|
The Chateau of Versailles (commonly called Versailles) is a royal chateau, outside the gates of which the village - and now the city - of Versailles, France, has grown.
Front of the palace of Versailles in 2003
The palatial chateau was initially constructed as a simple hunting lodge for Louis XIII in 1624. In
1660, Louis XIV, coming
to majority and taking on full royal powers, was casting about for a site near Paris but
away from the tumults of the city. He had grown up in the disorders of the civil war between rival bands of aristocrats called
the Fronde and wanted a site where he could organize and completely control a
government of France centered upon his person. He settled on the lodge and decided to convert it into a palace; this was largely completed by 1688. The team of architect Louis Le Vau, decorator
Charles Le Brun and garden designer (André Le Nôtre had been assembled by Louis' own finance minister Nicolas Fouquet at Vaux-le-Vicomte, whose
grand success there was his undoing.
Louis XIV, in building the palace, was intent on more than merely outdoing Vaux-le-Vicomte. Versailles became the home of the French nobility and the location of the
royal court. Louis XIV himself lived there, and symbolically the central room
of the long extensive symmetrical range of buildings was the King's Bedroom (the 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 center: there were government offices here; as well as the homes of thousands of individuals. By insisting that nobles spend time at Versailles,
Louis kept them from countering his efforts to centralize the French
government in an absolute monarchy.
Park of Versailles seen from the palace
While the Palace was grand and luxurious, it was also impossibly expensive to maintain. Historians estimate that maintaining
the Palace, including the care and feeding of its staff and the Royal Family, consumed as much as 25% of the entire national
income of the country of France.
After Louis XIV, several smaller buildings were added to the Versailles area by Louis XV and Louis XVI including the
Grand Trianon, the Petit Trianon, and the Hamlet of
Marie Antoinette, which, in a way, is one of the world's first
open air museums.
Proclamation of the German Empire in Louis XIV's Hall of Mirrors ( Salon des Glaces), Versailles. Bismarck in white After the French defeat in the Prussian-French war, the
castle was the main headquarter of the German army from October 5, 1870 until March 13, 1871, and the German Empire was proclaimed here on
January 18 (illustration, left).
Village de la Reine; Gardens of Versailles
The ravages of war and neglect over the centuries have left their mark on the palace and its huge gardens. 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 costlier items, like 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 which 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.
The Would-Be Versailles
The most lasting monuments to the past glories of Versailles are not in France but in the other countries of continental
Europe. When Louis XIV had Versailles constructed, France was the most powerful and the richest state on the continent.
Versailles ignited a chateau-building (and fountain-filled garden building) war between the monarchs of Europe.
In the small courts of Germany, echoes of Versailles sprang up, as ambitious as local funding permitted: Schwetzingen near Heidelberg; the New Palace (Neues Palais) and Charlottenburg in Berlin; Herrenhausen in Hanover; the Residenz, Würzburg; Schönbrunn in Vienna; Esterhaz in Hungary;
The "Polish Versailles" is Wilanow, begun in the late 17th century as the "New Villa" just south of Warsaw erected for
Jan Sobieski, King of Poland, then, as Versailles was, extended
in several building campaigns. Wilanow is symmetrically ranged round a cour d'honneur with two patterned parterres on
stepped levels. Wilanow was inherited by a series of Polish aristocrats, and it inspired other great Polish magnates to
imitation, so that Italian and French architects and garden planners were drawn to Poland for employment.
The grandest, most impressive effort was perhaps that made by Peter I of Russia when he had the Peterhof complex of buildings built in the outskirts of Saint Petersburg in the beginning of the 18th century. The great palace of
the complex is a spectacular building, set atop a hill and framed by cascades, canals and fountains.
The last shot in this war of sumptous architecture was probably fired by
Ludwig II of Bavaria when he asked for a nearly identical
copy of Versailles to be built, Herrenchiemsee, 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.
External link :
|