Élysée Palace

The Élysée Palace features a wide, U-shaped facade of classical stone, set behind a heavy, gold-tipped iron gate on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Since eighteen forty-eight, it has served as the official residence of the French president. Madame de Pompadour originally commissioned the building as her private townhouse in seventeen twenty-two. She insisted on comfort, filling the rooms with intricate boiserie and mirrors, until she eventually gifted the property to King Louis the Fifteenth to house his collection of mistresses.