User:Giano/Versailles: a brief history

The Chateau of Versailles is a Baroque former royal palace located in what is now a suburb of Paris. Built mostly between 1661 and 1699, it is one the most, if not the most, famous and most emulated palaces in the world. Its title of chateau (strictly meaning castle), rather than palace, is perhaps its only inclination to modesty. Versailles was mostly the creation of one man, built to extol his own glory, King Louis XIV of France. This was the King who once said of himself, "Since we are God's divine agent it is fitting that we should share in his wisdom as well as in his authority."

King Louis saw himself, and promoted himself, not just as sovereign of France, but as the "Sun King", almost a deity; in this he was supported by the divine right of kings. Thus, his residence was to become not just a royal palace, but a temple to his divine sovereignty. With this in mind, he expanded on a vast scale a hunting retreat of his father's, erected in 1661, to become a monument to himself. The King's architects, Louis Le Vau and Jules Hardouin Mansart, using a method of grand perspective first used by the ancient Egyptians in the format of their temples, created a series of ever decreasing courts (aligned with grand avenues and canals) to draw the eye into the holy of holies, its presence indicated by three great windows. However, this is not a chapel as one would expect but the room of the Sun King, the room in which he dwelt. This, the glorification of the monarch, was the ethos and raison d'etre of Versailles. After Louis XIV's death, his successor and grandson, Louis XV, employed Ange-Jacques Gabriel from 1765 to 1771 to further embellish the chateau. However, in spite of Gabriel's huge classical wings, it is the mark and hand of Louis XIV which has remained indelibly upon the palace.

For almost a century Versailles was a symbol of monarchy and splendour. Monarchs all over Europe created their own versions, with varying rates of success. During the reigns of Louis XIV's successors, Versailles came to be seen, with some justification, as a symbol of excess and oppression. It became a place not for the monarch to impress his people, but a place for him to retreat from them. Yet the size of the chateau, and the traditional access the French were permitted to their Kings, made this impossible, as the excesses of Versailles and those who dwelt within its walls were all too visible. In 178?, the French people rebelled and dragged the occupants of Versailles away and killed them. Versailles as a symbol and temple devoted to divine monarchy was looted, vandalised and desecrated.

In the 19th century, a French monarch, Charles X, having seen the catastrophic results of his ancestors' excesses, had the words "a toutes whatever" stencilled above the cour d'honneur, in an effort to re-dedicate the palace and transform it into a national museum. The chateau's interior was drastically altered in an attempt to transform it into a museum extolling the glories of the people of France, rather than those of its former monarchs.

Today, massively restored, the chateau is once again undergoing a transformation, this time to restore it to the glory it displayed in the late 18th century, before its owners were so violently dispossessed.

The first royal chateau
The earliest mention of the name of Versailles is found in a document dated 1038, the Charte de l'abbaye Saint-Père de Chartres (Charter of the Saint-Père de Chartres Abbey) in which one of the signatories was [Hugues, Seigneur de Versailles]]. During this period, the village of Versailles centered on a small chateau and church, with the area was governed by a local lord. Its location on the road from Paris to Dreux and Normandy brought some prosperity to the village but, following an outbreak of the Plague and the Hundred Years' War, the village was largely destroyed and its population sharply declined.

In 1575, Albert de Gondi, a naturalized Florentine who gained prominence at the court of Henry II, purchased the seigneury of Versailles. It was Gondi, in the early seventeenth century, who ivited Louis XIII on hunting trips in the forests surrounding Versailles. Impressed by the location, in 1624, Louis ordered the construction of a hunting lodge. Designed by Philibert Le Roy, the structure, a small château, was constructed of stone and red brick with a based roof. In 1631 Louis obtained the seigneury of Versailles from the Gondi family and began to make enlargements to the château. It is this chateau, recognizable, inspite of its refacing by Louis XIV, which forms the core of the present corps de logis. Later schemes to rebuild it in a higher, grander and more noble style were never realised.

Ethos
Louis XIII was succeeded by his son,Louis XIV in 1636. The new king ascended the throne a few months before his fifth birthday, but did not assume actual personal control of the government until the death of his prime minister (Premier ministre), the Italian Jules Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661. Louis remained on the throne until his death in September 1715, four days before his seventy-seventh birthday. His reign lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days, the longest documented for any European monarch to date.

Louis grew up during the disorder of the Fronde, a civil war between rival factions of aristocrats; so it was that on attaining his majority and true power he required a site where he could organize and completely control the government of France by absolute personal rule.

Louis XIV, believed strongly in the divine right of kings, and chose to extract control of the government from the nobility, he achieved this by requiring that nobles of a certain rank and position spent time each year in his immediate presence, thus preventing them from developing their own regional power at the expense of his own. He also chose to distance himself from the population of Paris. As a consequence of this policy, all the power of France emanated from wherever the king happened to be: Thus it was that his court not only had to house housed government office, but also provide apartments for courtiers, their retinues and attendant functionaries.

1661-1668
The first of Louis XIV's building campaigns is something of a misnomer, as it actually concentrated on the park, rather than the chateau. Until 1661, Louis XIV visited Versailles's rarely, the court was established at Saint-Germain where it spent 10 months of the year. When he did visit his late father's retreat it was for assignations with his mistress, away from the eyes of his mother and his wife. During this period he had the original chateau (shaded purple) refaced and embelished with banding, quoining and statuary. The chateau was alo enlarged vy construction the south wing (4 & 17: shaded green) containing new kitchens and domestic offices. However, at this time, the King's chief interest at Versailles was the park. Andre le Notre completely redesigned the landscape, as the King acquired more and more land in the vicinity, le Notre relocated entire villages, turned ponds and streams into lakes and imported mature trees. Eventually the landscaped park stretched to the horizon. Closer to the chateau, Monumental amounts of soil were imported to make a vast terrace, below which a natural incline sloped t a series of fountains and canals. By 1668, the King had spent 1.5 million Livres on the chateau and the gardens. The grounds of Versailles were the most notable in France, lacking only a chateau of the same scale to preside over them.



1669-1672
The second building campaign (1669-1672) coincided with the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. During this campaign, the château began to assume its present appearance. This was due to Le Vau’s large new wings which wrapped arownd and enveloped the north, west, and south facades of Louis XIII’s hunting lodge. This part of the chateau (shaded pink on the plan) is referred to as the enveloppe or chateau neuf

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 to be later enclosed with the construction of the 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).

1678-1684
The third building campaign at Versailles began (1678-1684) following the signing of the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678, which ended the Dutch War, 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).

In terms of design, despite appearances to the contrary, gilded splendour and vast reception rooms were not the only architectural consideration. One of the chief features of the works of this period was the establishment of the King's apartments at the centre of what remained of Louis XIII's chateau. A disadvantage of placing the King's rooms here was that visiting dignitries ariving in procession avoided the state rooms and hall of mirrors, which had been designed to impress them. However, more importantly, to the most heavily guarded sovereign in Europe, maent that two guardrooms protecting the king and Queens's rooms were now close together, anyone entering the King's rooms now had to pass through both guard chambers. The guards, in rotation, in these rooms were based in the new and vast Grand Guardroom (Grande salle des Gardes) from here they were able to police all the more public staircases in the south wing and the approaches to the both King and Queen's apartments.

1688-1697


The fourth building campaigne 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, virtually all construction at Versailles ceased; building would not be resumed at Versailles until some twenty years later during the reign of Louis XV.

The building works of Louis XV


In 1770, Louis XV commissioned Jacques-Ange Gabriel built the Opera house and redesign all the facades of the Cour d'Honneur, Cour Royal and Cour Mabre. This scheme would have transformed the town side of the chateau by unifying all the elevation into a severely classical form. However, the King's death in 1774 brought the scheme to an abrupt halt with the north wing was completed.

Louis XV's successor, Louis XVI had neither the resources or the inclination to complete the scheme. Thus, the public face of the chateau lacks that symmetry demanded by French formal architecture from the Renaissance onwards. This situation was somewhat alleviated, but not cured, in 1820, when Napoleon I had a terminating pavilion built to balance that of Gabriel's wing on the north side of the cour d'honneur.

Ground Floor
The following to be properly incorporated in the textThe Royal Chapel The Dauphin's apartment, yhe Dauphine's apartment, Madame Victoire's apartment, Madame Adelaide's apartment, Captain of the Guard's apartment, Marie-Antoinette's apartment. The Queen's staircase. The Lower Gallery.

Piano nobile
The following to be properly incorporated in the text: Galerie des Glaces, Appartement du roi, Petit appartement de la reine Salon d'Hercule, the state apartments, the Queen's apartment, Madame de Maintenon's apartment, Petit appartement du roi.

Upper Floor
Links to be properly incorporated in text:Petit appartement du roi

Napoléon I
With the advent of Napoléon and the First Empire, the status of Versailles changed. Paintings and art work that had previously been assigned to Muséum national and the Musée spécial de l’École française were systematically dispersed to other locations and eventually the museum was closed. In accordance to provisions of the 1804 Constitution, Versailles was designated as an imperial palace for the department of the Seine-et-Oise.

While Napoléon did not reside in the château, apartments were, however, arranged and decorated for the use of the Empress Marie-Louise. The Emperor chose to reside at the Grand Trianon. The château continued to serve, however, as an annex of the Hôtel des Invalides (Mauguin, 1940-1942; Pradel, 1937; Verlet, 1985). Nevertheless, on 3 January 1805, Pope Pius VII, who came to France to officiate at Napoléon's coronation, visited the palace and blessed the throng of people gathered on the parterre d'eau from the balcony of the Hall of Mirrors (Mauguin, 1940-1942).

July Monarchy
With the Revolution of 1830 and the establishment of the July Monarchy, the status of Versailles changed. In March 1832, the Loi de la Liste civile was promulgated, which designated Versailles as a crown dependency. Like Napoléon before him, Louis-Philippe chose to live at the Grand Trianon; however, unlike Napoléon, Louis-Philippe did have a grand design for Versailles.

In 1833, Louis-Philippe proposed the establishment of a museum dedicated to “all the glories of France,” which included the Orléans dynasty and the Revolution of 1830 that put Louis-Philippe on the throne of France. For the next decade, under the direction of Eugène-Charles-Frédéric Nepveu and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine, the château underwent irreversible alterations (Constans, 1985; 1987; Mauguin, 1937; Verlet, 1985). The museum was officially inaugurated on 10 June 1837 as part of the festivities that surrounded the marriage of the Prince royal, Ferdinand-Philippe d’Orléans with princess Hélène of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and represented one of the most ambitious and costly undertakings of Louis-Philippe’s reign. Over 3,000 paintings depicting glorious events in French history and a small army of busts of French heroes were commissioned by Louis-Philippe to decorate his new museum. Louis-Philippe’s efforts were praised and condemned by his contemporaries. Victor Hugo, who was present at the inaugural ceremonies, characterised the king’s efforts:

"What Louis-Philippe did at Versailles is good. Having accomplished this work, is to have been great as a king and impartial as a philosopher; is to have made a national monument of a monarchical monument; is to have put an immense idea in an immense edifice; is to have installed the present in the past: 1789 vis-à-vis 1688, the emperor at the king’s home – Napoléon at Louis XIV’s; in a word, it is having given to this magnificent book that is called French history this magnificent binding that is called Versailles (Victor Hugo)."

Later, Balzac characterised, in less laudatory terms, the effort as the “hospital of the glories of France” (Balzac, 1853).

The aile du Midi, was given over to the galerie des Batailles, which necessitated the demolition of most of the apartments of the Princes of the Blood who lived in this part of the palace during the Ancien Régime. The galerie des Batailles was an epigone of the Grande galerie of the Louvre and was intended to glorify French military history from the Battle of Tolbiac (traditionally dated 495) to the Battle of Wagram (5-6 July 1809). While a number of the paintings displayed in the galerie des Batailles were of questionable quality, a few masterpieces, such as the Battle of Taillebourg by Eugène Delacroix, were displayed here. Part of the aile du Nord was converted for the salle des Croisades, a room dedicated to famous knights of the Crusades and decorated with their names and coats of arms. The apartments of the dauphin and the dauphine as well as those of Louis XV’s daughters on the ground floor of the corps de logis were transformed into portrait galleries. In order to accommodate the displays, some of the boiseries were removed and either put into storage or sold. During the Prussian occupation of the palace in 1871, the boiseries in storage were burned as firewood (Constans, 1985; 1987; Mauguin, 1937; Verlet,1985).

The 20th and 21st centuries


The restoration initiatives launched by the Fifth Republic, have proven to be perhaps more costly than the expenditures of the palace in the Ancien Régime. Starting in the 1950s, when the museum of Versailles was under the directorship of Gérald van der Kemp, 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.

Inspired by concurrent the Russian restoration of the palace of Pavlovsk near Saint Petersburg the French revived 18th century weaving techniques inorder to reproduce the silks used in the decoration of Versailles. 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 reine and the chambre du roi in the appartement du roi. While the design used for the chambre du roi was, in fact, from a design that had been used during the Ancien Régime to decorate the ''chambre de la reine. The project took over seven years to achieve and required several hundred kilograms of silver and gold to complete. One of the most costly, but visible, endeavors has been the repurchase of original furnishings.

In 2003, a new restoration initiative – the "Grand Versailles" project – was launched. This will be on-going for the next seventeen years with a state endowment of €135 million allocated for the first seven years. The project will address not only restoration, but security and tourists amenities. This is, in part, funded by, donations and expenditure from outside France.

End of article. Memos to me
Remember following bit, the guide at Versailles' makes much it:-

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.


 * Useful things images etc
 * Work this in, with a spiel about the Versailles' red heels in Spawforth.

Refs for facts I may or may not use

 * By the fall of the monarchy The Controller General of Finaces oversaw a staff of 350 at Versailles. Doyle P30.
 * 7 years war cost 1.2 billion livres. Doyle P 31.
 * Obsesion with ettiquette "affaire du bonnet" Doyle, P 51.
 * Louis XIV's strategy encouraged nobles to trade power for prestige. Doyle P 58.
 * In conrast, by a regulation dated 17 April 1760 presentation at Versailles required ancestry dating to 1400. Doyle P 59. This was to entrench the social isoation of the monarchy and keep away those families enobled through office holding or for political reasons. Spawforth. P103. Women presented with great ceremony in palace, men informally at a hunting rendezvous. spawforth, P104.
 * Only presented nobles couls be promoted past the rank of colonel. Doyle P59.
 * By the revolution 4000 families were eligible for presenation. Doyle P 59. Even the the presented were subject to a graduated cast of entrees limited where they could go in the palace. Most exclusive was entree to the King's private back staircase (named:par les derrieres) Spawforth, P105.
 * Financiers built Parisian mansions and became patrons of the arts - writers didi not have to live on noble pensions. Begining of cafe society. Doyle P92.
 * By mid 18th centurty rigid ettiquette ws being replaced, sociability orientated on the aristocratic salons of Paris where financiers, politicians and arostos intelectuials could all meet regardless of class. Doyle P 59
 * "nowhere did classical imagery appear more forcefull than at versailles,whereChristian imagery was rare and Apollo, Minerva, hercules and the poetry of Ovid proliferated" Doyle P81.
 * Instead of the kIng travelling the country the nobles now travelled to him, their adoption of Versailles' customs and ettiqiette set them further apart from the peasantry. Doyle P83.
 * Under Louis XIV the educated classes looked to Versailles for instruction in manners fashion and the arts. In 1715 the regent moved the court back to Paris and the kingdom's cultural centre of gravity never returned to Vesailles, it stayed in Paris. Doyle P91.
 * Duke de Rochefoucauld and Conde ect appointed to offices that demanded daily attendance on the King, ie seperated from their regional power. Doyle P143.
 * Court life was ruinously expensive, King gave monetary gifts causing dependence. Doyle P143.
 * Courtier trapped in gilded cage, but advantages too: patronage. However this cause cabalism and intrigue. Doyle P 143.
 * Louis VIX used every nuance of court life to his advantage. Doyle P144.
 * Louis XVI ruled as absolute monarch from versailles exactly as louis XIV had done - same ranks of attendants and officers and "ramshackle" fiscal system. Doyle P168. emphasis though quotes above about society and thinking people movomhg in Paris salons. Versailles' inhabitants was deluding itself - thoughts on that process etc.
 * The court moved there in 1682, work was far from finished, whole ministerial wings were added. Doyle, P 175.
 * in 1682 Court was established there. A year later the queen died, by this time the King had abandoned his mistresses in favour of Mdm de maintenon whom he married morganatically. Doyle, P 182.
 * The problem with Louis XIV's monarchy was that only he could run it. Neither his namesakes inheirited his qualities - both were unable to rise above "court factionalism".Doyle, P 193.
 * The Sun Kibg's death was greeted with popular rejoicing. Doyle, P 196.
 * Orleans had fallen foul of the "starchy atmosphere of Versailles". He never had Louis XIV's full confidence. Doyle, P 196.
 * Louis XV made no repeat of the campagns of the 1740s preferring to spend his time hunting in the forrests of Versailles and at the Parc au Cerfs. Doyle, P P214.
 * Marie Antoinette's real influence only began after 1780 and the departure of Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas. Doyle, P229.
 * Louis wwas prodigal with french lives as well as money in building Versailles,in the early 1680s tens of thousands laboured day and night witrhout even basic precautions, The crown paid meagre indemnities to an estimeated 3000 workers - it was equivalent to months wages to a family man incapable of ever working again. Spawforth, P 40.
 * Louis beleived in an open palace. the gates opened at 6 and closed at midnight. Evidence suggests if the Kings was not at least accessible he was visible to all - keep on in this vein from page 42 onwards.
 * Louis XVIII's chateau was altered beyond recognition - windows elarged, balconies and sculptures added - in the centre a false floor added to create a pedimented centre beneath the clock. Spawforth, P 10.
 * The last of the old village of versailles was demolished in 1674. Spawforth, P 11.

1678 seem to be the year.

Louis XVI and MA lived in a palace built for ceremony but disdained ceremonies and MA (in particular) liked informality. Spawforth, p97.
 * In 1678 Mansart created hall of Mirrors and flanking salons. 1679 huge wing to south (south wing is actually a large block with quadrange; at 176 yards half as long as garden facade. The garden side was reserved for princes, the inner rooms, town-side rooms and attics for courtiers, kitchens and workshops. spaforth, P 10. and stable block. Joined together Le Vau's ministerial pavilions to form two large wings for ministers set in "Minister's Court" under it was a subtureanean barracks - a second set of gates (recently re-errected) protected the Cour Royals. Spawforth. P10.
 * Grand and small stables designed by Mansart begun 1679 - Grand Ecurie housed King's saddle horses, the Petite ecurie his carriages - designed to impress not for functionality (Sp, P 11) Their large forecourts had no function, the real world took place in low building hidden behind. Spawforth, P 11.
 * In 1682, Mansart began work on Chenil designed to house hound and horses and personel of the hunt ( a2 storey building behind the grad stables) and on the site of the former parish church the Grand commons - kitchenns and refectories on ground flor on 5 upper floors accomadation for servants and courtiers - the main entrance faced mansarts south wing - the commons staircase allowed access to palaces' system of indoor galleries Spawforth, P 11. (need to explore the geography and logistics of this)
 * The palace was built just as it was becoming normal for European powers to exchange permanent ambassadors. Spawforth, P85. This is important
 * The King received ambasadors seated with his hat on behind the ballustrade of his bed - a mark of favour was inviting the ambassado behind the ballustrad. Spawforth, P87. this would be good for the bedroom caption
 * Ambassador outside of Christendom were given a spectacle of majesty -  The hall of mirrors was used as a throne room, the throne was set on a dais at the end of the hall and grandstands created holding 1,500 bejewelled courtiers, Ambassadors climbed the Ambs staircase. This spectacle was used to stress the superiority of France, it last happened in 1788. Spawforth, P 87.
 * Could add a bit on mourning customs - Spawforth, P 91.
 * Read up on galleries and communications. Spawforth P110.

=Picture I may, or may not use but want to hand==