The Hôtel de Besenval is a historic hôtel particulier in Paris with a cour d'honneur and a large English landscape garden, an architectural style commonly known as entre cour et jardin – meaning a residence between the entrance court in front of the building and the garden behind it. The building is listed as a historical monument by decree of 20 October 1928. It houses the Embassy of the Swiss Confederation and the residence of the Swiss ambassador to France since 1938.
Location
The premises are at 142 Rue de Grenelle in the district of Faubourg Saint-Germain in the 7th arrondissement, opposite the Hôtel du Châtelet and close to the Hôtel des Invalides.
The Faubourg Saint-Germain has long been known as the favourite home of the French nobility and hosts numerous aristocratic hôtels particuliers. Many of these residences later became foreign embassies and ambassadorial residences or administrative headquarters of the City of Paris or seats of ministries of France.
In the early 18th century, the French nobility started to move from the Marais, the then aristocratic district of Paris where nobles used to build their hotels particuliers, to the clearer, less populated and less polluted Faubourg Saint-Germain; an area which soon became the new residential area of France's highest ranking nobility. Families like those of the Duc d’Estrées, the Duc du Châtelet or the Duc de Noirmoutier moved there. Their former residences still bear their names today. Therefore, the instinct of the early investors was right when they bought at the beginning of the 18th century their plots of land on what would soon become one of the best addresses in Paris: The Rue de Grenelle.
History
Hôtel Chanac de Pompadour
The origins of the Hôtel de Besenval go back to a single-floor residence, the Hôtel Chanac de Pompadour, erected in 1704 for a man of the Church, Pierre Chanac Hélie de Pompadour, Baron de Treignac, Abbé de Vigeois, Prieur de La Valette and Prévost d'Arnac. It is believed that the abbé was a descendant of the family of Guillaume V de Chanac (1248–1348), Évêque de Paris from 1333 until 1342.
For the design and the construction of his new residence, the abbé commissioned the celebrated architect Pierre-Alexis Delamair. Delamair was very much in demand at the time. It was around the same time when he was involved in two other major building projects in Paris: the remodeling of the Hôtel de Clisson, lately known as the Hôtel de Guise, for François de Rohan, Prince de Soubise, which consequently became the Hôtel de Soubise and the construction of the Hôtel de Rohan for Armand Gaston Maximilien, Prince de Rohan.
Pierre-Alexis Delamair's one-off project
thumb|left|Plan drawn by Pierre-Alexis Delamair in 1704 for the Hôtel Chanac de Pompadour. Visible are the ground floors of the corps de logis as well as of the outbuildings around the cour d'honneur and parts of the garden, which was on different levels at the time. Around the basse-cour (the small courtyard) was space for five coaches in the remises, 18 horses in the écuries and many chickens in the abbé's poullayer. The Hôtel Chanac de Pompadour is a special feature in Delamair's work, as it is the only single-floor hôtel particulier he ever designed. With the Hôtel Chanac de Pompaodur, Delamair also set new standards in façade architecture. The sober, linear neoclassical façade was a novelty and a contrast to the ornate façades that had prevailed up to that point. Architects, who later made changes to the building, always respected Delamair's basic structure and design.
In his book titled: Nouvelle description de la ville de Paris et de tout ce qu’elle contient de plus remarquable (New description of the City of Paris and all that what it contains most remarkable), first published in 1713, Germain Brice (1652–1727) describes the Hôtel Chanac de Pompadour as a pleasant place. He states: "Abbé Pierre Chanac de Pompadour has erected a house which is decorated with a number of vases and figures." Further Brice points out: "The apartments enjoy an advantageous view and the house, actually built in a rather light way, does not fail to provide several amenities which make the residence pleasant."