History of the MIJE Marais hostels

MIJE Fauconnier

Already inhabited in 1265, Rue du Fauconnier takes its name from the Hôtel de la Fauconnerie, a house inhabited in the 13th century by the great “Fauconnier, governor of birds of prey”. It was also called “rue des Fauconniers”, “rue Fauconnière”. It has in turn been home to beguines in the Ave Maria convent, which was transformed into barracks after the Revolution, then into a college, a covered market and a school.

In the 1940s, all the buildings on the odd numbers were demolished as part of the renovation of the district, which had become unhealthy. Only number 11 was saved and entrusted by the City of Paris to the MIJE to turn it into a place of accommodation steeped in history. It is now a pilot hostel and an exemplary one in terms of sustainable development.

MIJE Fourcy

Before becoming a youth hostel in 1978, the Hôtel Charpentier, also known as “Le Fourcy”, had a long history: in 1500 it depended on the priory of Saint-Eloi and was inhabited by a king’s advisor, a certain Christophe Ripault. Gilles Charpentier acquired it in 1677 and transformed the house into a hotel. It had many inhabitants (the widow of a governor, a button maker, a boilermaker, a creamer, a liquor merchant, a shoemaker, etc.), was divided in two and then reunited, and then housed one of the most famous “brothels” in Paris, “Le Moulin Galant”, which was closed in 1946.

In 1978, the City of Paris, owner of the premises, granted the Charpentier Hotel to the MIJE, which carried out the complete restoration of the buildings.

MIJE Maubuisson

The Hôtel de Maubuisson is named after the commune near Pontoise where Queen Blanche of Castile had installed Cistercian nuns in 1242, before the hotel intended for the business of this community was established in Paris in 1276 in the Saint-Antoine district: it kept the name Maubuisson. Due to a lack of documents, the history of the place is only really known from the end of the 16th century: Angélique d’Estrées, sister of Henri IV’s mistress and new abbess of Maubuisson, had the lease granted to a negligent tenant cancelled. Until 1689, the two buildings constituting the property were occupied by various people: in 1672, the abbess rented them to a community of nun teachers who lived there for more than a century, before the hotel was sold to the Daughters of the Cross. In 1789 the property was confiscated and the nuns dispersed; the City of Paris sold it in 1795 to a cattle merchant, before taking possession of the two buildings together again around 1850 and, after rehabilitation work, granting the use of the premises to the MIJE in 1971, to welcome young people from all over the world.