Versailles: The Royal Palace in Paris

Versailles

Versailles was not always a château or a royal palace it was also a country village on the road to Paris. Now let’s step back to when it was being built. There was a total of four campaigns each lasting around 4-20 years. The first campaign was building the garden and apartments to accommodate 600 guest invited to a celebration party and not much else happened in this campaign. The second building campaign was mainly about creating a place for the royal family to stay at. Louis XIV the king had his own room and his queen also had her own room. Louis’ XIV brother and sister-in-law had their own room as well. A hunting lodge for the royal family was also created for them to stay at as well. The second campaign was also being at the same time as the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was being signed.

In the third campaign after the Dutch war and the signing of the Treaty of Nijmegen the north and south wings were built as well as the hall of mirrors. The nobles and princes that were relative to the king lived in these wings. Also a huge garden was built as a symbol of France’s power in Europe. The fourth and last campaign was after the defeat of the War of the League of Augsburg. The last thing that was being built was the chapel which to 1710 to build. After it was all built all construction stopped until twenty years later when Louis XV became king. The palace to 36,000 men and 6,000 horses to build which took to around 50 years.

Now that the palace was basically finished Louis XIV thought the village needed a touch-up because he wanted the nobles and the court the live there. At its peak the village had a population of 30,000 and inns still could hold hundreds more if needed. Louis XIV want above all is that his city would b...

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... to be a superpower.

It was easy life for King Louis XIV everything was handed to him and he was happy for the whole 72 years of absolute monarchy. A popular phrase that he said was L’État, c’est moi which mean I am the state, saying that means he is in control of everything in France. People worshiped him like a god which was the most likely reason of the French’s downfall and also that Versailles cost $100 million of national fund. You can go see Versailles yourself at Europe today it is a big and artistic as ever.

Works Cited

http://jsf2012.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/chateau-de-versailles-a-day-in-the-life-of-the-sun-king-and-the-royal-family/

MOLLENAUER, LYNN WOOD. "Versailles." Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 9 Dec. 2013 .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Versailles