L'hôtel de Besenval

Today's Swiss Embassy in France holds the walls of a beautiful house very close to L'Hôtel national des Invalides in Paris. Its current host, Ambassador Jean-Jacques de Dardel, presents the history of the mansion through the portrait of its most famous owner, Pierre-Victor Besenval, commander of the Swiss Guard who lived and beautified the place during the eighteenth century. The chronicle of his life and the many amenities that he ordered plunges the reader into the political and gallantry of an era of artistic architectural history. At the Revolution, Benseval knew the torments of an officer of the royal armies reduced to the Swiss Guard, torn between his loyalty to the King and a form of restraint won the respect of the revolutionaries. After his death, the house passed into the hands of various French families, before falling into Swiss hands again in the 1930s, when the Confederation was seeking to acquire a new residence.