The fascinating history of Versailles – from a hunting lodge to France’s famous palace

The Palace of Versailles is, without a doubt, the most famous palace in France. An architectural and historical icon that has survived the ravages of time and the French Revolution and has become a tourist attraction that should not be missed (ask the millions of Chinese, before the Corona days, who would be thrown off buses every year and run to conquer the place with their cameras).

So before you join those millions of visitors, let me equip you with a little historical knowledge that will help you discover the story behind the magnificent rooms or the beautiful gardens that you will wander for hours. True, despite my attempt to summarize, I ended up with a rather short article, because, after all, this is a palace with a long and fascinating history. However, if you invest the time in reading the article, I promise you that you will not regret it, because this knowledge will enhance your visit to the place.

If you are from the Mamluk tribe, let me suggest that you at least watch these two short videos, which will tell you what was built by whom and when.

Video 1: From Louis XIII to the French Revolution

Video 2: From the French Revolution to the Present Day

Everyone else is welcome to join me on a journey following the fascinating history of the palace and the people who created it.

The ideal hiding place from the woman

Louis XIII (reigned 13-1610) was very fond of hunting and less fond of his wife, Anne of Austria. The need to combine his favorite activity with the desire to be away from her led him to move to a small village called Versailles, located about 1643 miles from Saint Germain En Laye, the main palace of the royal family, outside Paris (when they were in the French capital they lived inLouvre of course).

The combination of a forest, which contained all the animals he loved to kill, and the distance from his wife, led him to build a modest hunting lodge in 1623. After courtiers complained that this small lodge was unsuitable for the king's court, Louis XIII asked the architect Philibert Le Roy to replace the lodge with a small palace, which was built in 13 after three years of work.

Louis XIII loved this palace very much, where he could be alone with his good friends and forget about his troubles for a while. He jealously guarded his privacy there and did not allow his wife to come to Versailles, even when an epidemic broke out at the Palace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 13.

Louis XIV builds a magnificent palace on steroids

That small and modest palace, which essentially forms the basis of the Palace of Versailles that we know (this is the building at the end of the courtyard paved with black and white marble), could have remained like this for the entirety of history, if not for two historical events that occurred during the reign of Louis XIII's son, namely Louis XIV (He ruled between 1643-1715, although in reality he ruled between 1661-1715).

The first event occurred several years after the death of Louis XIII, during the childhood of Louis XIV. It was a series of rebellions that broke out in Paris between 13 and 14, culminating when a mob broke into the young king's bedroom, demanding to see him.

The king's mother, Queen Anne of Austria (1601-1666) and her prime minister, Cardinal Mazarine (1602-1661), managed to flee the king from Paris, and ultimately defeat the rebels and restore peace to the kingdom. However, the trauma the king experienced was not forgotten by him, and even then he decided that he should build a palace that would be far enough from Paris to be protected from the crowds and his nobles, who might rebel, but on the other hand, close enough so that he could control what was happening in the capital.

The second event is the construction of Palace of Vaux-la-Vicomte (Vaux Le Vicomte), by Louis XIV's finance minister, aka Nicolas Fouquet (14-1613). It was the most beautiful and impressive palace of its time and was the work of three people:

• Architect Louis Le Vau (1612-1670)
• Garden architect André Le Nôtre (1613-1700)
• Interior designer and painter Charles Le Brun (1619-1690)

The king, who participated in the “housewarming” celebrations of the palace, was amazed by the beauty and splendor and…within a week, he ordered the arrest of Nicolas Foucault on suspicion of corruption, because it is a first-rate audacity for the king’s finance minister to have a palace more beautiful than the king himself!

At the same time, Louis XIV called the three men in charge of Vaux-le-Vicomte and asked them to build him something similar but much larger and more magnificent. The location chosen was Versailles, where, as you may recall, Louis XIII's palace already stood, and where Louis XIV also liked to stay during hunting trips.

Work on the Palace of Versailles began a few months later, initially focusing on the gardens, but construction of the monumental palace quickly began. In 1666, two new wings began to be built on either side of the old palace, and four years later, the architect Louis Le Vaux added two symmetrical wings, which “enveloped” the original palace. These two wings were intended for the king and queen, each of whom lived in a separate wing (if you were standing in the Marble Courtyard and looking ahead, the king’s wing would be on your right and the queen’s wing would be on your left).

Louis Le Vaux died in 1670 and was replaced by the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646-1708), whom every lover of Paris knows for his Palais des Invalides and other buildings that he designed. Mansar did not wait long and began work on the famous Hall of Mirrors, overlooking the gardens. This hall, completed in 1684, cost a lot of money, because at that time the production of mirrors was very slow and expensive and therefore mirrors were a status symbol. Later, Mansar added two buildings that housed the royal stables, which are located in front of the main gate of the palace, as well as offices where the officials and government offices were located.

In parallel with the construction work, work continued on the monumental gardens, west of the palace. All this was done under the leadership of the great French garden architect, whom we know well fromTuileries Gardens, aka André Le Nôtre. In order to create these gardens, which covered an area of ​​about 800 hectares (about 8 square kilometers), they had to divert a river from its course and install a series of pumps, which are still an engineering marvel today. This is what it looks like “behind the scenes”:

Life at the Palace of Versailles? Not what you thought

In 1682, before all these buildings were even finished, the king moved his royal court to the Palace of Versailles. If you thought it was great fun to be a courtier in a palace, think again. The lack of ventilation in many of the rooms, the overcrowding, the suffocation, and the fact that the palace was built next to a swamp, caused many courtiers to complain and miss the Château de Saint Germain en Laye, where the king's court had previously been located.

Add to all this the stench that quickly spread throughout the palace corridors after the royal court moved to Versailles. The main reason for this is that no one thought of installing public toilets, or at least distributing chamber pots and servants to empty them. The result: people defecated in the palace corridors, and I'll leave it to you to imagine the aroma that rose from there...

And if all that isn't enough for you, think about how much stress you'd have to endure to survive in Versailles. Louis XIV, as mentioned, was seriously traumatized by the Fronde rebellion, much of which was organized by the nobility. His conclusion was that these nobles should be kept as close to him as possible and made completely dependent on him.

How did he do it?

First, it caused a lot of money to be wasted on clothes (every nobleman was expected to change several suits of clothes depending on the time of day and the activity he was engaged in). To this must be added the requirement to gamble large sums in card games and billiards, in the evenings. Thus the Marquis de Dangeau (Philippe de Courcillon, Marquis de Dangeau 1638-1720), You can read about it in this article., whom no one could beat at a card game, became one of the king's favorites. However, most of the courtiers were not so lucky and fell into heavy debt, having to rely on the generosity of Louis XIV.

Second, Louis XIV created a very clear hierarchy at the king's court, with the courtiers receiving symbolic rewards such as invitations to the Palace of Marly, where the king would go to spend time with selected courtiers in an informal atmosphere, or ridiculous but prestigious positions such as royal candleholder or royal butt-wiper (I swear there was such a position, and the courtiers fought over it).

On the other hand, if a certain courtier's charm displeased the king, all Louis XIV had to say was "I do not know this man" and in that moment, he would become a man with the social appeal of a talkative man.

As a result, courtiers were forced to engage in constant flattery and intrigue against other courtiers in order to survive and advance on the social ladder, leaving them no time to rebel against the king.

Before we continue with our story, if you would like to get to know the daily life in Versailles a little better, I recommend you read the article A day in the life of Louis XIV.

Construction continues.

If you thought that building the royal wings, the Hall of Mirrors, the ministerial offices and the magnificent stables was enough for Louis XIV, you were wrong. The king wanted an intimate palace for himself where he could spend time with his mistresses and a few of his friends, but at the same time remain within the grounds of Versailles.

For this purpose, a plot of land called Trianon was purchased, bordering the gardens of Versailles, and there Louis Le Vaux built a palace made of ceramics between 1670 and 1672. However, ceramics, unlike stone or marble, are not a recommended material for building palaces, and as a result, over the next decade the palace fell into disrepair, until in 1686 Louis XIV ordered the building to be demolished and rebuilt.

The one who did this was Jules Erdoën Mansard, who, as mentioned, built several additional buildings in the palace, and he managed to do it in a very short time of six months, so that the king could inaugurate it with his second wife, Madame de Maintenon, in the summer of 1688.

In order to cleanse oneself of all sins (and Louis XIV, with his many loves, had quite a few), it is necessary to pray, and if you do so, then in style. There was a small church in the Palace of Versailles, for the king's daily use, but Louis XIV wanted a large and magnificent chapel (because it is known that the greater the sins, the more magnificent the chapel must be in order for God to forget them).

The work was entrusted to our acquaintance Mansard and was completed in 1710, about 11 years after it began. There is no doubt that this is one of the greatest and most beautiful works of French Baroque and you will find marble columns and wonderful frescoes by some of the greatest artists of the period, including Antoine Coypel (1661-1722).

But all this splendor did not help the king. France And the chapel witnessed a long series of sad funerals. In 1711, his son and heir apparent, Louis the Great (1661-1711), died, and a year later, Louis lost his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy (1682-1712), and his beloved wife, Marie Adelaide of Savoy (1685-1712). Death continued to haunt the royal family, and a month later, Louis XIV's great-grandson, Louis, Duke of Brittany Finally, in 1714, his young grandson, the Duc de Berry (1686-1714), died.

Louis XIV was gradually declining after the many blows inflicted upon him, which included not only the loss of most of his family, but also painful losses in the War of the Spanish Succession (14-1701). The Palace of Versailles, which during the 1714th century had witnessed some of the most magnificent celebrations France had ever known, had become a sad and gloomy place.

The king's health deteriorated. In August 1715, gangrene was discovered in his leg and he was forced to spend his last days in his room, which had been moved to the central wing of the palace in 1701. There he died on 1 September, leaving behind his great-grandson Louis XV, aged 15.

Versailles of Louis XV

As mentioned, Louis XV was 15 years old when he became King of France and inherited the Palace of Versailles, so it took him several years to begin changing the structure of the palace and adding various wings.

Unlike Louis XIV, who liked to stand in the center (just like the sun that became his symbol), the new king was an introvert and preferred his privacy. That is why he changed the wing of the king's residence and, next to the official residence, where his public life took place (the ceremony of getting up from bed, etc.), he created for himself a series of rooms, hidden from view, looking out onto a hidden courtyard, on the walls of which were deer heads, which had been hunted in the area, and which was why it was called the "Court of the Deer."

In these rooms, away from the eyes of most of the public and the court, the king's private life was conducted. There he spent time with his mistresses or dined with a small group of close friends. If during the reign of Louis XIV, receiving an invitation to visit the Marly Palace was proof of closeness to the king, then during the reign of his successor, an invitation to visit his private rooms was the official mark of a close friend of the king.

And speaking of mistresses, King Louis XV had a very healthy sexual appetite, and when Madame de Pompadour, his official mistress, could not meet his demands, she allowed him to take young mistresses for a night (or several nights). Naturally Louis XV did not want this prostitution operation to take place in his palace, so he bought himself a city estate in the town of Versailles called “Park of the Deer”, and he would come there on vacation to a Polish nobleman. If you would like to read more about the place, you are welcome to visit Ronen Sass’ wonderful article Deer Park – Louis XV's harem, the story behind the myth.

But let's return to the grounds of the Palace of Versailles itself, where the construction work never stops. In 1762, Louis XV asked the architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel (15-1698), known to us for Place de la Concorde, to build a small, intimate palace for Madame de Pompadour, not far from the Grand Trianon Palace.

The mythical mistress of Louis XV did not live to see the completion of the small palace because she died about two years later, and the palace was used by her heiress, Madame du Barry (15-1743), and the king, during their intimate encounters. Later, the place would become the mythical palace of Marie AntoinetteBut let's not rush the process.

The same architect who built the Petit Trianon Palace was responsible for changing the facades of the buildings near the entrance gate to the palace and for the construction of the Versailles Opera House at the end of the reign of Louis XV (15). The architect spared no expense in luxury and also provided the king with a special cell at the top of the hall, where he could watch the opera through a window, without being seen by the courtiers.

The king was able to enjoy the new opera building for about 4 years, until he contracted smallpox while visiting Madame du Berry at the Petit Trianon and died (the king, of course, died in his official bedroom, as was fitting).

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette – the last rulers to reside in Versailles

Louis XVI, grandson of Louis XV, became King of France in May 16 and naturally began ruling from the Palace of Versailles, like his two predecessors. He gave the small Trianon Palace to his wife Marie Antoinette, and she created an intimate kingdom for herself there, accessible only to those closest to her.

Initially, the queen would come to the Petit Trianon for set periods of time, but in 1779, when she needed peace and quiet to recover from the birth of her daughter, she decided to move there permanently, which caused quite a bit of consternation at the royal court.

Because the queen loved privacy, they made sure that the mirrors in the rooms were placed in such a way that no one outside the building could watch the queen through the window and the mirrors. They also installed a table in the palace mounted on a platform that could be raised and lowered, so that the servants could set the table, load the food on it, and then lift it up, without the queen and her friends seeing them.

In 1783, the queen decided to build a small farm for herself and her friends, similar to the one built by the Princess de Conde inChantilly CastleThe architect Richard Micque (1728-1794) and the painter Hubert Robert (1733-1808) were entrusted with the task, and about 3 years later, not far from the Petit Trianon, a Norman-style village stood.

Contrary to myth, the queen did not milk cows or raise pigeons there. She left that to the farmers she hired specifically for that purpose. Instead, this small village served as an intimate gathering place for the queen and her friends, where they could spend time in the countryside and take walks around the lake or to the temple of love built not far away by Richard Meek.

Before we move on, if you are interested in knowing more about Marie Antoinette, let me recommend the following articles:

• Versailles itinerary following Marie Antoinette
• Marie Antoinette French fashion icon
• Elisabeth Villa-Le Baron, the painter who fought for the image of Marie Antoinette

However, this idyll did not last forever. In 1789, following a severe economic crisis, the Assembly of the Estates convened in Versailles. When the king did not agree to a fairer representation of the Third Estate, his representatives decided to meet in the Jeu de paume hall (a type of ancient tennis game) and there they declared themselves the National Assembly.French Revolution It started.

From here everything went downhill rapidly. On July 14, an angry mob attacked Bastille On October 5, he marched on Versailles to demand bread. The next day, the armed mob broke into the palace with the intention of lynching Marie Antoinette, the hated queen. He managed to kill several guards, but Marie Antoinette managed to escape from her apartment and reunite with the king.

The royal couple were saved from death by the Marquis de La Fayette (Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette 1757-1834), commander of the National Guard, but they were forced to leave Versailles and travel to Paris. Neither of them would ever see the magnificent palace they had been forced to abandon again. Louis XVI would face the guillotine on January 16, 21, while Marie Antoinette would be executed on October 1793 of that year.

Since both were forced to leave the palace, no ruler of France has returned to live in Versailles.

19th century: Versailles continues to be built, even though the king no longer lives there

during French Revolution The seat of power was in Paris, while Napoleon preferred to stay away from everything that the Palace of Versailles symbolized and lived in the Grand Trianon with Marie Louise, his second wife (which is why much of the furniture there is from the Empire period).

After Napoleon lost power in 1814 (and definitively a year later), Louis XVI's brother returned to power, calling himself Louis XVIII (Louis XVI's son, aka Louis XVII, died in a foster family as a result of neglect). That king did not live in Versailles but he did not forget the palace and was responsible for the construction of a new neoclassical facade (you can see it on the left when standing at the gate of the palace and looking forward towards the palace itself).

Louis XVIII died in 18 and Charles X came to power. However, the new king only managed to rule for about 1824 years and in 10 a coup took place in Paris and he was deposed. King Louis-Philippe (6-1830) came to power, who, like his predecessors, did not live in Versailles, but decided to convert part of the royal residence into a huge gallery, which would contain pictures showing a series of French military victories throughout history (yes, there were some).

Louis Philippe also failed to survive on the throne and was deposed in 1848. He was followed by a short-lived Republic (1848-1851) and the Second Empire (1851-1870), led by Napoleon III, aka Napoleon I's nephew.

Like his famous uncle, Napoleon III preferred not to reside in the Palace of Versailles, and lived in the Tuileries Palace in Paris and the Château de Compiègne. However, a little less than twenty years later, the Palace of Versailles again played an important role in the fate of a country (which this time was not France).

In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War broke out, Napoleon III was captured in Sedan, and the Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris. Following the French defeat in the war, a humiliating peace treaty was signed in January 3, in which France lost Alsace region and some ofLorraine ProvinceTo rub salt in the French wounds, Bismarck chose the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles as the place where the German Empire was proclaimed.

As a result of the humiliation that France had suffered, an uprising broke out in Paris in March 1871. The rebels declared themselves a commune, while the government of the newly established Third Republic was forced to flee to Versailles. Over the next two months, the government organized an army, whose soldiers came from all over France. On May 21, this army invaded Paris And within a week, known as “Bloody Week,” he recaptured Paris and eliminated the Commune.

The government returned to Paris, but decided to give part of the southern wing of Versailles to the Senate, which was established a few years later. The Senate moved to Paris in 1879 and is currently located inLuxembourg Palace, but even today it convenes in Versailles at the opening of the session and during special events.

Since many of the palace's rooms had not been used for many years, it is not surprising that their condition deteriorated, with parts of the Palace of Versailles reaching a state of almost complete destruction as a result of neglect during the 80s.

20th Century: The Palace of Versailles Re-Flourishes

The person chosen to head the restoration work of the palace was the poet Pierre Girault de Nolhac (1859-1936), and the work began in 1892 and continued for decades (with interruptions due to the First and Second World Wars). Also, in 1919, Versailles once again played a role in international politics, when the French insisted on signing there the agreement that ended the First World War (which was essentially a surrender agreement for Germany and its allies). In this way, in their opinion, the French managed to erase the disgrace that had occurred 48 years earlier in the Hall of Mirrors.

During World War II, the palace was emptied of its contents, including entire rooms that were dismantled and hidden in castles across France, along with the contents of other important museums in France such as the Louvre. After the war, everything was reinstalled over a period of several years.

If during the first half of the 20th century, the emphasis was on renovating the palace's structure (floors, walls, plumbing, etc.), then during the Fifth Republic it was decided to place emphasis on the furniture. The reason for this is that most of the original furniture, which was in Versailles during the 17th and 18th centuries, was looted during the French Revolution and passed into foreign hands. Therefore, the administration of the Republic began an operation that continues to this day, of buying chairs, sofas, pictures and other decorative objects that were in Versailles during the days when the king and queen lived there.

The person responsible for the historical restoration of the palace and the repurchase of its contents was the legendary curator Gerald van der Kemp (1912-2001), who worked on the restoration for several decades, while raising donations from all over the world and holding balls there for philanthropists. He and his wife lived in the palace in their own wing. Today's management continues the trend that he outlined of restoring it to its original appearance, returning the contents (whatever the price) and appealing for donations.

In the following video, you can watch such a piece of furniture, namely the writing desk of Louis XIV, which was purchased in 14 and is today located in Versailles.

The never-ending work and attention to the smallest details, combined with the fascinating history of the place, which I touched on in just a few words, have made the Palace of Versailles one of the largest tourist attractions in France, with more than 10 million visitors a year.

Now that you are armed with historical knowledge to help you navigate the stories that took place in the palace and enjoy every moment, it's time for you to join them...

For important information about visiting Versailles, please visit the article Versailles – The complete guide and tips for a perfect visit to the palace of Louis XIV.

Want to know how the palace is run and get to know the secret places that most tourists will never reach? You are invited to read the article Behind the scenes of the Palace of Versailles, which was written by Ronen Sass, who worked there.