Two hundred years ago this week, the British Government paid Pauline Borghese 800,000 Francs for this wonderful house behind me, the Hôtel de Charost. And it has been the British Ambassadors’ Residence ever since then.
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All sorts of famous people have been through the house, there have been some extraordinary events. For example, Hector Berlioz married Harriet Smithson here; Somerset Maugham, the writer, was born here; Winston Churchill’s parents got married here. Winston Churchill himself had a famous lunch here with De Gaulle just after he’d walked down the Champs Elysées together with him on the 11th of November 1944… And so on.
For two hundred years, this house has been the central part of the UK-French relationship. It’s been a place where people have met, debated, discussed ideas and built friendships. And that’s very much what it is today.
Now we call it a residence, but actually it’s a centre for everything going on in the UK-French relationship here in France. We have conferences, seminars, lunches and dinners to bring people together to exchange ideas: 500 events last year to promote British-French relationship in all its variety.
Wellington actually didn’t stay very long as Ambassador here. He only did 7 months before going off to Waterloo and walking into History. But I hope that he would be happy to see the uses to which we’ve put this marvellous investment in the last two hundred years.