Palais Saint-Georges

This long seventeenth-century building beside a formal garden was originally the residence of the abbess of a wealthy Benedictine convent in Rennes. Its symmetrical facade, ornamented with the coat of arms of the noblewoman who commissioned it, opens onto neat parterres and fountains. Having survived the great fire that destroyed much of the old city, it later served administrative uses. The elegant French garden in front, with its clipped hedges and water features, makes it a graceful corner of the Breton capital.