Assemblée Nationale/Palais Bourbon Paris-Pages.com

The Assemblée Nationale/Palais Bourbon, right and below houses the lower house of the French parliament.

Assemblée Nationale/Palais Bourbon History

The building was originally built for the dowager Duchess of Bourbon/Conde, the legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan.

The photograph on the right is not really the front of the building. It is just a facade added on Napoleon's orders in 1806 to make a grand vista across the Pont de la Concorde, Place de la Concorde, and on to the Madeleine in the 8th. The real front of the building isbelow left on Place du Palais Bourbon.

The little stone trough of flowers left is fixed to the wall and dedicated to the memory of a student aged 23 who died on this spot on 20th August 1944 during the liberation of Paris.

Throughout Paris you can find similar small pots and containers for flowers, each with its own plaque giving the name, age and occupation of the person who died there, usually during those few days in August 1944 when Paris was liberated.