Palace of Versailles
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Versailles: Louis Le Vau opened up the interior court to create the expansive entrance cour d'honneur, later copied all over Europe. |
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Versaille's chapel is one of the palace's grandest interiors. |
The
Château de Versailles â€"or simply
Versaillesâ€" is a royal
château, in
Versailles,
France. In English it is often referred to as the
Palace of Versailles. When the château was built
Versailles was a country village, but it is now a suburb of
Paris with city status in its own right. From 1682, when King
Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in 1789, the
Court of Versailles was the centre of power in
Ancien RĂ©gime France.
In
1660,
Louis XIV, who was approaching majority and the assumption of full royal powers from the advisors who had governed France during his minority, was casting about for a site near
Paris but away from the tumults and diseases of the crowded city. He had grown up in the disorders of the civil war between rival factions of aristocrats called the
Fronde and wanted a site where he could organize and completely control a government of France by absolute personal rule. He settled on the royal hunting lodge at Versailles and over the following decades he had it expanded into the largest palace in Europe. Versailles is famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of
absolute monarchy which
Louis XIV espoused.
The palace grew through a series of expansions wrapped around the original modest hunting lodge, which still remains at its heart. This led to a certain incongruity in the architecture, as the centrepiece of the palace is not in scale with its final dimensions. In
1661 Louis Le Vau made some additions which he developed further in
1668. In
1678 Mansart took over the work, the
Galerie des Glaces, the chapel and the two wings being due to him. On
May 6,
1682 Louis XIV took up residence in the château. Furnishings had been plundered from Louis' disgraced finance minister's
Nicolas Fouquet splendid house at
Vaux-le-Vicomte, whose grand success there was his undoing.
Versailles is a key example of
baroque palace architecture, and many of the finest craftsmen in Europe worked it for many years.
Versailles became the home of the French
nobility and the location of the
royal court - thus becoming the center of French government.
Louis XIV himself lived there, and symbolically the central room of the long extensive symmetrical range of buildings was the King's Bedchamber (the
Chambre du Roi), which itself was centered on the lavish and symbolic state bed, set behind a rich railing not unlike a
communion rail. All the power of France emanated from this centre: there were
government offices here; as well as the homes of thousands of courtiers, their retinues and all the attendant functionaries of court. By requiring that nobles of a certain rank and position spend time each year at Versailles, Louis prevented them from developing their own regional power at the expense of his own and kept them from countering his efforts to
centralize the French government in an
absolute monarchy. At various periods before
Louis XIV established absolute rule, France like the Holy Roman Empire lacked central authority and was not the unified state it was to become during the proceeding centuries. During the Middle Ages some local nobles were at times more powerful than the French King and, although technically loyal to the King, they possessed their own provincial seats of power and government, culturally influential courts and armies loyal to them not the King and the right to levy their own taxes on their subjects. Some families were so powerful, they achieved international prominence and contracted marriage alliances with foreign royal houses to further their own political ambitions. Although nominally Kings of France, de facto royal power had at times been limited purely to the region around Paris.
The Hall of Mirrors
The Hall of Mirrors (
French:
Galerie des Glaces) is a large room in the palace. It is generally considered one of the major attractions of the palace and is currently undergoing restoration.
The
galerie was started in
1678, shortly after the fĂŞte at which Monsieur, the king's brother, inaugurated his grand gallery at
Meudon, at the time the
château became the official residence of
Louis XIV. When it was completed in
1684, it was furnished with the famous silver furniture, which had to be melted down to pay from the wars late in Louis' reign. Every court diary, from
Saint-Simon to
Mme de Campan refers to the
Galeries des Glaces and the rituals that occured here..
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Gilded sculptures to support candelabra were commissioned to replace the silver furniture. |
After the signing of the
Treaty of Nijmegen (
1678), at the high point of his reign,
Louis XIV ordered
Le Brun to paint the benefits of his government on the ceiling. The painter conceived thirty scenes, framed with
stucco: the king appears as a
Roman Emperor, as great administrator of his kingdom, and as victorious over foreign powers.
It was in this hall that the
German Empire was proclaimed on
January 18,
1871, following the defeat of France in the
Franco-Prussian War. It was also here that
Germany signed the
Treaty of Versailles (1919), officially ending
World War I.
The
galerie is located on the first floor of the building. It contains 357
mirrors. It is 73
metres long, 10.50 metres wide, and 12.30 metres high (239.5
ft by 34.4 ft by 40.4 ft). It is located between the
salon de la Guerre (War drawing room) at its northern end, and by the
salon de la Paix (Peace drawing room) at its southern end.
Seventeen windows, opening onto the gardens, face seventeen arcades lined with mirrors. These mirrors, of an unprecedented size for the time, were produced by
Saint-Gobain, a Parisian manufacture created by
Colbert to compete with the products of
Venice.
Park and garden
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The central axis of Le Nôtre's garden seen from the Bassin de Diane centered on the château |
The grounds of Versailles contain one of the largest formal gardens ever created, with extensive
parterres, fountains and canals, designed by
André Le Nôtre. Le Nôtre modified the original gardens by expanding them and giving them a sense of openness and scale. He created a plan centered around the central axis of the Grand Canal. The gardens are centered on the south front of the palace, which is set on a long terrace to give a grand view of the gardens. At the foot of the steps the Fountain of Latona is located. This fountain tells a story taken from
Ovid's poem
Metamorphoses. Next, is the Royal Avenue or the
Tapis Vert. Surrounding this to the sides are the formal gardens. Beyond this is the Fountain of
Apollo. This fountain symbolizes the rising regime of the Sun King. Beyond the Fountain lies the massive Grand Canal. Wide wide central axis rises on the far side. Even farther into the distance lie the dense woods of the King's hunting grounds.
Outbuildings
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A panorama of the gardens at Versailles. |
Several smaller buildings were added to the park of Versailles, starting with
Louis XIV's
Grand Trianon (originally the Porcelain Trianon), continuing with additions by
Louis XV and
Louis XVI including the
Petit Trianon, and the Hamlet of
Marie Antoinette known as the
Petit hameau.
While Versailles was grand and luxurious, it was also expensive to maintain. It has been estimated that maintaining Versailles, including the care and feeding of its staff and the royal family, consumed as much as 25% of the government income of France . This may seem extraordinarily large, but Versailles was the centre of government as well as a residence. Additionally, the 25% figure is disputed by historians who consider that it has been exaggerated by those who wish to overemphasise the role of royal extravagance in the causation of the
French Revolution. Recent estimates would suggest that the figure was much closer to 6%.
The 2001 McDougal Littell text book,
World History: Patterns of Interactions, places the cost of building at approximately 2 billion dollars (USD) in 1994. This figure is regarded by many as a gross underestimate of the costs of the estate. Surviving government records from the period have mentioned the figure of 65 million "golden" livres. It is unclear whether the "golden" livre referenced is meant to mean the golden "Louis D'Or" coin (which was worth 24 livres) or the standard livre currency. In any case, if these figures are to be believed and one uses today's values for Gold ($600 per ounce) and Silver ($12 per ounce), the cost of the Versailles estate soars to a minimum cost of $12,480,000,000 and a maximum cost of $299,520,000,000.
Another way to look at this controversy over the costs of Versailles, is to consider the benefits that France drew from this royal palace. Versailles, by locking the nobles into a golden cage, effectively ended the periodical aristocratic groups and rebellions that had plagued France for centuries. It also destroyed aristocratic power in the provinces, and enabled a centralization of the state, for which a majority of modern Frenchmen are still thankful to
Louis XIV, although French centralization, as further developed during the French Revolution, and later the Third Republic, is currently the subject of much debate and overhauling. Versailles also had a tremendous influence on French architecture and arts, and indeed on European architecture and arts, as the court tastes and culture elaborated in Versailles influenced most of Europe. From the start, Versailles was conceived as much as a showcase of French arts and craftsmanship organized in the royal workshops of the Gobelins, as a home for a king. Modern Frenchmen, even the least sympathetic to the former monarchy, are still generally quite proud of the lasting influence that French arts developed in Versailles have had in the world.
After the French defeat in the
Franco-Prussian War, the palace was the main headquarters of the German army from
October 5,
1870 until
March 13,
1871, and the
German Empire was proclaimed here on
January 18.
The ravages of war and neglect over the centuries left their mark on the palace and its huge bushes. Modern French governments of the post
World War II era have sought to repair these damages. They have on the whole been successful, but some of the more costly items, such as the vast array of
fountains, have yet to be put back completely in service. As spectacular as they might seem now, they were even more extensive in the 18th century. The 18th century waterworks at
Marly— the
machine de Marly that fed the fountains— was probably the biggest mechanical system of its time. The water came in from afar on monumental stone
aqueducts, which have long ago fallen in disrepair or been torn down.
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Marie-Antoinette's pastoral pondside Hameau in the park, built in 1783. |
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Another view of Marie-Antoinette's pastoral pondside at Versailles. |
After the Revolution the paintings and sculpture, like the crown jewels, were consigned to the new
Musée du Louvre as part of the cultural patrimony of France. Other contents went to serve a new and moral public role: books and medals went to the
Bibliothèque Nationale, clocks and scientific instruments (
Louis XVI was a connoisseur of science) to the École des Arts et Métiers. Versailles was still the most richly-appointed royal palace of Europe until a long series of auction sales on the premises, which unrolled for months during the Revolution, emptying Versailles slowly of every shred of amenity, at derisory prices, mostly to professional
brocanteurs. The immediate purpose was to raise desperately-needed funds for the armies of the people, but the long-range strategy was to ensure that there was no Versailles for any king ever to come back to. The strategy has worked. Though Versailles was declared an imperial palace, Napoleon never spent a summer's night there.
Versailles remained both royal and unused through the
Restoration. In 1830, the politic
Louis Philippe, the "Citizen King" declared the château a museum dedicated to
"all the glories of France," raising it for the first time above a Bourbon dynastic monument. At the same time,
boiseries from the private apartments of princes and courtiers were removed and found their way, without provenance, into the incipient art market in Paris and London for such panelling. What remained were 120 rooms, the modern
"Galeries Historiques".[
1] The curator Pierre de Nohlac began the conservation of the castle in the 1880s until the 1930s, which is considered a significant contribution to the great modern interest in Versailles.
In the 1960s,
Pierre Verlet, the greatest writer on the history of
French furniture managed to get some royal furnishings returned from the museums and ministries and ambassadors' residences where they had become scattered from the central warehouses of the Mobilier National. He conceived the bold scheme of refurnishing Versailles, and the refurnished royal
Appartements that tourists view today are due to Verlet's successful initiative, in which textiles were even rewoven to refurbish the state beds.
Today, the wise visitor is standing at the entrance to the
Grands appartements du Roi at 8:30, not to spend hours in line. By 11 AM the state rooms are as crushed as a
MĂ©tro rush hour. Tour guides rally their groups with a handkerchief on a stick for visibility in the mob and project simultaneous commentaries. In the summer months, the royal
appartements close at 5:30 PM, and the most knowledgeable visitor arrives shortly before 5, pays a reduced price, and is the last to leave.
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WĂĽrzburg Residenz: garden front |
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Peterhof (1714-1725) and the Grand Cascade |
Versailles ignited a competitive spate of building palaces in fountain-filled gardens among the power elite of Europe, not all of them kings.
The most direct homage to Versailles was at the request of
Ludwig II of Bavaria when he asked for a nearly identical copy of Versailles,
Herrenchiemsee, to be built on an island on the bucolic Chiemsee lake in the countryside of
Bavaria. His funds ran out too soon but the central portion was finished, along with its hall of mirrors, and formal French gardens were planted around it.
An impressive effort was made by
Peter I of Russia. He visited Versailles during the "
Grand Embassy" and later decided to build a residence in the outskirts of
Saint Petersburg he had the
Peterhof complex of buildings in gardens and parks built.
Efforts in England included renovations at
Hampton Court, and the all-but-royal
Chatsworth. The direct British answer to Versailles is
Blenheim Palace, built as a national monument for Louis' nemesis, the Duke of Marlborough.
Several other large palaces were also created throughout Europe, but the degree that they were inspired by, or copied from Versailles cannot be known definitively.
In the courts of Germany, several Versailles-like palaces were constructed, including
Wilhelmshöhe at Kassel,
Schloss Augustusburg in BrĂĽhl,
Ludwigsburg,
Herrenhausen,
Schloss Schleissheim and the
Residenz in WĂĽrzburg.
In Sweden, there is
Drottningholm, in Austria
Schönbrunn, and in Hungary
Eszterháza.
In Italy, the "would-be Versailles" include
Caserta Palace,
Colorno and
Stupinigi.
In the Iberian peninsula two competitors for Versailles stand out:
La Granja near Madrid, and
Queluz in Portugal.
Poland also had
Lazienki and
Branicki Palace.
*
Bureau du Roi*
French Baroque and Classicism*
French Rococo and Neoclassicism*
Menagerie*
Official Site*
Extensive Photo Gallery of Versailles*
The Story of Versailles by Francis Loring Payne, from
Project Gutenberg*
French The Hall of Mirrors Restoration*
French Pictures of : "Les Grandes Eaux Nocturnes"*
Palace of Versailles photos*
Visiting information Palace of Versailles*
Comprehensive audio guide covering history and culture of the Chateau.
