HISTORY:
The station was built in record time from 1898 to 1900. Construction was bold for its time, with a huge metal structure weighing more heavily than the Eiffel Tower. The nave is larger than Notre Dame!
This building, although built in the late nineteenth century, is much style "1900 Napoleon III", closer to a palace than a railway station, to which were added later a grand Hotel de luxe (c ' this place is that General De Gaulle announced in 1958 its return to power).
However, the station does a foncionne thirty years. Indeed, the trains became too long for too short of platforms that could not extend.
The activity of the South West therefore returned to the Gare d'Austerlitz.
Many projects are off the board to build the station. Finally, the construction of a large hotel was decided. In 1970, the permit to demolish the station is granted, but public opinion gradually moved to the disappearance of a witnessed copy of the metallic architecture of the nineteenth century, and in 1973, the station is included in the inventory of historical monuments.
The idea of creating a museum in 1975 took the body and leads to the arrival of Francois Mitterrand.