Completed in 1722, it was built for Louis Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, a nobleman and army officer who had been appointed Governor of Île-de-France in 1719.

The Élysée Palace has been the home of personalities such as Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764), Nicolas Beaujon (1718–1786), Bathilde d'Orléans (1750–1822), Joachim Murat (1767–1815), and Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry (1778–1820).

Across the street is the Hôtel de Marigny, which has served as a state guest house where the French government has hosted visiting dignitaries.

At the time of his death in 1753, Évreux was the owner of one of the most widely admired houses in Paris, and it was bought by the Marquise de Pompadour on 24 December 1753 for 730,000 livres.

Soon on display there were such well-known masterpieces as Holbein's The Ambassadors (now in the National Gallery in London), and Frans Hals' Bohemian (now at the Louvre).

[6] The Élysée was sold in 1805 to Joachim and Caroline Murat, who administered major renovations that made the building more grand and "imperial".

The property was then returned to its previous owner, the Duchesse de Bourbon, who then sold it to her royal cousin, Louis XVIII, in 1816.

It was initially used to host musical performances and lectures before being renamed the Élysée National and designated as the official residence of the President of the Republic under the administration of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte.

In 1917, a chimpanzee escaped from a nearby ménagerie, entered the palace and was said to have tried to haul the wife of President Raymond Poincaré into a tree only to be foiled by Élysée guards.

[9] President Paul Deschanel, who resigned in 1920 because of mental illness, was said to have been so impressed by the chimpanzee's feat that, to the alarm of his guests, he took to jumping into trees during state receptions.

Socialist President François Mitterrand, who governed from 1981 to 1995, is said to have seldom used its private apartments, preferring the privacy of his own home on the more bohemian Rive Gauche.

Chirac increased the Palace's budget by 105% to 90 million euros per year, according to the book L'argent caché de l'Élysée.

That year, then-President Nicolas Sarkozy decided to stop organising this event because of France's high debt and the economic crisis.

The heavily guarded mansion and grounds are situated at 55 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré at its intersection with Avenue de Marigny [fr].

A monumental gate with four Ionic order columns, flanked by walls topped by a balustrade, opens onto a large rounded courtyard.

The room is so called because of the silver coloured edges to the wall features, mantelpieces, tables, sofas, and armchairs, of which the last have swan sculptures at the sides.

On 22 June 1815, Napoleon formally signed his abdication warrant after losing the Battle of Waterloo that year; on 2 December 1851 Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte launched his coup d'état; and in 1899, President Félix Faure met his mistress, Marguerite Steinheil.

It was designed by Eugène Debressenne [fr] and opened on 10 May 1889 by the then President, Sadi Carnot, to coincide with the Exposition Universelle that year.

The Salon Doré (Golden Room) is named after the gold coloured edges to the wall features, doors, tables, and chairs.