Hôtel du Roule & Théodore Géricault

Part 1

Théodore Géricault was born in the Norman city of Rouen in 1791 as many readers know. Sometime in 1796, or 1797, Théodore moved to Paris with his parents and maternal grandmother into apartments in the faubourg Saint-Germain, south of the Seine River. In Paris, Géricault attended three private boarding schools. The first of these boarding schools was the pension Dubois & Loiseau on the Rue de Monsieur. Because we still have much to learn about this establishment I continue my examination of the pension Dubois & Loiseau here.

Théodore Géricault’s first boarding school, it turns out, had close connections with another private boarding school, one of the most important in Paris, situated at the Hôtel du Roule (Roulle) on the opposite side of the Seine. The Hôtel du Roule was located on the Rue Neuve-de-Berry, near Chaillot, not far from the Champs d'Elysée west of Paris. Almost nothing has been written about this edifice, however, - in large part I believe, because of the Hôtel du Roule's unique history and place in the public imagination during the latter half of the 18th century.

In 1750, the Hôtel du Roule was home to the fabled brothel of Madame Justine Paris, successfully servicing the needs and desires of wealthy French clients and those from abroad. A decade later, the Hôtel du Roule was home to a Latin grammar school, and then to a private boarding school: educating the male children of aristocrats and the wealthy. This article is part one of two in which I discuss the brothel of Madame Paris at the Hôtel du Roule, private boarding schools at the Hôtel du Roule, and the connections linking Théodore Géricault to these establishments.