Élysée Palace

It is perhaps a little irreverent to say so, but this workplace of the French President is essentially a very luxurious brothel.

It started with a twelve-year-old girl. In 1718, the ruinous Count of Évreux married the young daughter of Antoine Crozat, the richest banker in France, and built this entire palace with her dowry. On the evening of the opening ball, December 14, 1720, he showed his young wife the door. His mistress had been invited as the guest of honor.

After the Revolution, the palace was rented out as a dance school and pleasure house, its grand rooms subdivided into cozy private corners for secret love affairs. Napoleon III later had a secret tunnel dug from the chapel sacristy to a neighboring mansion, so he could visit his mistress without anyone noticing.

Napoleon Bonaparte himself signed his abdication here on June 22, 1815, four days after Waterloo, saying in the Silver Salon: "My political life is over."

And in 1899, President Félix Faure died here during a visit from his mistress. The circumstances were so compromising that staff had to quietly escort his guest out before the doctors arrived.

The palace opens to the public just one day a year. Considering its history, perhaps that is wise.