A vigorous movement of construction of hôtels particuliers and wealthy townhouses followed in the Saint-Paul quarter, which set up the Marais as the Parisian neighbourhood most favoured by the high nobility.

The courtyard facade, richly ornamented and precisely designed, comprised a corps de logis four storeys in height with five bays and two end pavilions.

[8] The use of the giant order for these pilasters, then an unusual feature for an hôtel particulier, aims to give the facade a majestic appearance, fitting and expressing the social dignity of its royal inhabitants.

The design of the facade is highly Mannerist with the entablature broken from above by the lower part of the tall dormer windows and a Grecian motif connecting the capitals.

[5] A bellicose commander during the troubled era of the Wars of Religion, Charles kept in the building a large number of weapons, carabins, muskets, using it as a military structure.

He managed there to gather a small salon, frequented by Madame de Sévigné, Racine, Boileau, Bourdaloue, Regnard or Guy Patin.

[2] This modification resulted in the austere, asymmetrical facade currently visible from the rue des Francs-Bourgeois and the public garden adjoined.

Moriau, a bibliophile and scholar, used it to keep his large private library, which included a vast collection of preserved documents on the history of Paris.

Divided into several tenuous residences, the building housed throughout the 19th century workshops, stores, and factories, among which was the headquarters of an alembic and distillation instruments company.

Among the many tenants was Alphonse Daudet, who lived in the hôtel with his family from 1867 onwards, and who invited over such friends as Turgenev, Flaubert or Edmond de Goncourt.

This was not realised until March 1928: the City of Paris acquired the hôtel in exchange, as compensation for the previous owner, of a larger vacant lot near the Porte de Champerret.