Antoine de Ratabon


Antoine de Ratabon was a French aristocrat who served as an arts and architecture administrator during the reign of Louis XIV. He was the first Director of the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture from 1655 to 1670 as well as the Surintendant des Bâtiments from 1656 to 1664.

Early life and career

Ratabon was born in Montpellier, the son of Jean de Ratabon, an equerry, and Catherine Pache from Servien, near Mende. He became Maître d'Hôtel Ordinaire of King Louis XIV, Trésorier Général de France at Montpellier, and Intendant des Gabelles of Languedoc.

Bâtiments du Roi

In Paris he became First Assistant to François Sublet de Noyers, who was the Surintendant des Bâtiments under Cardinal Richelieu, and continued in this role under Étienne Le Camus, who succeeded Sublet de Noyers as Surintendant after the latter's dismissal under Cardinal Mazarin in 1643. Ratabon succeeded Le Camus in 1656. Ratabon relinquished the post to Jean-Baptiste Colbert on 1 January 1664.
In his role as Surintendant des Bâtiments, Ratabon ordered the demolition of the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon in October 1660 to make way for the eastward expansion of the Louvre and construction of the Louvre Colonnade. The order resulted in the eviction without warning of the troupe of Molière from the theatre of the Petit Bourbon and their transfer to the disused and run-down theatre of the Palais-Royal.

Personal life

By a contract of 1 March 1647, Ratabon married Marie Sanguin, daughter of Nicolas Sanguin, an equerry and sieur de Pierrelaye. The eight-year-old Louis XIV, his mother Anne d'Autriche, and Cardinal Mazarin were all present and signed the contract. The couple had several children of which three survived into adulthood:
In 1664 Ratabon constructed a house, the Hôtel de Ratabon, to the designs of the architect Pierre Le Muet on a site on the western border of the garden of the Palais-Royal, now 10 rue de Richelieu in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. He died in this house in 1670. It was destroyed in 1873.