Hôtel de Beauvais - Part III

This mansion is a great exemple of Paris being charged with centuries of history! The mansion was actually built on the plot of a house built in the 1200's and which belonged to the abbey of Cistercian monks!

Underneath the mansion, the monastic cellar is still there with its beautiful cross-vaulted ceiling. I love the simplicity of the columns. The oval staircase is from the 1600's and is also a little jewel or architecture onto itself: it is a suspended staircase without any pillar supporting it.

The architect Antoine Le Pautre may not be the most notorious of architects of the period though he will go on to serve Louis XIV's younger brother (known as "Monsieur"). The floor plan clearly shows how creative the architect had to be in order to build a mansion on such an unusual plot of land... He managed to make the exterior and inner courtyard give the impression of symmetry while the plot was anything but... Kudos!