Versailles

A busy day today! Notre Dame this morning, Versailles this afternoon. Our tour this time was nine people in a modern minibus, with an expert guide.
Louis XIV (1638 - 1715), reigned for 72 years, the longest reign in history.
He was an absolute monarch (boss of everything). To control his relations, and the nobles from other parts of France who might be a threat, he built over many years a huge palace outside Paris at Versailles where they had to live. Here he lived in mind-boggling splendour. He declared himself the Sun King. His branding was everywhere - golden suns on the walls, Louis as the god Apollo driving his chariot over the ceiling, huge portraits in yards of satin, elaborate stacked wigs with flowing curls. So itchy!

Palace life was an elaborate charade designed to focus attention on the king.

He was succeeded by his great-grandson, Louis XV. His son was the unfortunate Louis XVI. The state was bankrupt and the people were hungry and fed up with a system where they paid taxes, but the Church and the Nobles didn’t. On 14 July 1789 the Paris mob stormed the Bastille, an old castle which stood for everything they hated. The French Revolution, driven by new ideas of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, swept the old order away.

The first thing that struck us when we arrived at Versailles was the size. It’s not a palace, but an interconnected town on the grandest scale, containing an estimated 2,300 rooms! The wings stretch away on both sides as far as you can see. The entrance courtyard goes on forever.

Next is the gold. This has recently been redone. Great blobs of gold everwhere: fences, gates, wall plaques, decorations, along the chapel roof. Inside, more gold in frames, trims and furnishing fabric was interwoven with gold and silver.

Next, huge paintings everywhere filling walls and ceilings. And marble in different colours. Huge ceremonial beds, not for sleeping in, but being born and dying in.

The highlight is the Hall of Mirrors. Louis designed this for balls and diplomatic receptions. The ultimate in over-the-top splendour, it is most famous as the setting of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. This peace treaty ended the First World War (and led ultimately to the Second.)

We staggered out the back to the courtyard where it all went crash. A vengeful mob invaded the palace grounds, overwhelmed the Swiss Guards and surged into the courtyard outside the royal bedrooms. The queen, Marie -Antoinette, came out on her terrace to plead as a mother for the lives of her family. Power had passed to the people. It was all over.

Our last point of call was the view of the royal gardens. These run as far as you can see. A pop concert was setting up on the terrace. Louis XIV. among many other things, invented the ballet. I wonder what he would have made of it!もっと詳しく