In French contexts an
hôtel particulier is an urban "private house" of a grand sort. Whereas an ordinary
maison was built as part of a row, sharing
party walls with the houses on either side and directly fronting on a street, an
hôtel particulier was often free-standing, and by the eighteenth century it would always be located
entre cour et jardin, between the entrance court, the
cour d'honneur, and the garden behind.
[1] There are
hôtels particuliers in many large cities, such as
Paris,
Bordeaux,
Albi,
Caen,
Lyon,
Montpellier,
Nancy,
Rouen,
Rennes,
Toulouse and
Troyes.
The word hôtel represents the Old French hostel, which has developed a more specific modern English meaning. Cognates can be confusing the modern usage in English of hotel denotes a commercial hotel accommodating travellers, a hostelry that is more ambitious than an inn. Modern French also applies hôtel to commercial hotels confusingly the Hôtel de Crillon on the Place de la Concorde was built as an hôtel particulier and is today a hotel. The Hôtel des Invalides retains its early sense of a hospice for war wounded.
In French, an hôtel de ville or mairie is a town hall (and not a hotel), such as the Hôtel de Ville, Paris or the Hôtel de Ville de Montréal. Other official bodies might give their name to the structure in which they maintained a seat aside from Paris. several other French cities have an Hôtel de Cluny, maintained by the abbey of Cluny. The Hôtel de Sens was built as the Paris residence of the archbishop of Sens.
Some Parisian hôtels particuliers with individual entries
