Versailles, a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre. Located in the western suburbs of the French capital, 17.1 km (10.6 mi) from the centre of Paris, the commune of Versailles is the préfecture (administrative seat) of the Yvelines department. According to the 2008 census, the population of the city is 88,641 inhabitants, down from a peak of 94,145 in 1975. Versailles is historically known for numerous treaties such as Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolutionary War and the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I and layed the foundaton for World War II.
At almost no other place I visited history can not only be experienced here, but is omnipresent. A unique and inhabited open-air museum of exceptional quality. One can’t escape the special atmosphere right away when entering the city and it leaves a lasting impression. As construction & real estate pro and architecture enthusiast one is subject to a certain humbleness, because not only world-changing history has been written in Versailles, but building construction methods were established and used which simply were held for not feasible at that time. It’s a masterpiece in many ways.
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Vue aérienne du domaine de Versailles par ToucanWings/cc-by-sa-3.0
The Palace of Versailles, or simply Versailles, is the royal château in Versailles. In French, it is known as the Château de Versailles. When the château was built, Versailles was a country village. The court of Versailles was the centre of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime.
Louis XIII’s successor, Louis XIV, had a great interest in Versailles. He settled on the royal hunting lodge at Versailles and over the following decades had it expanded into one of the largest palaces in the world. Beginning in 1661, the architect Louis Le Vau, landscape architect André Le Nôtre, and painter-decorator Charles Le Brun began a detailed renovation and expansion of the château. This was done to fulfill Louis XIV’s desire to establish a new centre for the royal court. Following the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1678, he began to gradually move the court to Versailles. The court was officially established there on 6 May 1682.
By moving his court and government to Versailles, Louis XIV hoped to extract more control of the government from the nobility, and to distance himself from the population of Paris. All the power of France emanated from this center: there were government offices here, as well as the homes of thousands of courtiers, their retinues, and all the attendant functionaries of court.. By requiring that nobles of a certain rank and position spend time each year at Versailles, Louis prevented them from developing their own regional power at the expense of his own and kept them from countering his efforts to centralise the French government in an absolute monarchy.
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