Hôtel Beauharnais

[1] The premises are situated on the left bank of the Seine river, between the Palais Bourbon, the seat of the French National Assembly, in the west and the Musée d'Orsay in the east.

Then named Hôtel de Torcy, it served as Colbert's retirement home where he kept his extensive art collection and completed his memoirs.

When Napoleon married the Habsburg archduchess Marie Louise in 1810, he used the Hôtel as a guest house for Beauharnais' father-in-law, King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria.

After the French defeat in the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the premises were first rented and finally purchased by Prussia under King Frederick William III in 1818 and became the seat of the Prussian legation.

The impressive architecture and premises inspired Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Leo von Klenze, as well as the painter Max Beckmann.

[2][3] During World War II, the building served as the Paris residence of Otto Abetz, German ambassador to Vichy France, until it was confiscated in 1944.