History

Around 1765, the joiner

Joiner

A joiner differs from a carpenter in that joiners cut and fit joints in wood that do not use nails. Joiners usually work in a workshop since the formation of various joints generally requires non-portable machinery. A carpenter normally works on site...

 Jacques Belhomme

Jacques Belhomme

Jacques Belhomme was a personality of the French Revolution and the owner of the Pension Belhomme. He appears in the 1951 film Caroline chérie after the novel by Jacques Laurent.-Life:...

 took on the construction of a building for the son of a neighbouring aristocrat, who had been mad since birth. Seeing that running an asylum was more lucrative than joinery, he opened an asylum for lunatics, old people and whoever else rich families wanted to entrust to him. A famous precursor of psychiatry, Philippe Pinel

Philippe Pinel

Philippe Pinel was a French physician who was instrumental in the development of a more humane psychological approach to the custody and care of psychiatric patients, referred to today as moral therapy...

, carried out his first treatments of the insane here.

On the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, Jacques Belhomme thought his fortune was assured. Remote from the violent centre of Paris and the complacencies of its then masters, Jacques Belhomme had noticeable advantages. In September 1793 the députés encouraged the sans-culottes to imprison all suspect individuals - nobles, their wives and childre, foreigners, priests, lawyers, the actors of the Comédie Française, rich people in general - in short, all those who had not made clear their allegiance to the Republic. With the prisons of Paris already overflowing, the state requisitioned Belhomme's asylum and then all other private clinics. Belhomme entreated the 12 police chiefs in charge of Paris to send him rich prisoners who would pay a high fee to live in his asylum as comfortably as possibly. From then on marquises, bankers, journalists, famous actors, old nobles and army officers (along with other disgraced persons who bribed the doctors and police chiefs to be transferred here on the pretext of illness) lived cheek-by-jowl with the mad here.

This scandal finally burst in January 1794. Belhomme was arrested for supplying wine to the prisoners and imprisoned in another pension, at Coignard

Coignard

The Coignard was a convent of Canonesses founded in Paris on 7 October 1647 and dedicated to Saint-Augustin de la Victoire-de-Lépante...

, where the Marquis de Sade

Marquis de Sade

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...

 was also held. He was found guilty twice and, like the majority of his pensionaries, only escaped the guillotine due to the fall of the Terror

Reign of Terror

The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...

 on 9 Thermidor. Some of his pensionaries did not escape, however, proving too well-known to pass unnoticed - Béatrice de Choiseul-Stainville, duchesse de Gramont, sister of Louis XV's famous minister; the duchess of Le Châtelet, daughter-in-law of a famous mistress of Voltaire

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

, the fermier général Magon de La Balue, guillotined with his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, brothers and cousins; and the lawyer Simon-Nicholas Henri Linguet

Simon-Nicholas Henri Linguet

Simon-Nicholas Henri Linguet , French journalist and advocate, was born in Reims, where his father, the assistant principal in the Collège de Beauvais of Paris, had recently been exiled by lettre de cachet for engaging in the Jansenist controversy.He attended the College de Beauvais and won the...

, despite his denunciation of the monarchy for which he had spent a year in the Bastille

Bastille

The Bastille was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. The Bastille was built in response to the English threat to the city of...

 under the ancien regime.

To expand during his luck year, Jacques Belhomme rented the neighbouring building, the hôtel de Chabanais, to which he linked his own building by a charming garden (the young marquis de Chabanais, descendant of Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...

, had emigrated with his mother and had his possessions confiscated by the state). Belhomme ended up buying this house to invest the money he had raised during the Terror. It was in this setting occurred the romance between Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon

Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon

Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, Duchess of Orléans, , was the daughter of Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre and of Princess Maria Theresa Felicitas of Modena. At the death of her brother, Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, prince de Lamballe, she became the wealthiest heiress in France...

 (widow of duc d’Orléans

Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans

Louis Philippe Joseph d'Orléans commonly known as Philippe, was a member of a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon, the ruling dynasty of France. He actively supported the French Revolution and adopted the name Philippe Égalité, but was nonetheless guillotined during the Reign of Terror...

 and mother of the future king Louis-Philippe

Louis-Philippe of France

Louis Philippe I was King of the French from 1830 to 1848 in what was known as the July Monarchy. His father was a duke who supported the French Revolution but was nevertheless guillotined. Louis Philippe fled France as a young man and spent 21 years in exile, including considerable time in the...

) and of the deputy to the National Convention

National Convention

During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 . It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic...

 Jacques-Marie Rouzet

Jacques-Marie Rouzet

Jacques-Marie Rouzet , comte de Folmon, was a French politician. He was the lover of Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon after the death of her husband the duke of Orleans....

, whom she married in secret on leaving prison.

The hôtel de Chabanais was razed in 1953 as was the maison Belhomme in 1973, following real-estate speculations.