Our first trip there was on a bitterly cold and snowy day. I arrived on my own and was able to wander around the gardens a bit while I waited for everyone else. My fingers went numb pretty quickly, but it was worth it for the ghostly effect of the cold wind blowing snow around the empty gardens. As I walked from the train station and wandered around the outside of the chateau, I kept thinking about the angry starving mob marching from Paris to capture the monarchy and bring them back to the city back in the 1790s. What thoughts were running through the minds of the Parisians? What was the journey to Paris like for Louis and his family?
I snapped out of my reverie when everyone else got there, and we started our tour. Now a little history: Versailles was there long before Louis XIV as a hunting lodge for the monarch. Louis XIV needed a capital removed from volatile Paris where he could keep the nobility neatly under his thumb. He was also a little sore about Foucquet’s nice place at Vaux-le-Vicomte, so Foucquet ended up in jail and all of his architects, artists, and designers were put to work on a fabulous new palace at Versailles.
Successive monarchs left their mark on the palace, but for the most part it was the doing of the Sun King, his finance minister Colbert, and the artist Charles LeBrun. Between the three of them they created a magnificent temple to the glories of France, and of the French monarchy. With very few exceptions, everything at Versailles was made from French materials by French artists. LeBrun even invented a new order of capitals for the pilasters in the Galerie des Glaces: the French order, with fleur-de-lys for the monarchy, roosters for France, and Apollo for Louis XIV.
The chapel is full of monarchical symbolism. It is a palatial chapel, meaning that there are two levels inside: one for the king, and one for everybody else. During the reigns of Louis XIV and his successors, Mass was celebrated every morning with the court on the bottom level and the king looking down from above. On special occasions when his presence was required below (such as baptisms, etc.), the rest of the court sat on the upper level.
The ceiling is decorated with paintings of the Trinity, done so that the Holy Ghost seems to descend on the king’s seat. The artwork creates a hierarchy in the chapel: the Trinity, Prophets, the King, angels, the mortal life of Christ, and finally the mere mortals of the court. I wonder if he was trying to send a message there…
Revolutionaries destroyed most of the fleurs-de-lys in the chapel; fortunately they forgot a few.
By the time we got to the Galeries des Glaces (the Hall of Mirrors) Versailles was technically closed. Technically. We got to stay, though, and had the Galerie all to ourselves for a few precious minutes. The setting sun was pouring through the windows, casting rainbows on the walls.
Seriously though...
Our second visit was on a sunnier, warmer day. This time our fabulous art teacher wanted us to see real life at Versailles. The state rooms at Versailles are what most people usually see: the Salon de Guerre, Salon de Paix, the Queen’s bedroom, Salon d’Apollon, Galerie des Glaces, etc. (check out the diaporama on this site for better pictures than I could take). These rooms are fantastic and were part of life at Versailles and the absolutist monarchy. But the King and Queen, particularly Louis XVI and his wife Marie-Antoinette, lived almost ordinary quotidian lives behind these stunning facades.
As you go through the doors in the state rooms, you enter a completely different world. It’s still rather luxurious, with gold all over the walls. There’s a bathroom (as in a room for taking baths), private staircases (so the king can go see his mistress without the queen knowing), and a small room for the children to study.
My favorite rooms were two that Marie-Antoinette added while she was queen, and I think they shed some light onto her personality (naturally my camera battery died just as we got to this part- grrrrr). The first was her little library (my battery died just before we got here, so I don’t have any pictures at all). The bookshelves go all the way around the room; the doors even have fake bookshelves on them so that when they’re closed you’re completely surrounded by books.
The other was a sort of quiet private place she could come to escape the 3,000 courtiers that lived at Versailles. It is definitely not on the usual tour; our teacher had to talk fast to convince the security guards to let us in. With the door shut, we couldn’t hear anything outside: no clicking cameras, no shuffling feet, no tour guides, no hyper teenagers. It is quiet, isolated, and private, clearly a place where the Queen could be a mother, a wife, and a flesh-and-blood person. The walls and cabinetry are decorated with symbols of Austria, Marie-Antoinette’s home. On the mantle was a small bust of her son who (at the time) had recently passed away.
The last Queen of France was certainly an interesting woman, whose life was full of the extravagances of the French absolute monarchy. But at the end of the day, underneath the wigs and behind the marble and gilded paneling it seems like she was an ordinary human being, who did everything she knew how to do to take care of her family. Unfortunately she and her husband were the heirs of tremendous financial problems and a hungry, angry population. The palace survived what the monarchy could not and now stands as a remarkable connection with France’s pre-Revolutionary past.
p.s. Some of you have mentioned problems with posting comments. I think I have it fixed now; there should be a link that says something like "Post a Comment" or "0 Comments". Thanks for reading!
