Bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris

You are standing before the Hotel de Lamoignon, a grand Renaissance mansion that has served as the home of the Historical Library of the City of Paris since 1969. Built in the late sixteenth century for Diane de France, the illegitimate daughter of King Henry the Second, the building was designed as a private townhouse, or hotel particulier. Its facade still displays the stone carvings of dogs, deer, and moon crescents, which serve as symbols for Diana, the goddess of the hunt. This architecture marks the building as one of the oldest and most significant surviving aristocratic residences in the Marais district.