of the Archives Nationales (France) MC/ET/LXIX/810 – [Text added by author to indicated locations and orienation left to right: “circle N and arrow; Ballroom Premier Étage; Cour de Bal; Palace (Hôtel de Longueville); Robillard Tobacco Manufactory. ]
In late 1797, Jean Marie Détailleur and his partners transformed parts of Étienne Anisson Duperon’s Republican Wallpaper Manufactory into the ballroom described in the Journal de Paris announcement above. Exterior spaces also changed with the erection of wooden sheds, and hangers. All in all the plan provides us with an invaluable picture of the western part of the Hôtel de Longueville – with a scale in toise (just shy of 2 meters) as it was prior to major changes made early in the 1800s.
This plan helps us situate individual sublease-holders such as Brunton, the haberdasher, within the Hôtel de Longueville. Brunton’s shop fronted onto the Place du Carrousel, we know. Sublease-holders such as the Robillards and Anisson Duperon could petition to make significant changes to interiors. A number of businesses and individual tenants moved in and out of the Hôtel de Longueville during the years 1791 through 1806, and different tenants had different needs.
Parts north of the western entrance clearly front onto the rue St. Nicaise; while parts south of the western entrance front onto the Place du Carrousel. Jean Marie Détailleur played a key role at the Hôtel de Longueville from 1791. We will discuss the Robillard society’s relations with Détailleur in our December issue.
* Text and images edited and reformatted- August, 26, 2022.