The palace was first bought by Richelieu, the first councelor of the king, who had the house totally rebuilt. The gardens were then private and no houses existed around them.

It was then the king Louis the thirteen who inherited the palace. It became a royal palace when Ann of Austria, the queen of France decided to move from the noisy Louvre to this palace. Mazarin (who might have had a close relationship to her). Other prestigious hosts such as Monsieur, the brother of King Louis XIV, lived there.

During the second half of XVIIIth century, the french comedy was built and the garden were open to the public. It then bvecame a place of lust, with games and prostitutes who stayed there at least until the early XXth century. It is in those gardens that Camille Desmoulins made a famous speech on the 13th of july, 1789, starting events that ended in the take of Bastille, and thus the Revolution.

In the 1970s and 1980s the palace and gardens were renovated, with more than 400 new trees to replace the one that had been destroyed by disease after centuries, then the installation of fontains from Pol Bury, and in 1985-1986 the installation of Paul Buren's columns.

The buildings of the royal palace are today the offices of the constitutional bureau, the culture ministry and other offices of the state. The buildings around the gardens are mostly private flats.