House sheltering "Emile's boat"

The current restaurant "Le Bateau d'Emile" was once an inn with a stable for sailors. On September 1, 1642, Cardinal de Richelieu, traveling up the Rhône by boat, stopped there and stayed there for one night.

Now called “Bateau d'Emile”, it had been baptized “Auberge du Chapeau Rouge” in the 17th century in memory of Cardinal Richelieu's visit to these places.
It is established that Cardinal Richelieu spent at least one night in Serrières. Returning from Perpignan, where he besieged the Spaniards, he stopped there. A letter, dated September 2, 1642 in Serrières, mentions his “unspeakable joy” concerning the victory he had just won. He was very ill (he died a few months later). Thus, unable to leave his bed, his men knocked down a wall in the bedroom of the inn (which was then “Vincent Seigle's hotel”), to be able to install him there while leaving him bedridden. This inn subsequently took the name of “Auberge du Chapeau Rouge” in memory of its distinguished guest, and today is the restaurant “Le Bateau d'Emile”. Note that there were two prisoners, the conspirators François-Auguste de Thou and the Marquis Cinq-Mars, who were tried and executed a few days later (September 12, 1642), in Lyon.