It was originally built between 1548 and 1560 for Countess Françoise of Luxembourg and Count Lamoral of Egmont, though its appearance was heavily modified in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The palace is situated in the Sablon/Zavel district (south-eastern part of Brussels' city centre), between the Rue aux Laines/Wolstraat and the Square du Petit Sablon/Kleine Zavelsquare.

[4] Originally, the two properties were separated by a street that led to the city walls and was located in the axis of the current Rue des Sablons/Zavelstraat.

It housed various agents of the French administration, notably Bouteville, General Commissioner of the United Departments, who found the buildings in a deplorable state.

He built the carousel in the neoclassical style in 1832, then extended the wing known as the "French Quarter", thus giving the cour du sanglier ("wild boar's courtyard") its current appearance.

The long wall that ran along it on the side of Egmont Park was demolished, and after the duke had ceded to the town a strip of land to enlarge it, he had twenty-six houses built there.

[12] At the end of World War I, Engelbert-Marie d'Arenberg [de], who was a German national, feared that his assets in Belgium would be placed in receivership.

However, unable to meet the maintenance costs of the buildings, which had, moreover, been damaged by additional fires in 1927 and 1959, the City sold the property to the Belgian State in 1964.

The buildings were then assigned to the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which charged the ambassador Luc Smolderen with their extensive restoration and redecoration.

The Treaty of Accession of Great Britain, Ireland, Norway and Denmark to the EEC was signed at the palace in 1972,[14] as was the Egmont Pact on the Belgian State reform during the second administration of then-Prime Minister Leo Tindemans in 1977.