Early in the 17th Century, King Louis XIII of France was invited by a friend to take a break from Paris and visit the nearby town of Versailles for a number of hunting expeditions in the nearby forests. Pleased with the location, Louis in 1624 ordered the construction of a hunting lodge of his own. While hardly a lean-to, the hunting lodge was reasonably subdued by royal standards. Some expansion of the lodge was ordered in later years, but mainly to increase its comfort and usability as a hunting lodge. When Louis died in 1643 at the age of 41, his four-year-old son became Louis XIV. The new King Louis didn't immediately start ordering people around (he was a four-year-old kid, after all) – this function was taken by his mother, Anne of Austria, who acted as regent (with the assistance of Cardinal Mazarin) until Louis's coming of age. While growing up, Louis did some hunting of his own at Versailles, which he also enjoyed. He came of age and was officially crowned at age 15. Louis also used the services of Cardinal Mazarin until Mazarin's death in 1661, at which time Louis assumed full power of France. One of the things he did was to initiate some additional expansion at Versailles, but with a somewhat different purpose. And "subdued" wasn't in his vocabulary.

Nella and I awoke with the intention of visiting Versailles, but with a welcome complication. Our daughter Connie, who was in a study-abroad program in England, was between terms and had come through the Chunnel the day before with some friends. She'd contacted us the night before via e-mail and expressed an interest in joining us for our adventures for the day. Except she was staying in a student-frequented (i.e. cheap) hotel to the northwest of town, and we'd have to find her. We did this without too much trouble, taking an RER train through a not-so-scenic industrial area. We were very happy to see our daughter, but less happy to see her luggage, which we would have to take back to our hotel (she was also spending the night with us) before heading to Versailles. The return train couldn't quite get us to our hotel (because of the closed Metro section), but a little impromptu navigation got us back to the hotel, where we dropped her luggage off in our new, larger (and more expensive) room.

We had reason to believe the ticket line at Versailles would be horrendous, so we bought Connie a ticket at the train station in Paris (we didn't have to buy tickets for ourselves, as the Palace was included in our Museum Passes), as well as round-trip tickets to Versailles for the three of us. The RER train crossed the Seine south of the Eiffel Tower and took us the twelve miles to Versailles, where we disembarked, turned right and got our first glimpse of the Palace. A hunting lodge this wasn't.




Louis XIV was a firm believer in the concept of the absolute monarch, which was more concept than reality at the time of his coronation. With assorted nobles with their own fighting forces scattered around France, the king's power didn't realistically extend too far beyond Paris. Louis's aim in expanding the size of the Palace at Versailles was to eventually move the center of the French government to Versailles from Paris. He employed the services of three talented artists for his expansion: the architect Louis le Vau was placed in charge of the buildings themselves, the landscape architect André le Nôtre supervised the design and construction of the gardens, and the painter and decorator Charles le Brun was in charge of the interiors. When Louis officially moved the royal residence to Versailles in 1682, he had an immense palace complex in which he required the nobles of France to spend a significant amount of time, while they were kept extremely comfortable and lavishly entertained. This made it much easier to keep an eye on them than if they'd been in Paris, as the clutter and crowds of Paris would've made it difficult to tell who was there and who was not. Louis XIV pretty much became the embodiment of the absolute monarch, while at the same time expanding French territory and influence through a number of wars. But at the time of his eventual death in 1715 (from gangrene), a number of deaths in the family made it necessary to pass the crown to his great-grandson, who became Louis XV at the age of five. Louis XV had a regent of his own (Philippe d'Orléans), but managed to squander many of his predecessor's gains and discredit the monarchy during his eventual reign. He made some additions to the Palace, though. He was succeeded after his death in 1774 by his grandson, the ill-fated Louis XVI. Louis XVI didn't add much to the Palace, mainly completing projects initiated by his predecessors. He and his wife, Marie Antoinette, did not survive the French Revolution. After the Revolution, the Palace served mainly as a museum, though it was the site of two very historic pronouncements: the establishment of the German Empire following the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, ending World War I.

On arriving at the Palace (also referred to as the Château), we found that the ticket line was indeed lengthy. Having our tickets, we were able to ignore this line, but just as we were preparing to laugh contemptuously, we discovered another line we were not able to bypass – the security line, which seemed to be as long or longer. We got in line with the other tourists and found that the line actually moved reasonably quickly.


After passing through the metal detector we entered the inner courtyard.

We then located an entrance to the Château and began an unguided tour (marked by signs with arrows) of the interior. The inside of the Château was indeed wondrous, with a royal chapel and lavishly decorated rooms.












We then came to the famous Hall of Mirrors, in which the agreement ending World War I was signed.




The marked route took us through bedchambers of both the king and queen, as well as some other rooms.





Eventually we arrived at the Hall of Battles, in which were exhibited gigantic paintings of French battles (battles with successful outcomes, of course).





After passing through the remaining rooms on the tour route, we found we no longer had the ambition or energy to explore the extensive gardens (though we had taken a few pictures from the palace).


We returned the way we had come to the town of Versailles in search of lunch.

We were very hungry, as it was now past 3 PM. We found a reasonably-priced Italian restaurant and sat down to a lunch of pizza and salad while resting our cobblestone-abused feet.

We also planned out the rest of the day – our next stop was to be the Sacré-Coeur Basilica, back in Paris.