Ancien hôtel Astier de Montfaucon, puis ancien hospice

English translation

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History

At the heart of a remarkable ancient town perched on a spur, extending vertically the southern cliff on which the town's enclosure wall was based, presenting its main façade on the place de l'horloge, the building occupies a determining place in the village of Ménerbes. It is a former hôtel particulier, built around 1670 by the family of d'Astier de Montfaucon, who usually resided in Carpentras. In 1751 it was purchased by the hospital for the poor and was the subject of fitting-out and repair work, which did not call into question the general scheme of its architecture. From the middle of the 19th century, it also accommodated the girls' school and remained in use until the last war. Of rectangular plan triple in depth, the building comprises a basement storey preserving in its vaulted rooms vestiges of earlier constructions, a ground floor entirely covered with groined vaults, a storey and roof space. Partly in rubble stone render, partly in ashlar, the construction is careful. The whole is completed to the west by a turfed terrace, formerly a closed garden overlooking the landscape. There remain a fountain with a sculptured mask backing and a well opening onto a cistern, which collects the building's rainwater recovered in stone gutters. Inside the monumental staircase of honour with straight flights and square balusters, the very homogeneous Tuscan architectural decoration of the ground floor, the four old fireplaces, the vestiges of the painted decoration of the alcove bedroom of the storey are the most interesting elements. One of the distinctive characteristics of the building is that it was originally largely open to the outside. To the south-east, on the side of the square and courtyard, where the great arch of the entrance being not closed, one entered directly into the porch which commanded the staircase. Even more so to the north-west, on the garden side, where the façade was perforated with a gallery of two bays on the ground floor and a loggia on the storey, opened by basket-handle arches. The arrangement was altered by alterations but it is still perfectly legible. There are certainly other examples in Provence of such an Italianizing scheme. Let us cite for example the courtyard gallery of the hôtel d'Arlatan in Arles. But these are usually urban buildings, furnished with galleries having a real function of circulation and distribution. In Ménerbes, one is not really in town and the context is different: the hôtel d'Astier could have played rather the role of a "country residence" and it is perhaps not by chance that these spaces open to the north-west, sheltered from the sun and heat. Was it a summer residence? This original arrangement confers an additional interest to a building also remarkable for the good preservation of its structures, the care taken in its construction, the quality of certain of its elements.