The building was erected at the behest of Foreign Minister Colbert de Torcy (1665–1746),[1] shortly before his dismissal by Regent Philippe of Orléans. Then named Hôtel de Torcy, it served as Colbert's retirement home where he kept his extensive art collection and completed his memoirs.
After several changes of ownership and being plundered during the French Revolution, it passed to Eugène de Beauharnais, a stepson of Napoleon who became Viceroy of Italy and also aimed at the succession to the French throne. The building then received its present-day portico in an Egyptomanian style which was popular in the wake of the French campaign in Egypt. Opulently furnished with large-scale paintings by Hubert Robert, the spacious rooms fitted with Beauharnais' great demands. However, the Viceroy had little opportunity to reside at his Paris home. When Napoleon married the Habsburg archduchess Marie Louise in 1810, he used the Hôtel as a guest house for Beauharnais' father-in-law, King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria.
During World War II, the building served as the Paris residence of Otto Abetz, German ambassador to Vichy France, until it was confiscated in 1944. Held by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it was restored to West Germany in 1961 during the negotiations on the Élysée Treaty. As a new embassy then already was under construction on Avenue Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the building solely served for representative purposes. Extensively renovated and re-opened as the ambassador's residence in 1968, the building's history has been documented by the German Forum for Art History Paris.
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