Palace of Versailles

Palace of Versailles
Château de Versailles  (French)
Garden façade; Hall of Mirrors; Gardens of Versailles
show Map location and basic information Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap General information Architectural style French Baroque architecture Location Versailles, France Coordinates 48°48′17″N 2°07′13″E / 48.8048°N 2.1203°E / 48.8048; 2.1203Coordinates: 48°48′17″N 2°07′13″E / 48.8048°N 2.1203°E / 48.8048; 2.1203 Construction started 1661 (1661) Completed 1789 Owner Government of France Website en.chateauversailles.fr
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Official name	Palace and Park of Versailles
Criteria	Cultural: i, ii, vi
Reference	83
Inscription	1979 (3rd Session)
Area	1,070 ha
Buffer zone	9,467 ha

The Palace of Versailles (/vɛərˈsaɪ, vɜːrˈsaɪ/ vair-SY, vur-SY;^[1] French: Château de Versailles [ʃɑto d(ə) vɛʁsɑj] (listen)) is a world-famous palace located in Versailles, about 12 miles (19 km) west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and has since 1995 been managed, under the direction of the French Ministry of Culture, by the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. 15,000,000 people visit the Palace, Park, and Gardens of Versailles every year, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.^[2]

A château was built on the site of the Palace of Versailles by King Louis XIII, and expanded by Louis XIV in three phases from 1661 to 1715. The palace was a favorite residence for both men, and in 1682, Louis XIV moved the seat of his court and government to Versailles, making the city of Versailles the de facto capital of France. This state of affairs was continued by Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI, who primarily made interior alterations to the palace, but in 1789 the royal family and capital of France returned to Paris. For the rest of the French Revolution, the Palace of Versailles was largely abandoned and emptied of its contents, and the population of the surrounding city plummeted.

Napoleon Bonaparte, following his takeover of France, used Versailles as a summer residence from 1810 to 1814, but did not restore it. When the French Monarchy was restored, it remained in Paris and it was not until the 1830s that meaningful repairs were made to the palace. A museum of French history was installed within it, replacing the apartments of the southern wing.

The estate of Versailles has been massively influential in the history of art, architecture, and horticulture, and has been recognized as an important piece of the world's cultural heritage. The palace has also been important to the histories of France, Europe, and the world from the 17th century to the present day. The palace and park were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979, while the French Ministry of Culture has placed the palace, its gardens, and some of its subsidiary structures on its list of culturally significant monuments.

History[]

Versailles around 1652, engraving by  [fr]

In 1623,^[3][4] Louis XIII, King of France, built a hunting lodge on a hill in a favorite hunting ground, 12 miles (19 km) west of Paris,^[5] and 10 miles (16 km) from his primary residence, the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye.^[6] The site, near a village named Versailles,^[a] was a wooded wetland that Louis XIII's court scorned as being generally unworthy of a king;^[10] one of his courtiers, François de Bassompierre, wrote that the lodge "would not inspire vanity in even the simplest gentleman".^[4][11] From 1631 to 1634, architect Philibert Le Roy replaced the lodge with a château for Louis XIII,^[12][13] who forbade his queen, Anne of Austria, from staying there overnight,^[14][15] even when an outbreak of smallpox at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1641 forced Louis XIII to relocate to Versailles with his three-year-old heir, the future Louis XIV.^[14][16]

When Louis XIII died in 1643, Anne became Louis XIV's regent,^[17] and Louis XIII's château was abandoned for the next decade. She moved the court back to Paris,^[18] where Anne and her chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, continued Louis XIII's unpopular monetary practices. This led to the Fronde, a series of revolts against royal authority from 1648 to 1653 that masked a struggle between Mazarin and the princes of the blood, Louis XIV's extended family, for influence over him.^[19] In the aftermath of the Fronde, Louis XIV became determined to rule alone.^[20][21] Following Mazarin's death in 1661,^[22] Louis XIV reformed his government to exclude his mother and the princes of the blood,^[21] moved the court back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye,^[23] and ordered the expansion of his father's château at Versailles into a palace.^[14][24]

Louis XIV had hunted at Versailles in the 1650s,^[13][16] but didn't take any special interest in Versailles until 1661.^[25] On 17 August 1661,^[26] Louis XIV was a guest at a sumptuous festival hosted by Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances, at his palatial residence, the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte.^[22][27] Louis XIV was impressed by the palace and its gardens,^[27][28] which were the work of Louis Le Vau, the court architect since 1654, André Le Nôtre, the royal gardener since 1657, and Charles Le Brun,^[13] a painter in royal service since 1647.^[29] Vaux-le-Vicomte's scale and opulence inspired Louis XIV's aesthetic sense,^[4] but also led him to imprison Fouquet that September, as he had also built an island fortress and a private army.^[27][30] Louis XIV was also inspired by Vaux-le-Vicomte,^[31] and he recruited its authors for his own projects.^[32][33] Louis XIV replaced Fouquet with Jean-Baptiste Colbert,^[21][28] a protégé of Mazarin and enemy of Fouquet,^[34] and charged him with managing the corps of artisans in royal employment.^[35][36] Colbert acted as the intermediary between them and Louis XIV,^[37] who personally directed and inspected the planning and construction of Versailles.^[38][39][40]

Construction[]

Versailles in 1668, painted by Pierre Patel

Le Vau's garden façade around 1675

Work at Versailles was at first concentrated on its park and gardens,^[41][42] and through the 1660s, Le Vau only added two detached service wings and a forecourt to the château.^[43][44] But in 1668–69,^[45][46] as a response to the growth of the gardens,^[47] and victory over Spain in the War of Devolution,^[45][46] Louis XIV decided to turn Versailles into a full-scale royal residence.^[43][48] He vacillated between replacing or incorporating his father's château, but settled on the latter by the end of the decade,^[45][46][49] and from 1668 to 1671,^[50] Louis XIII's château was encased on three sides in a feature dubbed the enveloppe.^[46][51] This gave the château a new, Italianate façade overlooking the gardens, but preserved the courtyard façade,^[52][53] resulting in a mix of styles and materials that dismayed Louis XIV^[53] and that Colbert described as a "patchwork".^[54] Attempts to homogenize the two façades failed, and in 1670 Le Vau died,^[55] leaving the post of First Architect to the King vacant for the next seven years.^[56]

Le Vau was succeeded at Versailles by architect François d'Orbay, his assistant.^[57][58] Work at the palace during the 1670s focused on its interiors, as the palace was then nearing completion,^[52][59] though d'Orbay expanded Le Vau's service wings and connected them to the château,^[52] and built a pair of pavilions for government employees in the forecourt.^[16][60] In 1670, d'Orbay was tasked by Louis XIV with designing a city, also called Versailles,^[7] to house and service Louis XIV's growing government and court.^[55][61] The granting of land to courtiers for the construction of townhouses that resembled the palace began in 1671.^[55][62] The next year, the Franco-Dutch War began and funding for Versailles was cut until 1674,^[63] when Louis XIV had work begun on a grand staircase for the reception of guests that became known as the  [fr], and demolished the last of the village of Versailles.^[64]

Versailles around 1682, engraving by Adam Perelle

Following end of the Franco-Dutch War with French victory in 1678, Louis XIV appointed as First Architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart,^[23][65] an experienced architect in Louis XIV's confidence,^[66] who would benefit from a restored budget and large workforce of former soldiers.^[63][67] Mansart began his tenure with the addition from 1678 to 1681 of the Hall of Mirrors,^[68] a renovation of the courtyard façade of Louis XIII's château,^[69] and the expansion of d'Orbay's pavilions to create the  [fr] in 1678-79.^[70] Adjacent to the palace, Mansart built a pair of stables called the  [fr] and  [fr] from 1679 to 1682^[71][72] and the  [fr], which housed the palace's servants and general kitchens, from 1682 to 1684.^[73] Mansart also added two entirely new wings in Le Vau's Italianate style to house the court,^[74] first at the south end of the palace from 1679 to 1681^[75] and then at its north end from 1685 to 1689.^[16]

War and the resulting diminished funding slowed construction at Versailles for the rest of the 17th century.^[63] The Nine Years' War, which began in 1688, stopped work altogether until 1698.^[67] Three years later, however, the even more expensive War of the Spanish Succession began and,^[76] combined with poor harvests in 1693-94 and 1709-10,^[77][78] plunged France into crisis.^[78][79] Louis XIV thus canceled some of the work Mansart had planned in the 1680s, such as the remodeling of the courtyard façade in the Italianate style,^[80] and quashed funding.^[63] Louis XIV and Mansart focused on a permanent palace chapel,^[76][81] which was first started in 1699 and was finished in 1710.^[52][82] Mansart died in 1708,^[83] however, and the work was completed by his half-brother, architect Robert de Cotte.^[4][84]

The Palace of Louis XV[]

A masked ball in the Hall of Mirrors (1745) by Charles-Nicolas Cochin

Louis XIV died in 1715, and the young new King, Louis XV, just five years old, and his government were moved temporarily from Versailles to Paris under the regency of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. In 1722, when the King came of age, he moved his residence and the government back to Versailles, where it remained until the French Revolution in 1789.^[85] Louis XV remained faithful to the original plan of his great-grandfather, and made few changes to the exteriors of Versailles. His main contributions were the construction of the Salon of Hercules, which connected the main building of the Palace with the north wing and the chapel (1724–36); and the royal opera theater, designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, and built between 1769 and 1770. The new theater was completed in time for the celebration of the wedding of the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, and Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria. He also made numerous additions and changes to the royal apartments, where he, the Queen, his daughters, and his heir lived. In 1738, Louis XV remodeled the king's petit appartement on the north side of the Cour de Marbre, originally the entrance court of the old château. He discreetly provided accommodations in another part of the palace for his famous mistresses, Madame de Pompadour and later Madame du Barry.

The extension of the King's petit appartement necessitated the demolition of the Ambassador's Staircase, one of the most admired features of Louis XIV's palace, which left the Palace without a grand staircase entrance.^[86] The following year Louis XV ordered the demolition of the north wing facing onto the Cour Royale, which had fallen into serious disrepair.^[87] He commissioned Gabriel to rebuild it in a more neoclassical style. The new wing was completed in 1780.^[88]

Louis XVI, and the Palace during the Revolution[]

Louis XVI was constrained by the worsening financial situation of the kingdom from making major changes to the palace, so that he primarily focused on improvements to the royal apartments, but gave Marie Antoinette the Petit Trianon in 1774. The Queen made extensive changes to the interior, and added a theater, the Théâtre de la Reine. She also transformed the arboretum planted during the reign of Louis XV into what became known as the Hameau de la Reine, a collection of buildings modeled after a rural French hamlet.^[89] The Queen was at the Petit Trianon in July 1789 when she first learned of the beginning of the French Revolution.

In 1783, the Palace was the site of the signing of three treaties of the Peace of Paris (1783), in which the United Kingdom recognized the independence of the United States.^[90]

The King and Queen learned of the storming of the Bastille in Paris on 14 July 1789, while they were at the Palace, and remained isolated there as the Revolution in Paris spread. The growing anger in Paris led to the Women's March on Versailles on 5 October 1789. A crowd of several thousand men and women, protesting the high price and scarcity of bread, marched from the markets of Paris to Versailles. They took weapons from the city armory, besieged the Palace, and compelled the King and Royal family and the members of the National Assembly to return with them to Paris the following day.^[91]

As soon as the royal family departed, the Palace was closed. In 1792, the Convention, the new revolutionary government, ordered the transfer of all the paintings and sculptures from the Palace to the Louvre. In 1793, the Convention declared the abolition of the monarchy, and ordered all of the royal property in the Palace to be sold at auction. The auction took place between 25 August 1793 and 11 August 1794. The furnishings and art of the Palace, including the furniture, mirrors, baths and kitchen equipment, were sold in seventeen thousand lots. All fleurs-de-lys and royal emblems on the buildings were chambered or chiseled off. The empty buildings were turned into a storehouse for furnishings, art and libraries confiscated from the nobility. The empty grand apartments were opened for tours beginning in 1793, and a small museum of French paintings and art school was opened in some of the empty rooms.^[92]

19th century – history museum and government venue[]

Banquet for Queen Victoria hosted by Napoleon III in the Royal Opera of Versailles, August 1855 by Eugene Lami

Proclamation of the German Empire, 18 January 1871, 1877 by Anton von Werner

When Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor of the French in 1804, he considered making Versailles his residence, but abandoned the idea because of the cost of the renovation. Prior to his marriage with Marie-Louise in 1810, he had the Grand Trianon restored and refurnished as a springtime residence for himself and his family, in the style of furnishing that it is seen today.^[93]

In 1815, with the final downfall of Napoleon, Louis XVIII, the younger brother of Louis XVI, became King, and considered returning the royal residence to Versailles, where he had been born. He ordered the restoration of the royal apartments, but the task and cost was too great. Louis XVIII had the far end of the south wing of the Cour Royale demolished and rebuilt (1814–1824) to match the Gabriel wing of 1780 opposite, which gave greater uniformity of appearance to the front entrance.^[94] Neither he nor his successor Charles X lived at Versailles.^[93]

The French Revolution of 1830 brought a new monarch, Louis-Philippe to power, and a new ambition for Versailles. He did not reside at Versailles, but began the creation of the Museum of the History of France, dedicated to "all the glories of France", which had been used to house some members of the royal family. The museum was begun in 1833 and inaugurated on 30 June 1837. Its most famous room is the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles), which lies on most of the length of the second floor of the south wing.^[95] The museum project largely came to a halt when Louis Philippe was overthrown in 1848, though the paintings of French heroes and great battles still remain in the south wing.

Emperor Napoleon III used the Palace on occasion as a stage for grand ceremonies. One of the most lavish was the banquet that he hosted for Queen Victoria in the Royal Opera of Versailles on 25 August 1855.^[96]

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the Palace was occupied by the general staff of the victorious German Army. Parts of the chateau, including the Gallery of Mirrors, were turned into a military hospital. The creation of the German Empire, combining Prussia and the surrounding German states under William I, was formally proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors on 18 January 1871. The Germans remained in the Palace until the signing of the armistice in March 1871. In that month, the government of the new Third French Republic, which had departed Paris during the War for Tours and then Bordeaux, moved into the Palace. The National Assembly held its meetings in the Opera House.^[97]

The uprising of the Paris Commune in March 1871, prevented the French government, under Adolphe Thiers, from returning immediately to Paris. The military operation which suppressed the Commune at the end of May was directed from Versailles, and the prisoners of the Commune were marched there and put on trial in military courts. In 1875 a second parliamentary body, the French Senate, was created, and held its meetings for the election of a President of the Republic in a new hall created in 1876 in the south wing of the Palace. The French Senate continues to meet in the Palace on special occasions, such as the amendment of the French Constitution.^[98]

20th century[]

The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, 28 June 1919 by William Orpen

The end of the 19th and the early 20th century saw the beginning of restoration efforts at the Palace, first led by Pierre de Nolhac, poet and scholar and the first conservator, who began his work in 1892. The conservation and restoration was interrupted by two world wars, but has continued until the present day.^[99]

The Palace briefly returned to the world stage in June 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the First World War, was signed in the Hall of Mirrors. Between 1925 and 1928, the American philanthropist and multi-millionaire John D. Rockefeller gave $2,166,000, the equivalent of about thirty million dollars today, to restore and refurnish the palace.^[100]

More work took place after World War II, with the restoration of the Royal Opera of Versailles. The theater was reopened in 1957, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.^[101]

In 1978, parts of the Palace were heavily damaged in a bombing committed by Breton terrorists.^[102]

Starting in the 1950s, when the museum of Versailles was under the directorship of , the objective was to restore the palace to its state – or as close to it as possible – in 1789 when the royal family left the palace. Among the early projects was the repair of the roof over the Hall of Mirrors; the publicity campaign brought international attention to the plight of post-war Versailles and garnered much foreign money including a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Concurrently, in the Soviet Union (Russia since 26 December 1991), the restoration of the Pavlovsk Palace located 25 kilometers from the center of Leningrad – today's Saint Petersburg – brought the attention of French Ministry of Culture, including that of the curator of Versailles.^[103] After the war when Soviet authorities were restoring the palace, which had been gutted by the retreating Nazi forces, they recreated the silk fabrics by using preserved 18th-century remnants.^[103]

When these results and the high quality achieved were brought to the attention of the French Minister of Culture, he revived 18th-century weaving techniques so as to reproduce the silks used in the decoration of Versailles.^[103] The two greatest achievements of this initiative are seen today in wall hangings used in the restoration of the chambre de la reine in the grand appartement de la reine and the chambre du roi in the appartement du roi. While the design used for the chambre du roi was, in fact, from the original design to decorate the chambre de la reine, it nevertheless represents a great achievement in the ongoing restoration at Versailles. Additionally, this project, which took over seven years to achieve,has required several hundred kilograms of silver and gold to complete.^[104] One of the more costly endeavours for the museum and France's Fifth Republic has been to repurchase as much of the original furnishings as possible. Consequently, because furniture with a royal provenance – and especially furniture that was made for Versailles – is a highly sought after commodity on the international market, the museum has spent considerable funds on retrieving much of the palace's original furnishings.^[105]

21st century[]

In 2003, a new restoration initiative – the "Grand Versailles" project – was started, which began with the replanting of the gardens, which had lost over 10,000 trees during Hurricane Lothar on 26 December 1999. One part of the initiative, the restoration of the Hall of Mirrors, was completed in 2006.^[106] Another major project was the further restoration of the backstage areas Royal Opera of Versailles, which was completed on 9 April 1957.^[107]

The Palace of Versailles is currently owned by the French state. Its formal title is the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles Since 1995, it has been run as a Public Establishment, with an independent administration and management supervised by the French Ministry of Culture.^[108]

Architecture and plan[]

• 

  The Marble Court and facades of the first Chateau, embellished by Louis Le Vau (1661–68) and then Hardouin-Mansart in (1679–1681)

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  Plan of the main floor (c. 1837, with north to the right), showing the Hall of Mirrors in red, the Hall of Battles in green, the Royal Chapel in yellow, and the Royal Opera in blue

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  Aerial view from the garden

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  The facade facing the garden, with the royal apartments and the Gallery of Mirrors between them^{[citation needed]}

The Palace of Versailles offers a visual history of French architecture from the 17th century to the end of the 18th century. It began with the original château, with the brick and stone and sloping slate mansard roofs of the Louis XIII style used by architect Philibert Le Roy. It then became grander and more monumental, with the addition of the colonnades and flat roofs of the new royal apartments in the French classical or Louis XIV style, as designed by Louis Le Vau and later Jules Hardouin-Mansart. It concluded in the lighter and more graceful neoclassical Louis XVI style of the Petit Trianon, completed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1768.

The palace was largely completed by the death of Louis XIV in 1715. The eastern facing palace has a U-shaped layout, with the corps de logis and symmetrical advancing secondary wings terminating with the Dufour Pavilion on the south and the Gabriel Pavilion to the north, creating an expansive cour d'honneur known as the Royal Court (Cour Royale). Flanking the Royal Court are two enormous asymmetrical wings that result in a façade of 402 metres (1,319 ft) in length.^[109] Covered by around a million square feet (10 hectares) of roof, the palace has 2,143 windows, 1,252 chimneys, and 67 staircases.^[110]

The façade of Louis XIII's original château is preserved on the entrance front. Built of red brick and cut stone embellishments, the U-shaped layout surrounds a black-and-white marble courtyard. In the center, a 3-storey avant-corps fronted with eight red marble columns supporting a gilded wrought-iron balcony is surmounted with a triangle of lead statuary surrounding a large clock, whose hands were stopped upon the death of Louis XIV. The rest of the façade is completed with columns, painted and gilded wrought-iron balconies and dozens of stone tables decorated with consoles holding marble busts of Roman emperors. Atop the mansard slate roof are elaborate dormer windows and gilt lead roof dressings that were added by Hardouin-Mansart in 1679–1681.

Inspired by the architecture of baroque Italian villas, but executed in the French classical style, the garden front and wings were encased in white cut ashlar stone known as the enveloppe in 1668–1671 by Le Vau and modified by Hardouin-Mansart in 1678–1679.^[111] The exterior features an arcaded, rusticated ground floor, supporting a main floor with round-headed windows divided by reliefs and pilasters or columns. The attic storey has square windows and pilasters and crowned by a balustrade bearing sculptured trophies and flame pots dissimulating a flat roof.

Royal Apartments[]

Plan of the main floor in the central part of the palace (c. 1742),^[112] showing the grand appartement du roi in dark blue, the appartement du roi in medium blue, the petit appartement du roi in light blue, the grand appartement de la reine in yellow, and the petit appartement de la reine in red

The construction in 1668–1671 of Le Vau's enveloppe around the outside of Louis XIII's red brick and white stone château added state apartments for the king and the queen. The addition was known at the time as the château neuf (new château). The grands appartements (Grand Apartments, also referred to as the State Apartments^[113]) include the grand appartement du roi and the grand appartement de la reine. They occupied the main or principal floor of the château neuf, with three rooms in each apartment facing the garden to the west and four facing the garden parterres to the north and south, respectively. The private apartments of the king (the appartement du roi and the petit appartement du roi) and those of the queen (the petit appartement de la reine) remained in the château vieux (old château). Le Vau's design for the state apartments closely followed Italian models of the day, including the placement of the apartments on the main floor (the piano nobile, the next floor up from the ground level), a convention the architect borrowed from Italian palace design.^[114]

The king's State Apartment consisted of an enfilade of seven rooms, each dedicated to one of the known planets and their associated titular Roman deity. The queen's apartment formed a parallel enfilade with that of the grand appartement du roi. After the addition of the Hall of Mirrors (1678–1684) the king's apartment was reduced to five rooms (until the reign of Louis XV, when two more rooms were added) and the queen's to four.

The queen's apartments served as the residence of three queens of France – Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche, wife of Louis XIV, Marie Leczinska, wife of Louis XV, and Marie-Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. Additionally, Louis XIV's granddaughter-in-law, Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, duchesse de Bourgogne, wife of the Petit Dauphin, occupied these rooms from 1697 (the year of her marriage) to her death in 1712.^[b]

Ambassador's Staircase[]

Model of the former Ambassador's Staircase

Before entering the King's State Apartments, one had to climb the Ambassadors Staircase – a suitable entrance as its magnificence matched the grandness of the apartments. The Ambassadors Staircase (Escalier des Ambassadeurs) was built in 1674 but was finished in 1680. Although it was designed by architect Louis Le Vau, the staircase was built by François d’Orbay and was primarily painted by Charles Le Brun. Destroyed in 1752, the staircase was the entrance to the King's Apartments and was the official grand entrance into the Chateau, specifically intended to astonish and impress foreign dignitaries.^[115] At the time of its creation, Versailles was transitioning to reflect governmental power and authority instead of a private home for the crown.^[116] The staircases’ primal function and the details it encompasses reinforces this progression at Versailles.

The staircase incorporates allegories of the Four Parts of the World on the vault and representation of crowds of foreign visitors on the walls.^[117] The staircase was lit from above with a skylight – a fairly advanced quality for seventeenth century architecture and is thought to have played a symbolic role in the connection with the scenes of the kings heroism depicted by Le Brun. Additionally, it is known to include Thalia (the muse of Comedy), Melpomene, Calliope, and Apollo (Louis XIV's emblem)^[118] and the twelve months of the year. References to the greater world, such as the depiction of the twelve months of the year and the four parts of the world, circle back to Louis XIV's mentality of Versailles symbolizing supreme and divine power which in turn, reflects Louis XIV's desired depiction of his reign.

The State Apartments of the King[]

• 

  Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee by Veronese in the Salon of Hercules

• 

  The Salon of Abundance

• 

  The Salon of Venus

• 

  The Salon of Mercury

The construction of the Hall of Mirrors between 1678 and 1686 coincided with a major alteration to the State Apartments. They were originally intended as his residence, but the King transformed them into galleries for his finest paintings, and venues for his many receptions for courtiers. During the season from All-Saints Day in November until Easter, these were usually held three times a week, from six to ten in the evening, with various entertainments.^[119]

The Salon of Hercules[]

This was originally a chapel. It was rebuilt beginning in 1712 under the supervision of the First Architect of the King, Robert de Cotte, to showcase two paintings by Paolo Veronese, Eleazar and Rebecca and Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee, which was a gift to Louis XIV from the Republic of Venice in 1664. The painting on the ceiling, The Apotheosis of Hercules, by François Lemoyne, was completed in 1736, and gave the room its name.^[119][120]

The Salon of Abundance[]

The Salon of Abundance was the antechamber to the Cabinet of Curios (now the Games Room), which displayed Louis XIV's collection of precious jewels and rare objects. Some of the objects in the collection are depicted in René-Antoine Houasse's painting Abundance and Liberality (1683), located on the ceiling over the door opposite the windows.

The Salon of Venus[]

This salon was used for serving light meals during evening receptions. The principal feature in this room is Jean Warin's life-size statue of Louis XIV in the costume of a Roman emperor. On the ceiling in a gilded oval frame is another painting by Houasse, Venus subjugating the Gods and Powers (1672–1681). Trompe-l'œil paintings and sculpture around the ceiling illustrate mythological themes.^[121]

The Salon of Mercury[]

The Salon of Mercury was the original State Bedchamber when Louis XIV officially moved the court and government to the Palace in 1682. The bed is a replica of the original commissioned by King Louis-Philippe in the 19th century when he turned the Palace into a Museum. The ceiling paintings by the Flemish artist Jean Baptiste de Champaigne depicts the god Mercury in his chariot, drawn by a rooster, and Alexander the Great and Ptolemy surrounded by scholars and philosophers. The Automaton Clock was made for the King by the royal clockmaker Antoine Morand in 1706. When it chimes the hour, figures of Louis XIV and Fame descend from a cloud.^[122]

• 

  Salon of Mars

• 

  Ceiling in the Salon of Apollo, depicting the Sun Chariot of Apollo

• 

  Bust of Louis XIV by Bernini in Salon of Diana

The Salon of Mars[]

The Salon of Mars was used by the royal guards until 1782, and was decorated on a military theme with helmets and trophies. It was turned into a concert room between 1684 and 1750, with galleries for musicians on either side. Portraits of Louis XV and his Queen, Marie Leszczinska, by the Flemish artist Carle Van Loo decorate the room today.

The Salon of Apollo[]

The Salon of Apollo was the royal throne room under Louis XIV, and was the setting for formal audiences. The eight-foot high silver throne was melted down in 1689 to help pay the costs of an expensive war, and was replaced by a more modest throne of gilded wood. The central painting on the ceiling, by Charles de la Fosse, depicts the Sun Chariot of Apollo, the King's favorite emblem, pulled by four horses and surrounded by the four seasons.

The Salon of Diana[]

The Salon of Diana was used by Louis XIV as a billiards room, and had galleries from which courtiers could watch him play. The decoration of the walls and ceiling depicts scenes from the life of the goddess Diana. The celebrated bust of Louis XIV by Bernini made during the famous sculptor's visit to France in 1665, is on display here.^[123]

Private apartments of the King and Queen[]

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  The King's bedchamber

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  The Queen's bedchamber

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  The gilded cabinet of Marie-Antoinette

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  Billiard Room of Marie-Antoinette

Private apartments of the King[]

The apartments of the King were the heart of the chateau; they were in the same location as the rooms of Louis XIII, the creator of the chateau, on the first floor (second floor US style). They were set aside for the personal use of Louis XIV in 1683. He and his successors Louis XV and Louis XVI used these rooms for official functions, such as the ceremonial lever ("waking up") and the coucher ("going to bed") of the monarch, which were attended by a crowd of courtiers.

The King's apartment was accessed from the Hall of Mirrors from the Oeil de Boeuf antechamber or from the Guardroom and the Grand Couvert, the ceremonial room where Louis XIV often took his evening meals, seated alone at a table in front of the fireplace. His spoon, fork, and knife were brought to him in a golden box. The courtiers could watch as he dined.^[124]

The King's bedchamber had originally been a Drawing Room before Louis XIV transformed it into his own bedroom in 1701. He died there on 1 September 1715. Both Louis XV and Louis XVI continued to use the bedroom for their official awakening and going to bed. On 6 October 1789, from the balcony of this room Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, joined by the Marquis de Lafayette, looked down on the hostile crowd in the courtyard, shortly before the King was forced to return to Paris.^[124]

The bed of the King is placed beneath a carved relief by Nicolas Coustou entitled France watching over the sleeping King. The decoration includes several paintings set into the paneling, including a self-portrait of Antony van Dyck.^[124]

Private apartments of The Queen[]

The petit appartement de la reine is a suite of rooms that were reserved for the personal use of the queen. Originally arranged for the use of the Marie-Thérèse, consort of Louis XIV, the rooms were later modified for use by Marie Leszczyńska and finally for Marie-Antoinette. The Queen's apartments and the King's Apartments were laid out on the same design, each suite having seven rooms. Both suites had ceilings painted with scenes from mythology; the King's ceilings featured male figures, the Queen's featured females.

Hall of Mirrors[]

The Hall of Mirrors in 2011, mirrors at left

The Hall of Mirrors is a long gallery at the westernmost part of the palace, and its most famous room, that looks out onto the gardens.^[125] It measures 73 meters (240 ft) long, 10.5 meters (34 ft) wide, and 12.3 meters (40 ft) high,^[126] and is decorated with 357 mirrors facing 17 windows and reflecting the light provided by them.^[125][126] The Hall occupies the site of a terrace Le Vau built between the king and queen's suites. It was however exposed to inclement weather,^[125] making it useable only in the summer months,^[127] and in 1678 Louis XIV tasked Mansart with demolishing it. In its place,^[127][125] from 1678 to 1681,^[68] Mansart built the Hall of Mirrors. The ceiling fresco, painted by Charles Le Brun over the next four years,^[126] embellishes the first 18 years of Louis XIV's reign in 30 scenes.^[125] The fresco depicts Louis XIV as a Roman emperor, breaking from earlier frescoes at Versailles that used Classical and mythological scenes as allegory rather than palette.^[126][128]

The  [fr] and the  [fr] bookend the Hall of Mirror on its northern and southern ends respectively.^[129][130] The Salon of War, renovated from 1678 to 1686, celebrates French victories in the Franco-Dutch War and is also decorated by Le Brun.^[125]

Royal Chapel[]

• 

  Royal Chapel seen from the ground floor

• 

  The Royal Chapel, seen from the Royal Gallery

• 

  The Royal Chapel, the tallest building of the Palace

• 

  Altar and organ of the Royal Chapel

• 

  Glory holding a portrait of Louis XV, by Antoine Vassé, in the chapel vestibule

The chapel was the last building at Versailles to be completed during the reign of Louis XIV. It was consecrated in 1710, and was dedicated to Louis IX of France, the ancestor and patron saint of the King. Construction was begun by Hardouin-Mansart in 1699, and was completed by de Corte. Daily services, wedding ceremonies, and baptisms were held in this chapel until 1789. Like other royal chapels, it had two levels: the King and family worshipped in the Royal Gallery on the upper level, while ordinary courtiers stood on the ground level.^[131]

The paintings on the ceiling display scenes depicting the three figures of the trinity. In the center is The Glory of the Father Announcing the Coming of the Messiah by Antoine Coypel, above the altar is The Resurrection of Christ, and above the royal gallery is The Holy Spirit Descending Upon the Virgin and the Apostles. The corridor and vestibule that connected the Chapel and the State Apartments included later art, commissioned by Louis XV, intended to portray the link between Divinity and the King: a statue of Glory Holding the Medallion of Louis XV, by Antoine Vassé; and Royal Magnanimity by Jacques Bousseau.^[132]

The Royal Chapel has been under restoration since 2018. The end of the construction was scheduled for spring 2021.^[133]

Royal Opera[]

• 

  The Royal Box

• 

  Foyer of the Royal Opera

• 

  The Royal Opera during the celebration of the marriage of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette (1770)

• 

  Stage of the Royal Opera

• 

  Ceiling of the opera, painted by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau

The Royal Opera of Versailles was originally commissioned by Louis XIV in 1682 and was to be built at the end of the North Wing with a design by Mansart and Vigarani. However, due to the expense of the King's continental wars, the project was put aside. The idea was revived by Louis XV with a new design by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1748, but this also was temporarily put aside. The project was revived and rushed ahead for the planned celebration of the marriage of the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, and Marie-Antoinette. For economy and speed, the new opera was built almost entirely of wood, which also gave it very high quality acoustics. The wood was painted to resemble marble, and the ceiling was decorated with a painting of the Apollo, the god of the arts, preparing crowns for illustrious artists, by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau. The sculptor Augustin Pajou added statuary and reliefs to complete the decoration. The new Opera was inaugurated on 16 May 1770, as part of the celebration of the royal wedding.^[134]

In October 1789, early in the French Revolution, the last banquet for the royal guardsmen was hosted by the King in the opera, before he departed for Paris. Following the Franco-German War in 1871 and then the Paris Commune until 1875, the French National Assembly met in the opera, until the proclamation of the Third French Republic and the return of the government to Paris.^[135]

Museum of the History of France[]

• 

  Louis Philippe dedicates the Galerie des Batailles, by François Joseph Heim (1837)

• 

  The Gallery of Battles in the Museum of the History of France

• 

  The Battle of Taillebourg, by Eugène Delacroix (1837)

• 

  Louis Philippe and his sons pose before the gates of Versailles, by Horace Vernet History Gallery, (1846)

Shortly after becoming King in 1830, Louis Philippe I decided to transform the Palace into a museum devoted to "All the Glories of France," with paintings and sculpture depicting famous French victories and heroes. Most of the apartments of the palace were entirely demolished (in the main building, practically all of the apartments were annihilated, with only the apartments of the king and queen remaining almost intact), and turned into a series of several large rooms and galleries: the Coronation Room (whose original volume was left untouched by Louis-Philippe), which displays the celebrated painting of the coronation of Napoleon I by Jacques-Louis David; the Hall of Battles; commemorating French victories with large-scale paintings; and the 1830 room, which celebrated Louis-Philippe's own coming to power in the French Revolution of 1830. Some paintings were brought from the Louvre, including works depicting events in French history by Philippe de Champaigne, Pierre Mignard, Laurent de La Hyre, Charles Le Brun, Adam Frans van der Meulen, Nicolas de Largillière, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean-Marc Nattier, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Hubert Robert, Thomas Lawrence, Jacques-Louis David, and Antoine-Jean Gros. Others were commissioned especially for the museum by prominent artists of the early 19th century, including Eugène Delacroix, who painted Saint Louis at the French victory over the British in the Battle of Taillebourg in 1242. Other painters featured include Horace Vernet and François Gérard. A monumental painting by Vernet features Louis Philippe himself, with his sons, posing in front of the gates of the Palace.^[136]

The overthrow of Louis Philippe in 1848 put an end to his grand plans for the museum, but the Gallery of Battles is still as it was, and is passed through by many visitors to the royal apartments and grand salons. Another set of rooms on the first floor has been made into galleries on Louis XIV and his court, displaying furniture, paintings, and sculpture. In recent years, eleven rooms on the ground floor between the Chapel and the Opera have been turned into a history of the palace, with audiovisual displays and models.^[136]

Estate of Versailles[]

The palace, park, and gardens of Versailles around 1700, mapped by Nicolas de Fer and engraved by Charles Inselin. North is to the right.

The estate of Versailles consists of the palace, the subsidiary buildings around it, and  [fr] and gardens. As of June 2021, the estate altogether covers an area of 800 hectares (8.0 km²; 2,000 acres),^[137] with the park and gardens laid out to the south, west, and north of the palace.^[138] The palace is approached from the east by the  [fr], measuring 17 miles (27 km) from Paris to a gate between the  [fr] and  [fr].^[139] Beyond these stables is the  [fr],^[140][141] where the Avenue de Paris meets the  [fr] and  [fr] (see map), the three roads that formed the main arteries of the city of Versailles.^[44][142] Exactly where the three roads meet is a gate leading into the cour d'honneur,^[143] hemmed in by the  [fr].^[140][141] Beyond is the  [fr] and the main palace,^[141] which wraps around the  [fr]^[127] and finally  [fr].^[144]

The estate was established by Louis XIII as a hunting retreat,^[3][145] with a park just to the west of his château.^[15] From 1661, Louis XIV expanded the estate until,^[146][147] at its greatest extent, the estate was made up by the Grand Parc, a hunting ground of 15,000 hectares (150 km²; 37,000 acres),^[145][138] and the gardens, called the Petit Parc,^[138] which covered 1,700 hectares (17 km²; 4,200 acres). A 25-mile (40 km) long, 10-foot (3.0 m) high wall with 24 gateways enclosed the estate.^[145]

The landscape of the estate had to be created from the bog that surrounded Louis XIII's château using landscape architecture usually employed in fortress building.^[148] The approach to the palace and the gardens were carefully laid out via the moving of earth and construction of terraces.^[149][150] The water from the marsh was marshalled into a series of lakes and ponds around Versailles,^[151] but these reservoirs were not sufficient for the palace, city, or gardens. Great lengths were taken to supply Versailles with water, such as the damming of the river Bièvre to create an inflow in the 1660s, the construction of an enormous pumping station at the river Seine near Marly-le-Roi in 1681, and an attempt to divert water from the river Eure with a canal in the later 1680s.^[152][153]

Gardens[]

View of the gardens of Versailles, looking northwest from the palace

The gardens of Versailles, as they have existed since the reign of Louis XIV, are the work of André Le Nôtre. Le Nôtre's gardens were preceded by a simple garden laid out in the 1630s by landscape architects Jacques Boyceau and Jacques de Nemours,^[154] which he rearranged along an east-west axis that,^[155] because of Louis XIV's land purchases and the clearing of woodland,^{[42][148][138]} were expanded literally as far as could be seen.^[155] The resulting gardens were a collaboration between Le Nôtre, Le Brun, Colbert, and Louis XIV,^[150] marked by rigid order, discipline,^[42] and open space, with axial paths, flowerbeds, hedges, and ponds and lakes as motifs.^[156] They became the epitome of the French formal garden style,^[157] and have been very influential and widely imitated or reproduced.^[156][138]

Subsidiary structures[]

The Versailles Orangery

The first of the subsidiary structures of the Palace of Versailles was the  [fr],^[158][159] built by Le Vau between the years 1662 and 1664,^[159] at the southern end of the Grand Canal.^[158] The apartments, overlooking the pens,^[44][160] were renovated by Mansart from 1698 to 1700,^[159] but the Menagerie fell into disuse in 1712.^[158] After a long period of decay, it was demolished in 1801.^[159] The Versailles Orangery, just to the south of the palace,^[161] was first built by Le Vau in 1663,^[162] originally as part of the general moving of earth to create the Estate.^[149] It was also modified by Mansart, who, from 1681 to 1685, totally rebuilt it and doubled its size.^[163]

The Trianons[]

The Grand Trianon and its courtyard and gardens. The wing at left is a residence of the President of France.

The Petit Trianon (top), the  [fr] (left), and  [fr] (center) in the estate of the Petit Trianon

In 1668,^[164] Louis XIV purchased and demolished the hamlet of Trianon,^[54] near the northern tip of the Grand Canal,^[165] and in its place, he commissioned Le Vau to construct a retreat from court,^[165][166] remembered as the Porcelain Trianon. Designed and built by Le Vau in 1670,^[164][167] it was the first example of Chinoiserie (faux Chinese) architecture in Europe, though it was largely designed in French style.^[168][169] The roof was clad not with porcelain but with delftware,^{[164][165][168]} and thus prone to leaks,^[170] so in 1687 Louis XIV ordered it demolished.^[164] Nevertheless, the Porcelain Trianon was itself influential and copycats were built across Europe.^[165][171]

To replace the Porcelain Trianon,^[170] Louis XIV tasked Mansart with the construction in 1687 of the Grand Trianon, built from marble in three months.^[164] The Grand Trianon has a single story, except for its attached service wing,^[172][173] which was modified by Mansart in 1705–06.^[174] The east façade has a courtyard while the west faces the gardens of the Grand Trianon, and between them a peristyle.^[172][174] The interiors are mostly original,^[175] and housed Louis XIV, the Madame de Maintenon, Marie Leszczynska, and Napoleon, who ordered restorations to the building. Under de Gaulle, the north wing of the Grand Trianon became a residence of the President of France.^[172]

The Petit Trianon, whose construction from 1762 to 1768^[176] led to the advent of the names "Grand" and "Petit Trianon",^[177] was constructed for Louis XV and the Madame du Barry in the Neoclassical style by Gabriel.^[175][178] The building has a piano nobile, basement, and attic,^[176] with five windows on each floor.^[177] On becoming king, Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon to Marie Antoinette, who remodeled it, re-laid its gardens in the then-current English and Oriental styles,^{[177][179][180]} and formed her own court there.^[180]

Near the Trianons are the  [fr], built by Gabriel in 1750 between the two residences, and the  [fr] and Hamlet, built by architect Richard Mique in 1780 and from 1783 to 1785 respectively. These were both built at the behest of Marie Antoinette;^[181] the theater, hidden in the gardens, indulged her appreciation of opera and is absolutely original,^[175] and the hamlet to extend her gardens with rustic amenities.^{[181][182][183]}

Modern Political and ceremonial functions[]

The palace still serves political functions. Heads of state are regaled in the Hall of Mirrors; the bicameral French Parliament—consisting of the Senate (Sénat) and the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale)—meet in joint session (a congress of the French Parliament) in Versailles^[184] to revise or otherwise amend the French Constitution, a tradition that came into effect with the promulgation of the 1875 Constitution.^[186] For example, the Parliament met in joint session at Versailles to pass constitutional amendments in June 1999 (for domestic applicability of International Criminal Court decisions and for gender equality in candidate lists), in January 2000 (ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam), and in March 2003 (specifying the "decentralized organization" of the French Republic).^[184]

In 2009, President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed the global financial crisis before a congress in Versailles, the first time that this had been done since 1848, when Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte gave an address before the French Second Republic.^{[187][188][189]} Following the November 2015 Paris attacks, President François Hollande gave a speech before a rare joint session of parliament at the Palace of Versailles.^[190] This was the third time since 1848 that a French president addressed a joint session of the French Parliament at Versailles.^[191] The president of the National Assembly has an official apartment at the Palace of Versailles.^[192]

Gallery[]

• 

  Panoramic view from the park

• 

  Panoramic view from the city

See also[]

• Bureau du Roi
• List of Baroque residences
• Paris Peace Conference, 1919
• Style Louis XIV
• Subsidiary structures of the Palace of Versailles
• Tennis Court Oath (French: serment du jeu de paume) in the Saint-Louis district
• Versailles Cathedral

Notes[]

Citations[]

References[]

Web sources[]

• "Histoire de Versailles" (in French). City of Versailles. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
• "Palace and Park of Versailles". UNESCO. Retrieved 21 June 2021.

French Ministry of Culture[]

Further reading[]

• Mansel, Philip. King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV (2020) chapters 8, 13.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Palace of Versailles.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Versailles.

• Official website
• Palace of Versailles's 360x180 degree panorama virtual tour
• Versailles on Paper (exhibition website)
• Versailles Multimedia Gallery