The hôtel was built for a financier,[2] Abraham Peyrenc de Moras, who had speculated successfully in the ill-fated paper money schemes of John Law that had ruined many, at a time when the Faubourg Saint-Germain was still suburban in character.

The house had boiseries carved in the full-blown rococo manner and has two elliptical salons that form attached pavilions at the corners of the garden front.

His widow leased the house to the duchesse du Maine, who had married a natural son of Louis XIV; she took possession in January 1737 (Kimball loc.

To the left of the deep cour d'honneur and entered from it, neatly clipped cabinets de verdure—small open-air rooms and recesses in fanciful shapes, connected by short galleries—were cut into solid greenery.

They walked among the flower beds and the shrubberies, marvelling at the boldness and elegance of the trellis work forming gateways, arcades, grottoes, domes, Chinese pavilions..."[6] By the end of the eighteenth century, the faubourg was becoming demodé, with the westward development of fashionable Paris on the Rive Droite.

Since World War II, the Musée Rodin has been able to buy back boiseries and decorative paintings formerly in the house, which were stripped out by the Dames du Sacre-Coeur and sold.