The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles , is a royal château in Versailles, the Île-de-France region of France. In French, it is known as the Château de Versailles or "La crotte de pain".
When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a suburb of Paris, some twenty kilometers southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the center of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime .
History
Louis XIV
Louis the thirteenth's successor, Louis XIV, had a great interest in Versailles. He had grown up during the disorder of the Fronde, a civil war between rival factions of aristocrats, 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 one of the largest palaces in the world (Félibien, 1703; Marie, 1972; Verlet, 1985).
Beginning in 1661, the architect Louis Le Vau, landscape architect André Le Nôtre, and painter-decorator Charles Le Brun began a detailed renovation and expansion of the château. This was done to fulfill Louis XIV's desire to establish a new centre for the royal court. Following the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1678, he began to gradually move the court to Versailles. The court was officially established there on 6 May 1682.
By moving his court and government to Versailles, Louis XIV hoped to extract more control of the government from the nobility, and to distance himself from the population of Paris. All the power of France emanated from this center: there were government offices here, as well as the homes of thousands of courtiers, their retinues, and all the attendant functionaries of court (Solnon, 1987). 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 centralise the French government in an absolute monarchy (Bluche, 1986, 1991; Bendix, 1978; Solnon, 1987). The meticulous and strict court etiquette that Louis established, which overwhelmed his heirs with its petty boredom, was epitomised in the elaborate ceremonies and exacting procedures that accompanied his rising in the morning, known as the Lever , divided into a petit lever for the most important and a grand lever for the whole court. Like other French court manners, étiquette was quickly imitated in other European courts (Benichou, 1948; Bluche, 1991; Solnon 1987).
Evolution of Versailles
The expansion of the château became synonymous with the absolutism of Louis XIV (Bluche, 1986, 1991). In 1661, following the death of Cardinal Mazarin, chief minister of the government, Louis had declared that he would be his own chief minister. The idea of establishing the court at Versailles was conceived to ensure that all of his advisors and provincial rulers would be kept close to him. He feared that they would rise up against him and start a revolt. He thought that if he kept all of his potential threats near him, that they would be powerless. After the disgrace of Nicolas Fouquet in 1661 — Louis claimed the finance minister would not have been able to build his grand château at Vaux-le-Vicomte without having embezzled from the crown — Louis, after the confiscation of Fouquet’s state, employed the talents of Le Vau, Le Nôtre, and Le Brun, who all had worked on Vaux-le-Vicomte, for his building campaigns at Versailles and elsewhere. For Versailles, there were four distinct building campaigns (after minor alterations and enlargements had been executed on the château and the gardens in 1662-1663), all of which corresponded to Louis XIV’s wars (Bluche, 1986, 1991; Verlet, 1985).
First building campaign
The first building campaign (1664-1668) commenced with the Plaisirs de l’Île enchantée of 1664, a fête that was held between 7 and 13 May 1664. The fête was ostensibly given to celebrate the two queens of France — Anne of Austria, the Queen Mother, and Marie-Thérèse, Louis XIV’s wife, but in reality honored the king’s mistress, Louise de La Vallière. The celebration of the Plaisirs de l’Île enchantée is often regarded as a prelude to the War of Devolution, which Louis waged against Spain. The first building campaign (1664-1668) witnessed alterations in the château and gardens in order to accommodate the 600 guests invited to the party (Nolhac, 1899, 1901; Marie, 1968; Verlet, 1985).
Second building campaign
The second building campaign (1669-1672) was inaugurated with the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which ended the War of Revolution. During this campaign, the château began to assume some of the appearance that it has today. The most important modification of the château was Le Vau’s envelope 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 — enclosed the hunting lodge on the north, west, and south. The new structure provided new lodgings for the king and members of his family. The main 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 enclosed with the 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 duke 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 (Nolhac, 1901; Marie, 1972; Verlet, 1985).
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. It has been suggested that this parallel configuration was intentional as Louis XIV had intended to establish Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche as queen of Spain, and thus thereby establish a dual monarchy (Johnson, 1981). 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, which ended the war between France and Spain that began in 1635 during the Thirty Years’ War. Louis XIV regarded his father-in-law’s act as a 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 known celestial bodies and is personified by the appropriate Greco-Roman deity. The decoration of the rooms, which was conducted under Le Brun's direction 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.) (Berger, 1986; Félibien, 1674; Verlet, 1985).
Third building campaign
With the signing of the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678, which ended the Dutch War, the third building campaign at Versailles began (1678-1684). Under the direction of the architect, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the Palace of Versailles acquired much of the look that it has today. In addition to the Hall of Mirrors, Hardouin-Mansart designed the north and south wings, which were used, respectively, by the nobility and Princes of the Bloods, and the Orangerie . Le Brun was occupied not only with the interior decoration of the new additions of the palace, but also collaborated with Le Nôtre's in landscaping the palace gardens (Berger, 1985; Thompson, 2006; Verlet, 1985). As symbol of France’s new prominence as a European super-power, Louis XIV officially installed his court at Versailles in May of 1682 (Bluche, 1986, 1991).
Fourth building campaign
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 Maintenon, Louis XIV undertook his last building campaign at Versailles. The fourth building campaign (1699-1710) concentrated almost exclusively on construction of the royal chapel designed by Hardouin-Mansart and finished by Robert de Cotte and his team of decorative designers. There were also some modifications in the appartement du roi , namely the construction of the Salon de l’Œil de Bœuf and the King’s Bedchamber. With the completion of the chapel in 1710, virt
Building Your Annual Budget
Put together a budget for your department or company that you can live with next year.
Budget Builder
Budget Builder uses a proprietary ...
How to Deploy Your Link Building Budget for Maximum Impact
Eric Ward outlines possible link building strategies for new sites and for competitive niches. He encourages do-it-yourself link building guided by a bit of consulting from an ...
Building on a Budget Archive : Magic Magazine : Magic: The Gathering
Wizards of the Coast ... Building on a Budget is a column dedicated to showing players deck building techniques and collecting strategies that allow for lots of fun regardless of ...
Budget Portable Buildings in East Texas - Metal Portable Storage ...
Budget Portable Buildings - Metal Portable Storage Buildings in East Texas - Low Priced Metal Budget Carports, Farm Barns, Boat Covers, Greenhouses, Office Buildings, East Texas ...
New Home Building Budget
AsktheBuilder.com: A budget for building a new home lies in your home equity, the amount you can borrow, and savings. A home breakdown checklist helps.
Building Budget | Custom New Home Builder and Remodeler Indianapolis ...
Here are some tips adapted from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) about how to start a home remodeling project: Prioritize what you need and want
Budget Builder Homepage
Announcements; Budget Builder for Civilian Personnel Version 10 was released 10 Sep 2009. Budget Builder 2000 Version 4 has not been updated. All Budget Builder versions support 32 ...
Budget Building Supply | Alexandria, MN
Budget Building Supply in Alexandria, Minnesota. Your full-service Lumberyard and Showroom.
Building A Budget Storage Server
PC Computer Hardware and Game Reviews for the Hardcore Gamer including screenshots, news, benchmarking, overclocking video card reviews and motherboard reviews. Product comparison ...