When you visit Versailles, you will no doubt be wondering why such an extravagant palace was built. Yes, kings are known for wanting the best of the best, but this place seems like a fantasy come to life.

 

To understand why Versailles was built, you have to dig into the history, And when you do, you discover a fascinating story.

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Creating Versailles : Louis XIV’s Big Idea 

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King Louis XIV was raised to believe that he should be the unquestioned ruler of the French state. And his experiences as a child made him paranoid of the aristocrats. They were in more or less constant revolt against his father, and one mob almost killed Louis XIV when he was only a child.

 

So he knew he needed to wrest control from these wealthy and powerful people. But doing so through the might of his army or explicitly by law would likely provoke them more. So Louis XIV came up with a better idea: seduce them to Versailles — a pleasure palace that they would never want to leave.

 

There, he and his most loyal servants could keep an eye and an ear on the aristocrats. And while they were distracted by the indulgences available, Louis could carry out many actions behind their backs.

 

How did he come up with such a brilliant and devious idea? It all started — as many royal ideas do — with a party. The Marquis Nicolas Fouquet held a grand celebration at his house, the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte. It was such a big to-do that Fouquet invited the king himself.

 

When Louis arrived at the château, he could hardly believe his eyes. The house and gardens were delightful, grand, and fit for a king. And because Fouquet was a member of the royal court, he’d built this palace using all the tools Louis had at his disposal.

 

Louis left with a belly full of the finest food and a head full of big plans. As for Fouquet, he was thrown into prison that next autumn. Apparently along with a beautiful estate, he’d also built himself a private army!

 

The palace Louis imagined required a large piece of land not too far away from the center of his country, Paris. The best place for this seemed to be Versailles, a swampy area where his father had built a château for hunting. Though to really be fit for a royal residence, he would need to expand it greatly.

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Building Versailles

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Louis’s court architect Louis Le Vau and royal gardener André Le Nôtre led the charge, completing larger and larger projects from the 1660s on through the next two decades. Things slowed down due to war and bad harvests.

 

Though the actual architects and artisans no doubt did the lion’s share, Louis’s ideas were actually a major part of the early design process. He directed the project like any other major act of government.

 

And a major act it was. The palace proved to be a tremendous undertaking, one that kept going and going.

 

First and foremost, water had to be diverted to dry up the land, and the unfathomable amount of building materials and finery all had to be shipped in from far away. Just getting the gardens and exterior into some kind of order took up much of the 1660s. By the end of the decade, there was enough progress that a city named Versailles was royally chartered to surround the palace and provide it with the laborers, goods, and industry necessary to keep the king well stocked.

 

But by the 1670s, work had retreated mostly to the interior. The Franco-Dutch War that broke out in 1672 gave the budget a hiccup, but by 1674, Louis hired a new architect to charge forward and make up for lost time. Jules Hardouin-Mansart was responsible for some of the most grand features of the palace — including the Hall of Mirrors.

 

When Louis XIV died in 1715, Versailles was a magnificent achievement. His son Louis XV made a few additions and renovations, though frequent wars in Europe kept using up the bulk of his funds.

 

Louis XVI had even fewer resources to add anything to the palace. By that time, many renovations were required, and so the royal residence actually left Versailles for a number of years. But the deepening crisis in France during the late 18th century meant those renovations never happened. What happened instead was the French Revolution, and an end to the monarchy.

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Leaving and Returning to Versailles

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The Revolutionary government had little use for Versailles, far away as it was from the action of Paris. It was also the ultimate symbol of royal decadence, something no Jacobin wanted to be associated with!

 

Later on, Napoleon named himself Emperor, and he desperately wanted to live in the palace, but by that time, the buildings and the land needed so many renovations that it just couldn’t work.

 

It wasn’t until Napoleon fell and the Bourbons were restored to power that King Louis XVIII began renovations on the palace that his great grandfather built. But the work was vast, and so he and his successor Charles X never lived there. When Louis-Philippe was rushed into power in 1830’s July Revolution, he tried to turn the entire thing into a museum.

 

Versailles became the site of stately events once again under Emperor Napoleon III, and after he lost power, it continued to be used as a site for important political events. These include the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I.

 

Through the 20th century, renovations gradually brought the palace to its full glory. And in the 1950s, it became a true museum.

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