Palace of Versailles

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"Hall of Mirrors" redirects here. For other uses, see Hall of Mirrors (disambiguation).

Versailles: Louis Le Vau opened up the interior court to create the expansive entrance cour d'honneur, later copied all over Europe.

The Château de Versailles, or simply Versailles, 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 Régime 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 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.

[edit] History

[edit] The first chateaux

The earliest mention of the village of Versailles is found in a document dated 1038, the “Charte de l‘ abbaye Saint-Père de Chartres“ (Charter of the Abbey of Saint-Père de Chartres). Of the signatories of the charter was one Hugo de Versailles, hence the name of the village. During this period, the village of Versailles centered on a small castle and church and the area was controlled by a local lord. The village‘ s location on the road from Paris to Dreux and Normandy brought some prosperity to the village but following the Black Plague and the Hundred Years War, the village was largely destroyed and its population severely diminished. <ref>“Histoire du Château de Versailles“ (1911-1918) Pierre de Nolhac, Paris: André Marty</ref><ref>Pierre Verlet (1961) “Versailles“\\\\\\\', Paris: Librarie Arthèmem Fayard</ref>

In 1575, Albert de Gondi, a Florentine, purchased the seigneury of Versailles. Gondi had arrived in France with Catherine de Medici and his family became influential in the French Parliament. In the early decades of the 17th century, Gondi invited Louis XIII on several hunting trips in the forests of Versailles. Following this initial introduction to the area, Louis XIII ordered the construction of a hunting chateaux in 1624. Designed by Philibert Le Roy, the structure was constructed of stone and red brick with a slate roof. Eight years later, in 1632, Louis obtained the seignury of Versailles from the Gondi family and began to make enlargements to the chateaux.

[edit] Expansion under Louis XIV

Louis‘s successor, Louis XIV, took a great interest in Versailles. Beginning in 1661, the architect, Louis Le Vau, and the landscape architect, André Le Nôtre, began a major upgrade of the chateaux. It was Louis XIV‘s hope to create a center for the royal court. Following the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678, the court and French government began to be moved to Versailles. The court was officially established there on 6 May 1682.

Louis‘s reasoning for moving the court and seat of the French government to Versailles was that he could effectively control everything single-handedly if it was in one place. 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.

[edit] Evolution of Versailles

Upon the death of Jules Cardinal Mazarin in 1661, who had served as co-regent during the minority of Louis XIV, Louis XIV (b. 5 September 1638 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye; d. 1 September 1715 at Versailles; reigned 14 May 1642 – 1 September 1715) began his personal reign by vowing to be his own prime minister. From this point, construction and expansion at Versailles became synonymous with the absolutism of Louis XIV.

After the disgrace of Nicolas Fouquet in 1661 — the finance minister had embezzled from the crown to build his château at Vaux-le-Vicomte — Louis XIV, after confiscation of Fouquet’s estate, employed the talents of architect Louis Le Vau, gardener André Le Notre, and painter/decorator Charles Le Brun for his building campaigns at Versailles and elsewhere. For Versailles, there were four distinct building campaigns (after minor alterations and enlargements had be executed on the château and the gardens in 1662-1663), all of which corresponded to Louis XIV’s wars.

[edit] 1st Building Campaign

Commencing with the Plaisirs de l’Île enchantée of 1664 (a fête that was held between 7th and 13th May 1664 ostensibly to celebrate the two queens of France — Anne d’Autriche, the Queen Mother and Marie-Thérèse, Louis XIV’s wife, but in reality was given to celebrate the king’s mistress, Louise de La Vallière. The fête of the Plaisirs de l’Île enchantée is often regarded as prelude to the War of Devolution, which Louis XIV waged against Spain — both the Queen Mother and Marie-Thérèse were Spanish by birth — from 1667 to 1668), the First Building Campaign (1664-1668) saw alterations in the château and gardens in order to accommodate the 600 guests invited to the fête.

[edit] 2nd Building Campaign

The Second Building Campaign (1669-1672) was inaugurated with the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (the treaty that ended the War of Devolution). During this campaign, the château began to assume much of the appearance that it has today. The most important modification of the château was Louis LeVau’s enveloppe of Louis XIII’s hunting lodge. The enveloppe — often referred to as the château neuf to distinguish it from the older structure of Louis XIII — enveloped the hunting lodge on the north, west, and south. The new structure provided new lodgings for members of the king and his family. The first floor — the piano nobile — of the château neuf was given over entirely to two apartments, one for the king and one for the queen. The Grand appartement du roi occupied the northern part of the château neuf and Grand appartement de la reine occupied the southern part. The western part of the enveloppe was given over almost entirely to a terrace, which was later destroyed for construction of the Hall of Mirrors (Galerie des glaces). The ground floor of the northern part of the château neuf was occupied by the appartement des bains, which included a sunken octagonal tub with hot and cold running water. The king’s brother and sister-in-law, the duc and duchesse d’Orléans occupied apartments on the ground floor of the southern part of the château neuf. The upper story of the château neuf was reserved for private rooms for the king to the north and rooms for the king’s children above the queen’s apartment to the south.

Significant to the design and construction of the grands appartements is that the rooms of both apartments are of the same configuration and dimensions — a hitherto unprecedented feature in French palace design. In his monograph “Il n’y plus des Pyrenées: the Iconography of the first Versailles of Louis XIV,” Kevin Olin Johnson posited the hypothesis that the unprecedented similarity to the king and queen’s apartments represented Louis XIV’s wish to establish his wife as queen of Spain. In doing so, a dual monarchy of sorts would have been created. Louis XIV’s rationale for the joining of the two kingdoms was seen largely as recompense for Philip IV‘s failure to pay his daughter Marie-Thérèse’s dowry, which was among the terms of capitulation to which Spain agreed with the promulgation of the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659, ending the war between Spain and France that had been waged since 1635). Louis XIV’s regarded is father-in-law’s act as breach of the treaty and consequently engaged in the War of Devolution.

Both the grand appartement du roi and the grand appartement de la reine formed a suite of seven enfilade rooms. Each room is dedicated to one of the then-know celestial bodies and is personified by the appropriate Greco-Roman deity. The decoration of the rooms, which was conducted under the direction of the Charles Le Brun, depicted the “heroic actions of the king” and were represented in allegorical form by the actions of historical figures from the antique past (Alexander the Great, Augustus, Cyrus, etc.).

[edit] 3rd Building Campaign

With the signing of the Treaty of Nijmegen (1678, which ended the Dutch War of 1672-1678), the Third Building Campaign at Versailles began (1678-1684). Under the direction of the architect, Jules-Hardouin Mansart, the place of Versailles acquired much of the look that it has today. In addition to the Hall of Mirrors, Mansart designed the north and south wings (which were used by the nobility and Princes of the Blood, respectively), and the Orangerie. Charles Le Brun was occupied not only with the interior decoration of the new additions of the palace he also collaborated with André Le Notre in landscaping the palace gardens. As symbol of France’s new prominence as a European super-power, Louis XIV officially installed his court at Versailles in May of 1682.

[edit] 4th Building Campaign

Following soon after the crushing defeat of the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697) and owing possibly to the pious influence of Madame de Maintenant (alleged second and morganatic wife of Louis XIV), Louis XIV undertook his last building campaign at Versailles. The Fourth Building Campaign (1701-1710) concentrated almost exclusively on construction of the chapel (there were also some modifications in the king’s petit appartement, namely the construction of the Salon de l’Oeil de Boeuf and the King’s Bedchamber). With the completion of the chapel in 1710, virtually all construction at Versailles ceased; building would not be resumed at Versailles until some 20 later during the reign of Louis XV.<ref>Sources:

André Félibien, Description sommaire du chasteau de Versailles, (Paris, 1674). Pierre de Nolhac, La création de Versailles, (Versailles, 1901). ———, Versailles, résidence de Louis XIV, (Paris, 1925). ———, Histoire de Versailles. 3 vol. (Paris, 1911). Kevin Olin Johnson, “Il n’y plus de Pyrenées : Iconography of the first Versailles of Louis XIV,“ Gazette des Beaux-Arts (6e pér., vol. 97, janvier 1981) : 29-40.</ref>

Elighthart 22:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ’’Galerie des Glaces’’

Image:Versailleshallofmirrors.jpg

One of the notable features of Louis XIV‘s upgrade is the Galerie des Glaces or “Hall of Mirrors“. Designed by the architect Jules Hardouin Mansart, work on the gallery began in 1678. The gallery is located on the first floor of the palace and takes its name from the 357 mirrors it contains. The mirrors are placed in seventeen arcades that match seventeen windows on the opposite wall. 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.

The gallery dimensions are 73.0 m × 10.5 m × 12.3 m (239.5 ft × 34.4 ft × 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. Initially, the room was furnished with silver furniture that was melted down to fund wars later in Louis‘s 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.

Throughout the history of the palace, this room has been the location for numerous important events. Every court diary, from Saint-Simon to Mme de Campan refers to the Galeries des Glaces and the rituals that occurred there. It was also in the gallery that the German Empire was proclaimed on 18 January 1871, following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War. It was also here that Germany signed the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I.

Image:Versailles Chapel - July 2006 edit.jpg 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 6 May 1682 Louis XIV took up residence in the château. Furnishings had been plundered from Louis‘s 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.

[edit] The politics of display

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 (La 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.

Image:Versailles bedroom.jpg

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.

[edit] Court etiquette

Life at the court was narrowly regulated by court etiquette. Etiquette became the means of social advancement for the court. King Louis XIV required everyone at the court to take ballet lessons ^{[citation needed]}.

Louis XIV’s elaborate rules of etiquette included the following:

People who wanted to speak to the king could not knock on his door. Instead, using the left pinkie finger, they had to gently scratch on the door, until they were granted permission to enter. As a result, many courtiers grew that fingernail longer than the others;
A lady never held hands or linked arms with a gentleman. Besides being in bad taste, this practice would have been impossible because a woman’s hooped skirts were so wide. Instead, she was to place her hand on top of the gentleman’s bent arm as they strolled through the gardens and chambers of Versailles;
When a gentleman sat down, he slid his left foot in front of the other, placed his hands on the sides of the chair and gently lowered himself into the chair. There was a very practical reason for this procedure. If a gentleman sat too fast, his tight trousers might split;
Women and men were not allowed to cross their legs in public;
When a gentleman passed an acquaintance on the street, he was to raise his hat high off his head until the other person passed;
A gentleman was to do no work except writing letters, giving speeches, practicing fencing, or dancing. For pleasure he engaged in hawking, archery, indoor tennis, or hunting. A gentleman would also take part in battle and would sometimes serve as a public officer, paying the soldiers;
Ladies’ clothing did not allow them to do much besides sit and walk. However, they passed the time sewing, knitting, writing letters, painting, making their own lace, and creating their own cosmetics and perfumes.[1]

[edit] Features

[edit] Park and garden

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 also liked to enjoy sunbathing in his wonderful work of art. 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 and served — and still serves — as an allegory of the Fronde. 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. The wide central axis rises on the far side. Even farther into the distance lie the dense woods of the King's hunting grounds.

[edit] Outbuildings

Several smaller buildings were added to the park of Versailles, starting with the Ménagerie, which was built between 1663 and 1665 and modified in the 1690s for the use of Louis XIV‘s granddaughter, the duchess de Bourgogne, followed by the 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 l‘Hameau.

[edit] Cost

Versailles was grand, luxurious, and expensive to maintain. It has been estimated that upkeep and maintenance, including the care and feeding of staff and the royal family, consumed as much as 25 percent of the total income of France ^{[citation needed]}. Although at first glance this may seem extraordinarily large, the Palace of Versailles was the centre of government as well as the royal residence. Additionally, the 25 percent figure is disputed by some historians who believe the number has been by those who would exaggerate the role of royals' extravagance as causation for the French Revolution. Recent estimates suggest a number closer to 6 percent.^{[citation needed]}

The book, World History: Patterns of Interactions (Mcdougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 2001) places the value at approximately US$2 billion (1994). This valuation is regarded by many as a gross underestimate.^{[citation needed]} Surviving government records from the period mention 65 million golden livres. It is unclear whether this "golden" livre references the standard livre, or the Louis d'Or (a gold coin then valued at 24 livres). If accurate, using today's values for gold (US$600 per ounce, 2006) and silver (US$12 per ounce, 2006), the value of the Versailles estate soars to a staggering US$13-US$300 billion.

The Grand Trianon, 1678, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, architect

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.

[edit] War uses

After the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the palace was the main headquarters of the German army from 5 October 1870 until 13 March 1871, and hosted the opening of the Paris Peace Conference on 18 January 1919.

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.

[edit] Post-royal: the monument-museum

Marie-Antoinette's pastoral pond side Hameau in the park, built in 1783

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".[2] The curator Pierre de Nohlac began the conservation of the palace in the 1880s, but did not have the necessary funding until John D. Rockefeller's gift of 60 million francs in 1924-1936. Its promotion as a tourist site started in the 1930's and accelerated in the 1950's and 1960's.<ref>Fabien Oppermann, "Images et usages du château de Versailles au XXe siècle", thesis, Ecole des Chartes, 2004.[3]</ref>

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.

[edit] Buildings inspired by Versailles

Image:Wuerzburger Residenz vom Hofgarten.jpg

As the centralizing organization of modern national government formulated by Richelieu was perfected by Louis XIV and his advisors, other European states hastened to copy it. As they followed the French model in administration and particularly in military affairs (which is why some American government and military vocabulary, such as bureau, personnel, and materiel, are still French), most princes had to construct new buildings to house the new bureaucracies. Because government in those days was still centered on the household of the prince, Versailles ignited a competitive spate of building palaces in fountain-filled gardens among the power elite of Europe.

Ironically, the most direct homage to Versailles came when the age of feudal governments ended at the end of the nineteenth century. Ludwig II of Bavaria, a constitutional monarch, further constrained by doctors because of his incipient insanity, commissioned 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.

But during the Baroque period the great palaces and their dependencies housed working governments. When Peter I of Russia structured a new, Western-style government for Russia, he visited Versailles in a "Grand Embassy" and later decided to build a residence in the outskirts of Saint Petersburg. He had the Peterhof complex of buildings, gardens, and parks built.

Efforts in England, where power during the period centered on Parliament and particularly on politically powerful nobles rather than on the monarchy, were limited. They 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.

In the courts of Germany, several Versailles-like palaces were constructed, including Wilhelmshöhe at Kassel, Schloss Augustusburg in Brühl, Ludwigsburg, Herrenhausen, Schloss Schleissheim and the Residenz in Würzburg. Many others still stand, tiny and often exquisite little palaces that once ruled their postage-stamp principalities.

In Sweden, there is Drottningholm; in Austria Schönbrunn, and in Hungary Eszterháza, the administrative center of the vast estates of a princely family rather than that of a monarch.

In Italy, there are the "would-be Versailles" including Caserta Palace, the Ducal Palace of Colorno and the Palazzina di Stupinigi.

In the Iberian peninsula two competitors for Versailles stand out: La Granja near Madrid, and Queluz in Portugal.

Poland, with an elected king normally controlled by Russia, Prussia, or Austria, had few opportunities for royal construction, and really nothing along the lines of Versailles was possible. However, the kings of Poland did construct Łazienki, essentially an exceptionally large pavilion like those built by French courtiers as weekend residences away from Versailles. The most developed baroque palace complex there, the Branicki palace, was built by a powerful noble.

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

Thompson, Ian. The Sun King's Garden: Louis XIV, André Le Nôtre And the Creation of the Gardens of Versailles. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 1582346313).
- Reviewed by Peter Parker in the Telegraph, October 1, 2006.
- Reviewed by John Adamson in the Telegraph, 2006.