Bibliothèque municipale de Châtillon-sur-Seine, Public library in Châtillon-sur-Seine, France

The Bibliothèque municipale de Châtillon-sur-Seine occupies the former Auditoire royal at 9 rue des Avocats, a 17th-century stone building with a steep dark roof, dormer windows and a round stair turret with a conical roof. A stone staircase with a red metal railing leads to a pedimented doorway; an 18th-century wrought-iron gate opens onto the forecourt.

Built in the first quarter of the 17th century, the building housed the Bailliage de la Montagne and the town hall of the Bourg district. A 1611 edict granted 4,000 livres for its construction, and the year 1619 is carved on the prison beams in the basement. A royal edict by Louis XIII in 1638 made it the shared town hall of Bourg and Chaumont. It later served as a prison from 1805 to 1926, then housed the municipal library from 1945 to 2021.

The library's core is 20,000 historic volumes, seized in 1790 from monasteries in the town and from the Benedictine abbeys of Molesme and Pothières. The building also keeps a wrought-iron double gate from the 18th century, reused from the Maison de Charité destroyed in 1940.

The building at 9 rue des Avocats is privately owned since 2022 and no longer houses the municipal library, which moved to the new media centre that year. The 18th-century wrought-iron gate from the Maison de Charité can be seen from the street. The former prison cells in the lower level bear the date 1619 carved on their beams.

The upper floor held 20,000 historic volumes, built around works confiscated in 1790 from local monasteries and from the Benedictine libraries of Molesme and Pothières. The library left the building in 2022 for the town's new media centre, and the former auditoire was sold into private hands the same year.