Saint James Chapel and the Hotel Garden

The hotel gardens offer a unique perspective and a peaceful spot to admire the rear façade of the Groslot House. With its neatly kept lawns and the cathedral’s towers rising in the background, it’s a picture-perfect setting — definitely worth a photo or two. But there’s more to this garden than just the view. It’s also home to the doorway of the old Saint James Chapel, which once stood nearby before being demolished in the 1880s to make way for the Châtelet Market Hall. Thankfully, about thirty years earlier, the writer and heritage enthusiast Prosper Mérimée had listed the chapel as a historic monument. So when the building was torn down, they made sure to preserve its ornate doorway — a relic of a former stop along the famous pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. Designed in the flamboyant Gothic style, it now stands here as what we call a “romantic ruin” — a 19th-century tribute to the beauty of the past.