Anne de Montmorenci, the great constable of France, in alliance, against the Huguenots, with the Guises, his near neighbors in the Marais, outfought Condé and Coligny at Saint-Denis in 1567, and died, of the wounds he got in that battle, "in his own _hôtel_ in Rue Saint-Avoie." So says the chronicle, and it tells us further that his was the grandest mansion in the town, with most extensive grounds; far surpassing in size and magnificence the Hôtels Lamoignon and Carnavalet. It was sufficiently spacious for the large-minded John Law, who established his bank in the building two centuries later. When the crash came, and he sought more modest quarters, the State took the building for its _bureaux_. Now, no stone of the structure can be found, the street from which it had entrance--Saint-Avoie--is merged in that portion of Rue du Temple which crosses Rue Rambuteau, and this broad thoroughfare sweeps over the site of Montmorenci's palace and his gardens.
Turning from Rue Rambuteau into Rue du Temple, we are face to face, at No. 71, with a monumental gateway, richly carved, giving entrance to an ample court. The stately walls surrounding this court have suffered much from time, and more from man. The old façade of this wing on our left is hidden behind a paltry new frontage for shops, and on the roof of the central body before us a contemptible top story has been put. The face of the original lofty attic, above the cornice, carried pilasters in continuation of those below, and these have been brutally mutilated by a line of low windows just over the cornice. For all that, there is a majesty in the stately arcades of these lower stories, and in the unspoiled lower walls, up which climb graceful Corinthian pilasters from ground to cornice. They are similar to those of the Hôtel Lamoignon, built before this Hôtel de Saint-Aignan was transformed from a former structure by de Muet, who doubtless admired, perhaps unconsciously imitated, the best features of the earlier architecture. He has put, in this almost intact right wing, just such a stone staircase, of easy grade and no hand-rail, as that we have seen in the residence built for Diane de France.
There is hardly any history to detain us here, and the great names that once resounded in this court make only far-away echoes now. Claude de Mesme, Comte d'Avaux, a diplomat of the seventeenth century, built this _hôtel_. At his death, it came to the Duc de Saint-Aignan, a royal Purveyor at the head of Louis XIV.'s Council of Finance. He was a relative of Madame de Scudéry, wife of the Georges whom we have met in his sister's _salon_. Through his wife's influence with Saint-Aignan, Georges was presented to the King, and succeeded in obtaining a pension--useful to supplement such of his sister's earnings as came in his way. His merits, for which the royal bounty was granted, seem to have been of so momentous a literary character as to be pronounced equal to those of Corneille!