I was headed to the Hôtel de Beauvais, one of the grand mansions in the Marais, former home of Catherine de Beauvais, thinking that I’d complement my series of articles about Versailles with mention of the woman who is said to have been Louis XIV’s first lover. It’s a good story.
Catherine de Beauvais was a premier lady in waiting and confidante to Anne of Austria, Louis XIV’s mother and regent during his minority. Some historians claim the queen mother put Catherine up to a seductive encounter in the stairwell of the Louvre. Catherine was about 40, Louis 16. Their age difference and the fact that Catherine is said to have been an unattractive but hot-blooded woman with a bad eye (the court nicknamed her Cateau la Bornesse, One-Eye Catty) only make the story that much more plausible. In contemporary terms we would call this the encounter of a winner of American Idol with someone quickly eliminated from Cougars and Kittens.
Nowadays a parent can get arrested for being so devoted to a boy’s needs. But if Anne had indeed been pulling the strings then she may have had the lofty desire to keep the young king from getting involved with the wrong sort of kitten, or perhaps to simply test the boy’s manhood. Modern rumor-mongers would note that the king was at the time rather dubiously fond of ballet.
Whatever the truth, Catherine’s devotion to Anne earned Catherine and her understanding husband Pierre elevation to the status of baroness and baron de Beauvais, along with funds sufficient enough that they could join the 17th-century carriage-set by building a mansion in the Marais.
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Anyway, as I was saying, I was headed there the other day to take some pictures of Catherine’s house, when, well, you know how it goes, you set out to see a sight on the right side of the street but something on the left side of the street catches your eye. In this case it was the tiles in the window of Villa Paris and a view of Olivier Mangnez, the shop owner, at his drafting board.
Villa Paris isn’t a tile shop per se but rather Olivier Mangnez’s showroom. He specializes in old-fashion, artisan-made tiles of terracotta, stone, and enamel, including collections of delft, azulejos, marble marquetry, mosaics, and others. They are made à l’ancienne in the countries where the individual styles originated or where bygone traditions of production are maintained: France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Morocco. Though numerous examples can be seen in the showroom, Villa Paris isn’t actually a place for browsing but for playing with ideas and making informed choices. Most of Mr. Mangnez’s visitors are either decorators seeking a particular style or homeowners seeking high-quality, customized work for a specific space.
In addition to projects throughout France, Mr. Mangnez works with decorators involved in high-end projects overseas. His American credentials include tiles for a Cuban-style home in Miami, terracotta in Boston, and mosaic in New York. He has also worked with Americans decorating their Paris pied-à-terres.
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Rue François Miron, the street on which Villa Paris is located, is a wonderful cross-section of the charms of Paris, both for its 17th- and 18th-century buildings and for storefront activities. On a relatively short street high, you’ll find, reading start to finish, i.e. from behind Hôtel de Ville/City Hall to rue de Rivoli: a little-visited church, some pretty wrought iron, a hip café-bar, two half-timbered buildings (a rarity in Paris), a swinger’s club (common in Paris), a sleepy local café that you know someone is dying to turn chic and international, an old spice shop, a pretty bakery, several restaurants, Villa Paris, the Hôtel de Beauvais, a historical society, a Scottish pub, a cross-street where you can get run over, and a row of picture-perfect food shops. It’s enough to make you want to buy an apartment right away on that very street and ask Olivier Mangnez to create a mosaic for your bathroom, design marble marquetry for your entrance, and pose tiles showing old food trades in your kitchen!
Though now an attractive side-street, rue François Miron is in fact the historical road into the heart of Paris from the west, paved when this was the entrance to the Roman city and heavily trafficked with medieval commerce entering Paris via the barrier by the Bastille. (The street was eventually bypassed with the development in the 19th century of rue de Rivoli). In the 17th century Catherine and Pierre’s house was so well situated to watch the traffic entering the city that in 1660, six year after Catherine’s alleged moment in the Sun King (or vice versa), Anne of Austria again honored her loyalty by choosing that balcony as the place from which to witness, along with an A-list of guests, the entrance of Louis XIV and his cousin-bride Maria Teresa into Paris.
The Hôtel de Beauvais, one of the last mansions in the Marais to have been completely renovated (completed in 2003), is now occupied by the Court of Appeals for administrative matters, but the courtyard can be visited upon innocent smile to the guard. You’ll notice the ram and lion heads above the ground floor; the ram (belier) makes reference to Catherine’s maiden name, Bellier. It’s best to ignore the fact that Catherine died at 75 under the weight of debt, forgotten (if ever truly known) by the king, and instead to think of her as she was known to her peers: a mature, hot-blooded baroness, willing to pay for it.
A plaque in the courtyard indicates that 7-year-old Mozart stayed here (at the time residence of the ambassador from Bavaria) while in Paris for several months in 1763, during which he was taken to Versailles to wow the Court of Louis XV.
I meant to take pictures of the Hôtel de Beauvais to show some details but by the time I left Villa Paris the sun had set and it was already closed. The Scottish pub a few doors down was just coming alive.
Villa Paris, 31 rue François Miron, 4th arr. Tel. 01 42 74 07 05. E-mail villa-paris@cegetel.net. Site www.villa-paris.com. Open Mon.-Fri. 10am-1pm and 2:30pm-6:30pm.
© 2007 by Gary Lee Kraut