Palais Bourbon

The Palais Bourbon (pronounced [palɛ buʁbɔ̃]) is the meeting place of the National Assembly, the lower legislative chamber of the French Parliament. It is in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, on the Rive Gauche of the Seine across from the Place de la Concorde. The official address is on the Rue de l'Université, facing the Place du Palais-Bourbon. The original palace was built beginning in 1722 for Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Duchess of Bourbon, the legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and the Marquise de Montespan. Four successive architects – Lorenzo Giardini, Pierre Cailleteau, Jean Aubert and Ange-Jacques Gabriel – completed the palace in 1728. It was then confiscated from Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé, during the French Revolution and nationalised. From 1795 to 1799, during the Directory, it was the meeting place of the Council of Five Hundred, which chose the government leaders. Beginning in 1806, during Napoleon Bonaparte's First French Empire, Bernard Poyet's Neoclassical façade was added to mirror that of the Église de la Madeleine, facing it across the Seine beyond the Place de la Concorde. The palace complex today has a floor area of 124,000 m2 (1,330,000 sq ft), with over 9,500 rooms, in which 3,000 people work. The complex includes the Hôtel de Lassay on the west side of the Palais Bourbon, the official residence of the president of the National Assembly.