Inside
What to see inside the Hôtel de la Marine
The intendant's apartments, the gilded state salons, and the loggia that ends the visit.
Check the apartments ticket on Viator ↗The intendant's apartments
The visit centres on the restored apartments of the Garde-Meuble's intendant, the officer who managed the crown's furniture and lived on site. Pierre-Élisabeth de Fontanieu held the post from 1767, and his rooms, along with those of his successor, have been restored and furnished to evoke the years just before the Revolution: dining room, private cabinets and bedchambers, each returned to its 18th-century colours and gilding.
The state salons
Past the private apartments, the salons d'apparat run along the façade: grand reception rooms with tall windows and carved, gilded panelling, decorated during a major 19th-century refit in the building's naval years. One of these rooms, the Salon Diplomatique, held the crown's jewels under the old regime before it became a diplomatic reception room.
The loggia over the square
The visit ends on the loggia, the colonnaded gallery of twelve Corinthian columns that runs along the façade above the Place de la Concorde, with a chequered stone floor underfoot. The obelisk and fountains lie directly below, with the Tuileries to the left and the Champs-Élysées to the right. It's reached only from inside the building.
The Garde-Meuble's own story
Woven through the rooms is the story of the Garde-Meuble itself: the royal office that kept and displayed the crown's furniture, arms and jewels, with galleries open to the public on set days under the old regime. It's the thread that connects the intendant's private rooms to what happened in the Salon Diplomatique in 1792.
The Al Thani Collection, separately
Separate galleries in the building hold the Al Thani Collection, a rotating display of works from a private collection, shown on its own ticket rather than on the apartments route described here. Worth knowing about if you see it listed alongside the apartments while you're looking at your visit options.