The Palais Bourbon began life in 1722 as a private mansion for one of Louis XIV's daughters. Today, as the seat of France's National Assembly, it houses 577 elected members of parliament.

The neoclassical facade, added by Napoleon in 1806, was a deliberate political statement: where the monarchy had favoured ornate Rococo excess, the new republic reached back to ancient Greece and Rome, inscribing "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" on the pediment for good measure.

It sits directly across the Seine from Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine once stood. The symmetry is almost too neat. The palace that survived revolution, empire, and republic now faces the square where more than 3,000 people, including Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, were beheaded.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use the Palais Bourbon to trace this arc from aristocratic privilege to democratic institution, connecting its Napoleonic makeover to the broader transformation of Paris in the revolutionary era.