A Guide to Versailles [antikvár]

introduction Versailles as we see it today is no longer the palace of Louis XIII, nor even that of Louis XIV - the palace of which the historians and travellers of the XVIIth century have left us so many marvellous descriptions. From 1623 to 1789, a period of 166 years, the four kings who reigned over France succeeded each other in it, and left their trace there by transforming the palace according to their fantasy and taste. The creator of Versailles was Louis XIII (1601-1643), a king passionately fond of hunting who discovered in the Val-de-Galie at Versailles the ideal place to have a small shooting-lodge built. We do not know very much about this small manor, put up in 1623, a modest house of a few rooms - ffa miserable manor the construction of which even a simple country squire would not take pride in", Bassompierre tells us. The spot however was so pleasant that Louis XIII asked Philibert Le Roy, in 1631, to build a more spacious manor for him, according to the taste of the day, entirely in brick and stone, with raised slate roofs, the remains of which we can admire enshrined in the Marble Courtyard. After the death of the King in 1643 his wife, Anne of Austria, wandered back and forth, according to the political vicissitudes of the Fronde, between Paris and Saint-Germain-en-Laye, with the young Louis XIV (1638-1715). In 1661, Louis XIV, delighted by the small palace of Versailles, considered devoting all his energies to fitting it out as a place in which to live more confortably. Le Notre (1613-1700), master gardener, Le Vau (1612-1670), first architect, and Le Brun (1619-1690), first painter, devoted all their energies to the enlarging and beautifying of Versailles. The buildings of the fore-court were put up; the flower-beds took form. Colbert protested and tried to convince Louis XIV that he should take a more active interest in the Louvre, the traditional palace of the Kings of France from the time of Philippe-Auguste, all to no avail. In 1668, after the Great Royal Entertainment, and after work had been undertaken to finish the Louvre by adding the Square Courtyard and the Colonnade. Louis XIV resolved to enlarge Versailles "so that he could lodge there more comfortably with his Council during a stay of several days... Construction is still in progress of the three large buildings which surround the small palace with their front turned towards the gardens; they are designed by M. Le Vau". (Ch. Perrault).