In 1644 Michel-Antoine Scarron,[1] conseiller du roi, and uncle of the burlesque poet Paul Scarron and father-in-law of the maréchal-duc d'Aumont, governor of Paris, found the old structure, on three adjoining properties, which he had assembled between 1619 and 1630, too old-fashioned for his requirements; though he had erected a party wall and constructed the left half of the present corps de logis as early as 1631,[2] he rebuilt and extended it to create the present structure, built entre cour et jardin, to the designs of Louis Le Vau.

For him it was enlarged and enriched by the architect François Mansart, who inserted a grand new staircase in the right wing, replaced the stairs in the corner pavilion,[3] and provided it with decors painted by Charles Le Brun and Simon Vouet.

After 1859, it became the property of the Pharmacie centrale de France and underwent some transformations: the garden was overbuilt with an assortment of service buildings, and the boiseries of the salons formed backgrounds to a variety of offices and storerooms.

[6] The street front in the rue de Jouy presents a symmetrical, austerely unornamented range of two-storey buildings with a rusticated central arched porte cochère leading between ranges of stabling to the entrance court and matching end pavilions of three storeys, crowned with tall sloping slate roofs à la française, which are pierced with pedimented dormers.

The cour d'honneur is enclosed by the five-bay principal corps de logis, corner pavilions and the identical flanking wings, of two storeys equal in value, of paired windows of four-over twelve panes framed in molding between lightly panelled piers.