The former palace of the princes of Salm has had almost as eventful a history as its first owners. It was put into a lottery, and won by a hairdresser’s assistant, who sold it to a man named Liertaud, who used to call himself the Marquis de Boisregard, until he was arrested for forgery, and passed from the Hôtel de Salm to the galleys of Toulon. The house was inhabited for a time, under the Directory, by Mme. de Stael, who made it the scene of those political assemblies which were destined to get her into trouble, and which, under the Empire, made it necessary for her to leave Paris and live abroad.
At last the Government bought the Hôtel de Salm, in 1803, and caused it to be arranged as the Palace of the Legion of Honour. Burnt and pillaged by the Commune, it was rebuilt on the original plan by a voluntary subscription, to which, on the invitation of the Grand Chancellor, General Vinoy, the members of the Legion of Honour contributed.
RUINS OF THE PALACE OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE, QUAI D’ORSAY.
At the corner of the Quai d’Orsay, just where the Boulevard St.-Germain terminates, is the Cercle Agricole, or Agricultural Club, composed almost exclusively of landed proprietors, and one of the best clubs in every respect that Paris possesses. The “Potato Club” it is humorously called by those who have no sympathy with agricultural pursuits, and who hold with a cert writer that “cultivators of wit have generally no land, and cultivators of land generally no wit.”
There are several Government offices in this neighbourhood: the Ministries of Agriculture, of Public Works, and of War.
The Ministry of War occupies a sort of island comprised between the Rue St.-Dominic, the Rue de Solferino, and the Rue de Bourgogne, with its principal entrance on the Boulevard St.-Germain, No. 231. The Dowager Princess of Conti inhabited the mansion until 1775, the year of her death. The next occupant was the Duc de Richelieu, who was succeeded by Loménic de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, and at the same time Minister of War in the year 1786, and by his brother, the Comte de Brienne, in 1789. Without being designated “Ministry of War,” the house seemed destined to be occupied by a succession of War Ministers. At last, however, it[{238}] became national property, and from 1802 to 1804 it was inhabited by Lucien Bonaparte. After the proclamation of the Empire, Napoleon gave it to Mme. Laetitia Bonaparte; and it was not until the Restoration that the Hôtel de Brienne became finally the official residence of the Minister of War.
PALACE OF THE LEGION OF HONOUR.