The former bishop's palace next to the cathedral now houses the Musée Bossuet, a municipal fine arts and history museum that takes its name from the palace's most celebrated occupant. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet was bishop here from 1681 until his death in 1704, and rooms devoted to him include original manuscripts, portraits, and personal objects. The painting collection beyond — mainly Flemish and French seventeenth and eighteenth-century works — is a genuine surprise in a city of this size, with a few canvases that would hold their own in a Parisian gallery. The formal garden behind the palace, with its clipped yews, box hedges, and geometric parterres running down toward the Marne, was laid out in the French style in the seventeenth century and is the loveliest green space in Meaux. Entry to the garden is free; the museum charges a modest admission.
story: > Bossuet had a complicated relationship with the philosopher and mathematician Nicolas Malebranche, whose rationalist theology he considered heretical. The two men engaged in a fierce pamphlet war during the 1690s, conducted largely through intermediaries while Bossuet sat in this palace composing his replies. Legend has it that when Bossuet finally read Malebranche's last treatise, sent to him on his deathbed in 1704, he expired from the exertion of his rage.