Maison natale de François Mitterrand

On the agenda

The permanent exhibition traces the life of the family and presents speeches and writings by the former president.

“My political life has led me to a different land, to which I am very attached. However, I never really left Jarnac. From time to time, I come back to the house where I was born, to the house where my parents and grandparents lived… I can see the Quai de l’Orangerie, just outside my house, with the well-designed houses and the lime trees that I breathed with passion. François Mitterrand.

Built at the beginning of the 19th century, this house is a fine example of Charentaise architecture: a comfortable town house in dressed stone, with a simple and severe look, which opens onto the street through a long façade with large and high windows with grey shutters. Part of this complex dates from the 1930s: the lower part is made of ogives, also overlooking the street.
After the large gate, the intimacy and life of the president is revealed from the paved inner courtyard, to the first floor windows opening onto a balcony, a square of lawn surrounded by flowerbeds, to the courtyard of the former vinegar factory (created by Jules Lorrain, the president’s grandfather, at the end of the 19th century). It is a family house in which four generations have succeeded one another. During the visit and in the living rooms, you will discover a collection of furniture, objects and documents that belonged to François Mitterrand and the members of this great family.
A wine storehouse and a cooperage complete the decor in which François Mitterrand liked to return regularly in the company of his brothers and sisters, and his cousins who also lived in this house.
This is the “little story”, the one that allows us to understand the construction of François Mitterrand, his attachment to his own, his roots, those little things that contributed in a certain way to make him the adult, the man and the President he became later on.