Hôtel de Beaumont, Private mansion in Valognes, France.

The Hôtel de Beaumont is a long mansion at the corner of rue du Petit-Versailles and rue Barbey-d'Aurevilly in Valognes, its 50-metre facade parallel to the latter street. A rounded central pavilion with superimposed Doric and Ionic columns, an iron balcony and a curved pediment with sculpted shields separates a left wing from the first half of the 17th century and an 18th-century right wing. Inside, a double-revolution staircase crosses a six-metre stone bridge.

The mansion was built between 1767 and 1771 by architect Raphaël de Lozon, replacing an earlier stone structure that belonged to the Jallot family. The building later came under German military occupation during World War II.

The mansion's name comes from Charles Jallot, Count of Beaumont-Hague, who bought the earlier stone pavilion around 1695 and began enlarging it. Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly set his short story Le dessous des cartes d'une partie de whist here, not a novel. Inside, look for an 1811 Érard piano-forte shaped like a harpsichord and a travel case that belonged to Amantine de Bordeaux de Marville (1791-1869).

The mansion can be visited from 1 July to 15 September, and also on spring weekends; groups are received all year round. The main courtyard opens onto rue Barbey-d'Aurevilly, while the French garden lies behind the building, east of the main block.

The Wehrmacht occupied the mansion and ran an officers' mess there; in 1944 Field Marshal Erwin Rommel stayed in the house. The building was damaged in the June 1944 bombardments that devastated Valognes, and Count Xavier de Florian then restored it.