The Palace of Versailles

Overview

Louis XIV, France's Sun King, demanded a palace symbolic of his power and authority, a place that would awe the nobility of Europe. He turned to noted French architects Louis Le Vau (1612-1670) and Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646-1708) to transform a modest hunting lodge southwest of Paris into the greatest palace ever known. For nearly two decades, the men carved the Palace of Versailles out of the thick wooded marshes and achieved Louis's vision of enormity and splendor.

Background

Originally built in 1624, Versailles served as a hunting lodge for Louis XIII, but was transformed into the palace of his son, Louis XIV, over many decades. Since the elder king died when his son was only five years old, his mother and prime minister Cardinal Mazarin ruled France. The monarchy survived a civil war, but instilled in the young Louis XIV a lifelong distrust of Paris and the nobility. The boy witnessed the invasion of the royal palace by enemy forces and the memory remained permanently etched in his mind.

After Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis XIV ascended to his birthright and ruled France. Because of his boyhood memory of revolution, he decided to establish a palace far from Paris. He chose Versailles, a sight he first hunted at in 1651 and visited on several occasions until his marriage in 1660. After he chose the site, Louis XIV became obsessed with it and spent an in creasing amount of time concerned with its design. Over the objections of his advisers, the young king disregarded the amount of money or time he spent at Versailles.

Major modifications of the original hunting chateau began in 1661. Louis Le Vau served as the principal designer. Transforming a chateau into the world's greatest palace was an arduous undertaking. The first step was draining the swamps and leveling the land in the palace location. Thousands of laborers paid for this work with their lives, dying from fever and pneumonia. Slowly, however, the change took shape.

One of Le Vau's first additions was a menagerie and orangery that would become the initial piece of a grand entry court. Gradually, Louis XIV decided that his entire court would be moved from Paris to Versailles. In preparation for the move, a second building phase started in 1668 that totally redesigned the chateau, essentially transforming it into an entirely new building.

Le Vau extended the palace overlooking the gardens by wrapping the area in stone. He then built two symmetrical apartments, the north end reserved for the king, while the south portion went to the queen. In the central area stood a reception area and a terrace overlooking the gardens.

Le Vau worked with noted gardener Andre Le Notre and painter Charles Le Brun to design the landscape and gardens outside the palace and the walls within. Le Vau was a student of classical architecture and combined his theories with dedication to enormous scale, in line with the Sun King's grandeur. Le Vau's interiors, including the Ambassador's Staircase (destroyed in 1752), unite a vision of largesse and baroque influences that was well beyond anything that existed at the time.

The excavation of the Grand Canal began in 1667. Louis XIV worried about having enough water for the gardens and decided the Seine River should be used as the main source. Workers used immense hydraulic machines driven by the current of the river to deliver water. The Grand Canal became a giant artificial pond of more than 70 acres with a circumference of 5 miles (8 km). An intricate network of underground reservoirs and aqueducts supplied the palace fountains and waterfalls.

In fact, Le Vau was responsible for many of the palace's remarkable gardens and its park-like setting, centralized on the Grand Canal. The palace of Versailles holds numerous monuments, sculptures, and secondary buildings, including the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon (a favorite of the infamous Marie Antoinette). In total, there are more than 300 statues and multiple ponds in the gardens. Interestingly, the layout of the gardens remains the same in current times as when Louis XIV originally planned them.

After Le Vau's death in 1670, French architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart became royal architect in 1675. He undertook a massive campaign that would last for more than a decade. Initiated in 1678 and involving more than 30,000 laborers and craftsmen, Hardouin-Mansart designed the north and south wings of the palace. Included in his designs was Versailles's most enduring symbol, the Hall of Mirrors, completed in 1684. He is noted for introducing French materials (rather than Italian) into the building process, including mirrors and pink marble.

Hardouin-Mansart had a special skill at designing buildings and monuments that expressed Louis XIV's wealth and power. His trademarks were buildings with enormous scale, yet possessing an understated simplicity. At the end of his career, Hardouin-Mansart fell victim to rumors and innuendo spread by jealous architects. They claimed that he stole designs, but this charge lacks credibility. Hardouin-Mansart's grand vision of Versailles is seen throughout the palace.

The building project did not stop, even after Louis XIV transferred the court and the seat of government to the Palace of Versailles in 1682. The largest court in Europe, Versailles housed 20,000 nobles.

Hardouin-Mansart began construction of the palace chapel in 1699, but it was not completed until two years after his death in 1710. The architect's brother-in-law, Robert de Cotte, finished the chapel in his place. Construction of the grand chapel even outlived the king himself, who died in 1715.

Louis XV continued an aggressive building campaign at Versailles. Jacques-Ange Gabriel designed an opera house for the palace that was completed in 1748. It took the French Revolution (1789-1799) to halt further building at Versailles. After the reign of Louis XVI ended with the revolt, the furnishings of the palace were sold and the building was turned into a museum.

Impact

In addition to being one of the world's most beautiful buildings, the palace of Versailles was also one of the most expensive. In no small measure, Versailles can be blamed for most of the economic problems the country endured in the generations leading up to the French Revolution. Louis XIV's disregard for the costs associated with the castle placed an economic burden on the people of France that eventually festered into revolt.

Moving the nobility from Paris to Versailles also undercut their power, which Louis XIV realized. After 1682 the nobility no longer had power to affect French politics. Instead, life at Versailles centered on etiquette and serving the king's every whim and fancy.

By the time Louis XVI assumed the reigns of France, the national debt exceeded 4,000 million livres. Even under intense economic pressure, Louis XVI continued adding to the palace.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, architects and designers restored Versailles to its original glory. Many of the palace's stunning decorations and furnishings were located and put back in place. The refurbished areas included the Salon of Hercules and Marie Antoinette's bedroom.

Living up to Louis XIV's original vision, the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles served as an important meeting place for gathering diplomats. The Hall of Mirrors was the site where a united Germany declared Wilhelm I its emperor after the victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). The palace had been used as a Prussian military headquarters during the war.

While Versailles witnessed the rise of the German Empire, it also saw its fall nearly 50 years later. After defeating Germany in World War I (1914-1918), the Allied powers held their diplomatic meeting at Versailles. On one hand, the meeting set the stage for the League of Nations, but on the other, it outlined harsh reparations against Germany that would remain a rallying point for German nationalists, leading to the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich.

Versailles attracts more than 30,000 tourists a day, an average of nearly 10 million a year. The long history and beautiful grounds and buildings draw visitors from every corner of the globe. Perhaps the most lasting tribute to the Sun King is that the palace of Versailles continues to leave visitors awestruck, just as he planned.

BOB BATCHELOR

Further Reading

Ballon, Hilary. Louis Le Vau: Mazarin's College, Colbert's Revenge. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Constans, Claire. Versailles: Absolutism and Harmony. New York: Vendome Press, 1998.

Hibbert, Christopher. Versailles. New York: Newsweek, 1972.

Van der Kemp, Gerald. Versailles. New York: Vendome Press, 1978.