The Elysee Palace, Nicolas Sarkozy's home for the next five years after he became President yesterday, has a rich and racy history.

Built in 1718, the Elysee first entered the history books when the Marquise de Pompadour, King Louis XV's favourite mistress, bought the building in 1753.

Opponents showed their distaste for the regime by hanging signs on the gates reading: "Home of the King's whore".

Situated on the chic Faubourg Saint-Honore, just off the Champs Elysees avenue, the elegant building served successively during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars as a furniture warehouse, a print factory and a dance hall.

Russian Cossacks camped at the Elysee when they occupied Paris in 1814.

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was the first President to make it his residence in 1848, before declaring himself emperor Napoleon III and moving to the nearby Tuileries Palace.

But the emperor kept the Elysee as a discreet place to meet his mistresses, moving between the two palaces through a secret underground passage which has since been destroyed.

Even after the republic was restored in 1870, the Elysee's occupants maintained the building's racy reputation, particularly President Felix Faure, who died there suddenly in the arms of his mistress Marguerite Steinheil in 1899.

French history records the words of his valet when a priest was hastily brought into the bedroom for the last rites and asked: "Does the President still have his 'connaissance?'."

The priest used the term to mean "consciousness", but the valet understood its other French meaning, 'acquaintance', and answered: "No, we ushered her out by the back door."

During World War I, a gorilla escaped from a nearby menagerie, entered the palace and was said to have tried to haul the wife of President Raymond Poincare into a tree only to be foiled by Elysee guards. President Paul Deschanel, who resigned in 1920 because of madness, was said to have been so impressed by the gorilla's feat that, to the alarm of his guests, he took to jumping into trees during state receptions.

Elysee was closed up during World War II - the Nazis never used the building - and left empty until after the war. It was then occupied from 1959 to 1969 by President Charles de Gaulle, who frowned on its reputation and lack of privacy.

He had another luxurious building nearby purchased so he could receive official state guests there rather than at the Elysee itself. "I do not like the idea of meeting kings walking around my corridors in their pyjamas" he said.

Socialist President François Mitterrand, who ruled from 1981-1995, is said hardly to have used its private apartments.

He preferred returning at night to his own home on the bohemian Left Bank or to a discreet flat in another district occupied by the mother of his illegitimate daughter Mazarine, whose existence was only revealed to the public in 1994.

By contrast, outgoing President Jacques Chirac lived in the Elysee apartments with his wife Bernadette, but it was not clear if Mr Sarkozy's wife Cecilia was set to move in with her husband.

Factbox

President Nicolas Sarkozy has promised he will take a number of steps in his first 100 days in power:

• Go to Berlin straight after taking office to try and break the impasse over EU institutional reform.

• Call special session of French Parliament to pass key Bills.

• Summer budget comprising €15 billion in tax cuts, including a five per cent point drop in corporation tax linked to pledges by firms on jobs, investment and wages.

• Tax measures would also include exempting overtime of tax and social security charges, making interest on home loans tax deductible and reducing inheritance tax for most French people.

• Introduce a Bill on minimum service in public sector monopolies like transport, negotiate plan with unions.

• Greater autonomy for universities, including right to seek external finance.

• Introduce minimum sentences for repeat offenders.

• Reduce government to 15 large ministries. Create ministry for immigration and national identity.

• Major round of negotiations with unions, business leaders on issues such as male-female wage parity, union representation.

• In the autumn - constitutional reform: presidency limited to two successive mandates; Parliament gains more powers to supervise executive.