Maison Louis XIV

The Maison Louis XIV, also known as the Maison Lohobiague, is a 17th-century Basque mansion on Place Louis XIV where the Sun King lodged in 1660 before his marriage. The building is one of the best examples of Basque merchant architecture of the period: solid, stone-faced, with dark carved wood shutters and a courtyard behind heavy gates.

The interior has been restored to roughly its 17th-century appearance and is open for guided tours in summer. The rooms contain period furniture and documents relating to the royal stay and the Treaty of the Pyrenees. The tour is conducted in French but is short enough (about 45 minutes) to follow even with limited language. It is worth doing if you have an interest in the political context behind the wedding, which was as much a diplomatic arrangement as a personal one.

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A story
Louis XIV stayed in this house for 40 days before his wedding in 1660, and it was here that his ministers and the Spanish delegation finalised the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which had ended the Franco-Spanish War the previous year. The peace treaty and the royal marriage were two sides of the same diplomatic transaction.