Hôtel particulier

In French contexts, an hôtel particulier is a townhouse of a grand sort. (In mediaeval English, hôtel was rendered as "inn", the townhouse of a nobleman, now surviving only as used in Inns of Court. Particulier meant "personal" or "private"). Whereas an ordinary maison (house) was built as part of a row, sharing party walls with the houses on either side and directly fronting on a street, an hôtel particulier was often free-standing, and by the 18th century it would always be located entre cour et jardin, between the entrance court, the cour d'honneur, and the garden behind. There are hôtels particuliers in many large cities, such as Paris, Bordeaux,  Albi, Aix en Provence, Avignon, Caen, Lyon, Montpellier, Nancy, Rouen, Rennes, Toulouse and Troyes. The term is comparable to the townhouse which housed the British nobleman in London.