This volume offers a visit to the presidential residences of France: the Elysee Palace and its neighbouring Hotel de Marigny, the Lantern Pavilion hidden away in the park of Versailles, and the Bregancon Fort. These are the places where one can discover the excellence of French artisans, its art conservators and restaurateurs, and its famed gardeners. Sites of political theatre and the residences of the French president, they showcase France's exceptional artistic heritage and present the great treasures of "French taste," in perpetual reinvention from the eighteenth century through today, to diplomatic visitors from all over the world. The text presents a new way of understanding these buildings and their history, one which puts in perspective their evolution in decor, public or secret, and which decrypts their symbolic power thanks to the author's unprecedented access to the buildings and to archival documents.