ideas for translation of Mounsi

[Clare H]

I've got a sentence in a novel by Mounsi, talking about the dead, when a man breaks into a building where there is a dead body. It goes: 'Il avait vu l'aube se glisser dans la piece mortuaire d'un hotel particulier'. The problem is the translation of 'piece mortuaire', usually something like funeral parlour/chapel of rest - but do hotels usually have these? It is set in Paris by the way. I read it as just a room where a dead body has been laid out? Does anyone else have any feelings about it? I am thinking of translating as 'He had seen dawn slip into a room where a dead person had been laid out in a certain hotel' ??? Or does hotel not mean hotel here?? Hmm, any ideas would be great! (sorry for lack of accents, keyboard playing up...)

Thanks, Clare

[Erwan]

The problem is that "un hotel particulier" is not an hotel but a luxurious house. It's kind of manor inside the town.

[stu harris]

Mansion