Berlioz’s Birthplace – La Côte Saint-André
The Berlioz family home
The house in which Berlioz was born and spent the first 18 years of his life is situated at number 69 of rue de la République.
At the back, the garden overlooks the plain spreading to the south and east in the distance. David Cairns describes this part of the house thus (Berlioz vol. I p.24): "From the window of the room you looked out on to the cobbled courtyard, with its water pump in the corner and its sundial, and on to the rectangular garden where a fountain played and above whose massive red-tiled walls, on summer days, the Plaine de Bièvre and its border of wooded hills shimmered in the heat."
David Cairns (Berlioz vol. I loc. cit.) also states: "According to a tradition reported by the French historian Julien Tiersot at the end of the last century, one of the first-floor rooms, just along the gallery from [Dr Berlioz’s] study, was the schoolroom where the young Berlioz worked at his lessons."
On 21 June 1885, just over 16 years after Berlioz’s death, a memorial plaque was installed on the main wall of the house by his fellow townsmen and women. Since then the house has undergone a series of restorations the first of which took place in 1888. A comparison of the present state of the house with an 1883 engraving shows the extent of work carried out to bring the building to the state it was when Dr Berlioz and his family lived in it from the late 18th century to the middle of the next one.
All the modern photographs reproduced on this page were taken by Michel Austin
in April 1998; other pictures have been scanned from postcards and books in our
own collection. © Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin.
All rights of reproduction reserved.
Berlioz’s family home
Back garden
First floor balcony
Berlioz’s family home before restorations in the mid-20th
century
The commemorative plaque installed in 1885
The plaque reads: "To the memory of Hector Berlioz, born in this house on 11 December 1803. His compatriots [who are] proud of his genius and glory". The picture below shows the Berlioz family home in 1883, before the above commemorative plaque was installed
At the time this picture was drawn, the main road on which the house is situated was called rue Nationale, and the number of the house was 83. It is now 69 and the name of the road is rue de la République. The photo below was taken at a time when the road was still called rue Nationale and Berlioz’s parental house, on the left, was still no. 83.
The engraving is scanned from: Hector Berlioz: Sa Vie et ses
Œuvres, by Adolphe Jullien, 1888, Paris: La Librairie de l’Art. (in our
collection)
Berlioz’s family home in the 19th century
Berlioz’s family home around 1891
Rue de la République
© 1998-2008 Michel Austin and Monir Tayeb for all the pictures and information on this page.
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