Dissatisfied with the royal palace in Paris that would become the Louvre, the Sun King decided to transform his family’s hunting lodge out in the boonies into the world’s most sumptuous palace and branded it, “To all the glories of France.”
This was no advertising hype. Three centuries on, Versailles is still the embodiment of grandeur and power. The longest-serving monarch delivered on his promise to signal to the world that France was really something.
We learned much about Versailles during a guided tour on Tuesday 13 May — about King Louis’ savvy management of palace intrigue, how the king rarely had a private moment away from the nobles and favor-seekers, the discreet auxiliary palaces for paramours, queens delivering babies as a standing-room-only crowd watched in a show of pre-Internet transparency, French artwork that “improved” on (read: plagiarized) the Italian masters. and a dizzying array of intermarrying cousins. No reality show could match it.
Although we were joined on the tour through the main palace by a few million of our closest friends (making the Louvre look like a ghost town), our guide Muguet made the Chateau personal. We’re really lucky on this trip to have had some terrific guides who provide an educational experience few classrooms can match.
After touring the Chateau, we were free to tour the grounds at our leisure. The Sun King wanted finely sculptured gardens that would show his supreme mastery by bending nature to his divine will. He succeeded, thanks to a few thousand servants.
Today those “servants” expect to get paid, so Versailles is extracting more cash from tourists. When I took a day trip here in 2009, touring the grounds and the two smaller palaces (the Grand and Petit Trianons) were free. Today it’s 8 euro to tour the landscaped gardens and another 10 euro to see the Trianons. C’est la vie.
This was no advertising hype. Three centuries on, Versailles is still the embodiment of grandeur and power. The longest-serving monarch delivered on his promise to signal to the world that France was really something.
We learned much about Versailles during a guided tour on Tuesday 13 May — about King Louis’ savvy management of palace intrigue, how the king rarely had a private moment away from the nobles and favor-seekers, the discreet auxiliary palaces for paramours, queens delivering babies as a standing-room-only crowd watched in a show of pre-Internet transparency, French artwork that “improved” on (read: plagiarized) the Italian masters. and a dizzying array of intermarrying cousins. No reality show could match it.
Although we were joined on the tour through the main palace by a few million of our closest friends (making the Louvre look like a ghost town), our guide Muguet made the Chateau personal. We’re really lucky on this trip to have had some terrific guides who provide an educational experience few classrooms can match.
After touring the Chateau, we were free to tour the grounds at our leisure. The Sun King wanted finely sculptured gardens that would show his supreme mastery by bending nature to his divine will. He succeeded, thanks to a few thousand servants.
Today those “servants” expect to get paid, so Versailles is extracting more cash from tourists. When I took a day trip here in 2009, touring the grounds and the two smaller palaces (the Grand and Petit Trianons) were free. Today it’s 8 euro to tour the landscaped gardens and another 10 euro to see the Trianons. C’est la vie.
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