The palace was built for Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Duchess of Bourbon (1673–1743), the Duchess of Bourbon, the legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. Begun in 1722 and finished in 1726, it was located in what was then a largely rural quarter at the edge of Paris, which was about to become a very fashionable residential neighborhood, the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Until that time, the area, called the Pré-au-Clercs, a wooded area popular for fighting duels. After the death of Louis XIV in 1715, following the example of the Regent, the aristocracy began to move their residences from Versailles back to Paris. Building space land was scarce in the traditional residential area of the nobility, the densely-populated Marais, so the aristocracy of the Regency looked for land with space for gardens at the edges of the city, either near the Champs-Élysées on the right bank or on the left bank.