Hôtel de Sens, Paris

Hôtel de Sens is the castle-like residence before you, now home to the Bibliothèque Forney. Its pointed gateway, solid keep and corner turrets give the building a defensive character, while the entrance vault and tall windows reveal a more graceful late-medieval dwelling. Archbishop Tristan de Salazar ordered this residence rebuilt around 1500, and the work was still nearing completion when he died in 1519.

It served as the Paris home of the archbishops of Sens at a time when Paris depended ecclesiastically on Sens. Look at the wall for the cannonball lodged there during the July Revolution of 1830; the date remains carved beneath it. The building later endured a remarkably practical afterlife, including use by a cannery, a jam producer and a glass warehouse.

Paris acquired it in 1911 when it had fallen into severe disrepair. Restoration began in 1929 and reached completion in the 1950s. Since 1961, the Forney Library has occupied the building, focusing on decorative arts, crafts and posters. As local legend has it, Marguerite de Valois had a fig tree removed because it obstructed her carriage, giving rue du Figuier its name.