Palais Buquoy

Buquoy Palace is a late Baroque residence on Velkopřevorské Square in Prague's Malá Strana, standing directly across from the John Lennon Wall. Since 1919 it has housed the Embassy of France, a role that turned a private aristocratic townhouse into the stage for one of the most quietly dramatic diplomatic encounters of the late Cold War.

How did the palace come to stand here?

The plot originally held a school, later converted into a hostel run by the Knights of Malta. The first palace on the site went up in 1667, commissioned by the Archbishop of Prague, Jan Bedřich (Jean-Frédéric) of Wallenstein, together with his brother Karel Ferdinand. It did not stay in that form for long: by 1719 Karel Ferdinand's daughter, Countess Marie Josefa of Thun, had enlarged the building, merging several adjoining plots into a single, grander property.

Who owned it before the Buquoys?

Ownership changed hands quickly through the eighteenth century. In 1732 the palace was bought by Princess Marie Anna von Fürstenberg, born a Wallenstein, who sold it on just three years later to Countess Hrzán of Harasov. It was she who, between 1736 and 1738, carried out the major rebuilding that gave the palace essentially the appearance it still has today. In 1748 the property passed to the Buquoy family, a line of Walloon and Artesian origin whose name traces back to Charles Bonaventure de Longueval, Count of Buquoy, a field marshal in the army of Emperor Ferdinand II. The palace has carried the Buquoy name ever since.

Why does the French Embassy sit here?

In 1919, shortly after Czechoslovakia's founding, the French state leased the palace from the Buquoy family to house its new diplomatic mission in Prague. The arrangement worked well enough that in 1930 France bought the entire building outright, and it has remained the property of the French state ever since. The palace is consequently one of relatively few embassy buildings anywhere still occupying an aristocratic residence with a documented history stretching back nearly three centuries.

What is inside the representative rooms?

The palace's main staircase is decorated with a bust of René Descartes, a fitting presence in a building that now serves French diplomacy. One of the music rooms is said to have hosted Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at private concerts during his stays in Prague. The best-known room, however, is the dining hall: it was there, on the morning of 9 December 1988, that French President François Mitterrand met over breakfast with a group of Czechoslovak dissidents, including Václav Havel. Widely reported at the time, the meeting is remembered as one of the visible signs that change was coming to Czechoslovakia — a sitting Western head of state publicly sitting down with the democratic opposition of the Eastern Bloc, less than a year before the Velvet Revolution.

Frequently asked questions

Can visitors go inside Buquoy Palace? As a working embassy, the building is not routinely open to the public. Access to the interiors is occasional, typically tied to open-day events organised by the French mission.

Where does the palace's name come from? From the Buquoy family, who bought the building in 1748. The family name goes back to Charles Bonaventure de Longueval, Count of Buquoy, a field marshal serving Emperor Ferdinand II.

Is this the same building as the Small Buquoy Palace? No. A separate, smaller building known as the Small Buquoy Palace (Malý Buquoyský palác) stands nearby; it has its own, distinct ownership history.

How do you get to the palace? It stands on Velkopřevorské Square in Malá Strana, a short walk from Charles Bridge and Mostecká street, immediately next to the John Lennon Wall.