Built in 1720 for the Count of Évreux, the mansion passed to Madame de Pompadour, then through the Revolution, before being bought in 1805 by Murat, who furnished it sumptuously. On becoming King of Naples in 1808 he ceded it to the Emperor. Joséphine stayed there after the divorce; Napoleon worked there when he wanted to escape the etiquette of the Tuileries.
On 21 June 1815 he returned from Belgium and put up at the Élysée rather than the Tuileries — a sign he no longer felt quite at home. The Chamber of Representatives, pushed by Fouché and Lafayette, declared itself in permanent session and demanded his abdication; Lucien urged him to dissolve the Chambers by force, Davout and Carnot refused.
On 22 June he signed the act of abdication in favour of his son, who would never reign: "My political life is over and I proclaim my son, under the title of Napoleon II, Emperor of the French." The next day the Chamber appointed a governing commission chaired by Fouché, the man already negotiating with the Bourbons.
He left the Élysée on 25 June for Malmaison, then Rochefort. The palace became the residence of the Duke of Berry under the Restoration; in 1848 Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte moved in as first President of the Republic, and from there prepared his coup. Since 1873 every French president has lived there: the house where the Empire went out is the house the Republic inhabits.
