Place du Palais-Bourbon

You are standing in a square designed by the Prince of Condé, a man who fled France during the turmoil of the French Revolution. He commissioned the architect Jean-François Leroy to create this space in the late eighteenth century, but construction dragged on until eighteen hundred and four, long after the aristocrat had left the country. The square serves as the formal entrance to the Palais Bourbon, which anchors the northern side. Before this grand architecture arrived, the site was a rugged, wooded area known as the Grenouillère, a spot infamous for aristocrats meeting to fight duels.