The Palace of Versailles is a former royal home built by King Louis XIV. It is located in Versailles, about 18 kilometers (11 miles) west of Paris, in the Yvelines department of the Île-de-France region in France. The French government owns the palace. Since 1995, a government group under the French Ministry of Culture has managed it. Each year, about 15 million people visit the palace, its park, or gardens, making it one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions.
Louis XIII built a hunting lodge at Versailles in 1623. His son, Louis XIV, later expanded the lodge into a palace. Construction took place in several stages from 1661 to 1715. Both kings liked living there, and in 1682, Louis XIV moved his court and government to Versailles, making it the main center of government in France. Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI mainly made interior changes to the palace. However, in 1789, the royal family and court returned to Paris. During the French Revolution, the palace was mostly abandoned, and the nearby town’s population dropped sharply.
After becoming emperor in 1804, Napoleon used the Grand Trianon, a smaller palace at Versailles, as a summer home from 1810 to 1814. He did not live in the main palace. After the Bourbon Restoration, when the king returned to power, he lived in Paris. Major repairs to the palace did not begin until the 1830s. At that time, a museum of French history was added, replacing the rooms once used by courtiers.
In 1979, UNESCO declared the palace and its park a World Heritage Site because of their importance as the center of power, art, and science in France during the 17th and 18th centuries. The French Ministry of Culture lists the palace, its gardens, and some of its smaller buildings as culturally important monuments.
History
In 1623, Louis XIII, king of France, built a hunting lodge on a hill in a popular hunting area, 19 kilometers (12 miles) west of Paris and 16 kilometers (10 miles) from his main home, the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The site, near a village called Versailles, was a wooded wetland that Louis XIII’s court looked down on, believing it was not worthy of a king. One of his courtiers, François de Bassompierre, wrote that the lodge “would not inspire vanity in even the simplest gentleman.” From 1631 to 1634, architect Philibert Le Roy replaced the lodge with a château for Louis XIII. Louis XIII forbade his queen, Anne of Austria, from staying there overnight, even when an outbreak of smallpox at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1641 forced Louis XIII to move to Versailles with his three-year-old heir, the future Louis XIV.
When Louis XIII died in 1643, Anne became Louis XIV’s regent. Louis XIII’s château was abandoned for the next decade. She moved the court back to Paris, where Anne and her chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, continued Louis XIII’s unpopular financial practices. This led to the Fronde, a series of revolts against royal authority from 1648 to 1653. These revolts hid a struggle between Mazarin and the princes of the blood, Louis XIV’s extended family, for influence over him. After the Fronde, Louis XIV wanted to rule alone. Following Mazarin’s death in 1661, Louis XIV reformed his government to exclude his mother and the princes of the blood. He moved the court back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye and ordered the expansion of his father’s château at Versailles into a palace.
Louis XIV had hunted at Versailles in the 1650s but did not take special interest in it until 1661. On August 17, 1661, Louis XIV attended a grand festival hosted by Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances, at his home, the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte. Louis XIV was impressed by the château and its gardens, designed by Louis Le Vau, André Le Nôtre, and Charles Le Brun. Vaux-le-Vicomte’s size and luxury led Louis XIV to imprison Fouquet that September, as Fouquet had also built an island fortress and a private army. However, Louis XIV was inspired by Vaux-le-Vicomte and hired its designers for his own projects. He replaced Fouquet with Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a supporter of Mazarin and enemy of Fouquet, and charged Colbert with managing the artisans working on royal projects. Colbert acted as a middleman between Louis XIV and the workers, who built Versailles under Louis XIV’s direct supervision.
Work at Versailles first focused on the gardens. In the 1660s, Le Vau added two service wings and a forecourt to the château. But in 1668–69, as the gardens grew and after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), Louis XIV decided to turn Versailles into a full royal residence. He considered replacing or keeping his father’s château but chose to keep it. From 1668 to 1671, Louis XIII’s château was enclosed on three sides in a feature called the enveloppe. This gave the château a new Italian-style front facing the gardens but kept the courtyard’s original design, creating a mix of styles that Louis XIV disliked. Colbert called it a “patchwork.” Attempts to make the styles match failed, and in 1670, Le Vau died, leaving the position of First Architect vacant for seven years.
Le Vau was replaced by his assistant, architect François d’Orbay. Work on the palace during the 1670s focused on the interiors, as the palace neared completion. D’Orbay expanded Le Vau’s service wings and connected them to the château, and built two pavilions for government workers in the forecourt. In 1670, d’Orbay was asked by Louis XIV to design a city called Versailles to house his growing government and court. In 1671, land was given to courtiers to build townhouses that resembled the palace. The next year, the Franco-Dutch War began, and funding for Versailles was cut until 1674, when Louis XIV started work on the Ambassadors’ Staircase, a grand entrance for guests, and demolished the last parts of the village of Versailles.
After the Franco-Dutch War ended in French victory in 1678, Louis XIV appointed Jules Hardouin-Mansart as First Architect. Hardouin-Mansart, an experienced architect trusted by Louis XIV, began work with the Hall of Mirrors, a renovation of the château’s courtyard, and the expansion of d’Orbay’s pavilions into the Ministers’ Wings. He also built the Grande and Petite Écuries (stables) and the Grand Commun (servants’ quarters). Hardouin-Mansart added two new wings in Le Vau’s Italian style to house the court, first on the south end of the palace from 1679 to 1681 and then on the north end from 1685 to 1689.
War and reduced funding slowed construction at Versailles for the rest of the 17th century. The Nine Years’ War (1688–1697) stopped work until 1698. Three years later, the War of the Spanish Succession began, and combined with poor harvests in 1693–94 and 1709–10, it caused a crisis in France. Louis XIV cut funding and canceled some of Hardouin-Mansart’s planned projects, such as remodeling the courtyard in the Italian style. Instead, Louis XIV and Hardouin-Mansart focused on building a permanent palace chapel, which was constructed from 1699 to 1710.
Louis XIV’s successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI, mostly left Versailles as they inherited it, focusing on the palace’s interiors. Louis XV began modifying the palace in the 1730s, completing the Salon d’Hercule, a ballroom in the north wing, and expanding the king’s private apartment,
Architecture and plan
The Palace of Versailles shows the history of French architecture from the 1630s to the 1780s. The first part of the palace, called the corps de logis, was built for Louis XIII using brick, marble, and slate. In the 1660s, Louis Le Vau added a surrounding structure called the Enveloppe, which was inspired by Italian villas from the Renaissance period. Later, in the 1680s, Jules Hardouin-Mansart expanded the palace, using the Enveloppe as a model for his designs. In the 1770s, Ange-Jacques Gabriel renovated the Ministers' Wings, adding a Neoclassical style. More changes happened after the Bourbon Restoration.
Most of the palace was completed by the time Louis XIV died in 1715. The palace faces east and has a U-shaped layout. The central part, the corps de logis, is flanked by symmetrical wings that end with the Dufour Pavilion on the south and the Gabriel Pavilion on the north. These wings create a large courtyard called the Royal Court (Cour Royale). Two large, asymmetrical wings on either side of the Royal Court make the palace’s front 402 metres (1,319 ft) long. The palace has about 10 hectares (1.1 million square feet) of roof covering 2,143 windows, 1,252 chimneys, and 67 staircases.
The palace and its grounds greatly influenced architecture and garden design from the mid-17th century to the late 18th century. Buildings inspired by Versailles include Christopher Wren’s work at Hampton Court Palace, Berlin Palace, the Palace of La Granja, Stockholm Palace, Ludwigsburg Palace, Karlsruhe Palace, Rastatt Palace, Nymphenburg Palace, Schleissheim Palace, and Esterházy Palace.
Royal Apartments
The construction of Louis Le Vau’s “enveloppe” (a surrounding structure) around the outside of Louis XIII’s red brick and white stone château between 1668 and 1671 added state apartments for the king and queen. This addition was called the château neuf (new château) at the time. The grands appartements (Grand Apartments, also called State Apartments) included the grand appartement du roi (king’s Grand Apartment) and the grand appartement de la reine (queen’s Grand Apartment). These apartments were located on the main floor of the château neuf. Each apartment had three rooms facing the garden to the west and four rooms facing the garden parterres (ornamental garden areas) to the north and south. The private apartments of the king (appartement du roi and petit appartement du roi) and the queen (petit appartement de la reine) remained in the château vieux (old château). Le Vau’s design for the state apartments followed Italian models of the time, including placing the apartments on the main floor (called the piano nobile, one floor above the ground level), a style borrowed from Italian palace design.
The king’s State Apartment had a line of seven rooms, each named after a planet and its Roman god. The queen’s apartment had a matching line of rooms. After the Hall of Mirrors was added between 1678 and 1684, the king’s apartment had five rooms (two more were added during Louis XV’s reign), and the queen’s had four.
The queen’s apartments were home to three queens of France: Maria Theresa of Spain (wife of Louis XIV), Maria Leszczyńska (wife of Louis XV), and Marie Antoinette (wife of Louis XVI). Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, wife of Louis, Duke of Burgundy, also lived there from 1697 until her death in 1712.
The Ambassadors’ Staircase (Escalier des Ambassadeurs) was built by François d’Orbay between 1674 and 1680. It was the main entrance to the Palace of Versailles and the royal apartments until Louis XV had it removed in 1752. The staircase was entered through a small, dark vestibule that contrasted with the bright, open space of the staircase, which had a skylight. The staircase and surrounding walls were covered in colorful marble and gilded bronze, with decorations in the Ionic style. Charles Le Brun painted the walls and ceiling to celebrate Louis XIV’s victory in the Franco-Dutch War. Trompe-l’œil paintings of people from the four corners of the world looked over the staircase, a design repeated on the ceiling. Allegorical figures for the twelve months of the year and classical Greek figures like the Muses were also painted. A marble bust of Louis XIV, made by Jean Warin in 1665–66, was placed above the first landing of the staircase.
- Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee by Veronese in the Salon of Hercules
- Salon of Abundance
- Salon of Venus
- Salon of Mercury
The Hall of Mirrors, built between 1678 and 1686, changed the use of the State Apartments. Originally intended as a residence, the king turned them into galleries for his paintings and venues for court events. These events usually happened three times a week from six to ten in the evening during the season from All-Saints Day in November until Easter.
This room was once a chapel. It was rebuilt in 1712 by Robert de Cotte, the First Architect to the King, to display two paintings by Paolo Veronese: Eleazar and Rebecca and Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee, a gift from the Republic of Venice to Louis XIV in 1664. A painting of The Apotheosis of Hercules by François Lemoyne, completed in 1736, gave the room its name.
The Salon of Abundance was an entrance to the Cabinet of Curios (now the Games Room), which displayed Louis XIV’s collection of jewels and rare objects. Some items in the collection are shown in René-Antoine Houasse’s painting Abundance and Liberality (1683), located on the ceiling above the door. This room was used for light meals during evening events. The main feature is Jean Warin’s life-sized statue of Louis XIV in Roman emperor costume. Another painting by Houasse, Venus subjugating the Gods and Powers (1672–1681), is on the ceiling. Trompe-l’œil paintings and sculptures on the ceiling show mythological scenes.
The Salon of Mercury was the original State Bedchamber when Louis XIV moved the court to Versailles in 1682. The bed is a replica of the original made by King Louis-Philippe in the 19th century. The ceiling paintings by Jean Baptiste de Champaigne show Mercury in a chariot pulled by a rooster, and Alexander the Great and Ptolemy with scholars and philosophers. The Automaton Clock, made by Antoine Morand in 1706, has figures of Louis XIV and Fame that appear when it chimes.
- Salon of Mars
- Ceiling in the Salon of Apollo, depicting the Sun Chariot of Apollo
- Bust of Louis XIV by Bernini in the Salon of Diana
The Salon of Mars was used by royal guards until 1782 and had military-themed decorations. It became a concert room between 1684 and 1750, with galleries for musicians. Portraits of Louis XV and his queen, Marie Leszczyńska, by Carle Van Loo, are in the room today.
The Salon of Apollo was the royal throne room under Louis XIV, where formal audiences were held. The eight-foot-high silver throne was melted down in 1689 to fund a war and replaced with a simpler gilded wooden throne. The ceiling painting by Charles de la Fosse shows the Sun Chariot of Apollo, the king’s favorite symbol, pulled by four horses and
Hall of Mirrors
The Hall of Mirrors is a long room at the western end of the palace that faces the gardens. It was built between 1678 and 1681 on the site of a terrace previously constructed by Le Vau between the king and queen's living areas. The hall is covered in marble and decorated using a special style based on the Corinthian order. It has 578 mirrors that face 17 windows, reflecting the light from them. The ceiling painting, created by Le Brun over the next four years, shows 30 scenes from the first 18 years of Louis XIV's rule. Seventeen of these scenes depict French military victories over the Dutch. The painting includes images of Louis XIV himself alongside figures from classical art, showing events such as the start of his personal rule in 1661. This differs from earlier paintings at Versailles, which used symbols from classical and mythological stories.
The Salon of War and the Salon of Peace are located on the northern and southern ends of the Hall of Mirrors, respectively. The Salon of War, built and decorated between 1678 and 1686, celebrates French victories in the Franco-Dutch War. It features marble panels, gilded bronze trophies of weapons, and a stucco bas-relief showing Louis XIV on horseback riding over his enemies. The Salon of Peace is decorated in a similar way but follows its theme of peace.
Royal Chapel
The Royal Chapel of Versailles is located at the southern end of the north wing. The building is 40 meters (130 feet) tall, 42 meters (138 feet) long, and 24 meters (79 feet) wide. The chapel has a rectangular shape with a semicircular apse. It combines traditional Gothic royal French church design with the French Baroque style of Versailles. The chapel’s ceiling is an unbroken vault divided into three frescoes created by Antoine Coypel, Charles de La Fosse, and Jean Jouvenet. The images below the frescoes celebrate the achievements of Louis IX. They include pictures of David, Constantine, Charlemagne, Louis IX, the fleur de lis, and Louis XIV’s monogram. The chapel’s organ was built by Robert Clicquot and Julien Tribuot between 1709 and 1710.
Louis XIV ordered the construction of the sixth chapel from Hardouin-Mansart and Le Brun between 1683 and 1684. It was the last building completed at Versailles during Louis XIV’s reign. Construction was delayed until 1699 and finished in 1710. The only major change to the chapel since its completion was the removal of a lantern from its roof in 1765. A full restoration of the chapel began in late 2017 and continued until early 2021.
Royal Opera
- The Opera towards the Royal Box
- Foyer of the Royal Opera
- The Royal Opera during the celebration of the marriage of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette (1770)
- Stage of the Royal Opera
- Ceiling of the opera, painted by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau
The Royal Opera of Versailles was first asked to build by Louis XIV in 1682. It was planned to be built at the end of the North Wing, with a design by Hardouin-Mansart and Carlo Vigarani. However, the project was delayed because the king needed money for wars in Europe. Later, Louis XV tried again in 1748, with a new design by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, but this was also delayed. The project was restarted quickly to prepare for the wedding of the Dauphin, who later became Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette. To save time and money, the new opera was mostly built with wood, which helped create excellent sound. The wood was painted to look like marble, and the ceiling was decorated with a painting of Apollo, the god of the arts, giving crowns to famous artists, by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau. The sculptor Augustin Pajou added sculptures and carvings to finish the design. The new Opera opened on May 16, 1770, as part of the royal wedding celebration.
In October 1789, during the early part of the French Revolution, the king held the last banquet for royal guardsmen in the opera before leaving for Paris. After the Franco-German War in 1871 and the Paris Commune until 1875, the French National Assembly met in the opera until the start of the French Third Republic and the return of the government to Paris.
Museum of the History of France
Louis Philippe dedicated the Galerie des Batailles, painted by François Joseph Heim in 1837. This is part of the Gallery of Battles in the Museum of the History of France. Another painting in the gallery is The Battle of Taillebourg by Eugène Delacroix, also created in 1837. A painting titled Louis Philippe and his sons pose before the gates of Versailles, by Horace Vernet, is in the History Gallery from 1846.
After becoming king in 1830, Louis Philippe I decided to change the palace into a museum called "All the Glories of France." The museum displayed paintings and sculptures showing famous French victories and heroes. Most of the palace’s apartments were completely destroyed, except for the rooms of the king and queen. These rooms were replaced with large rooms and galleries, including the Coronation Room, which still has its original size and displays a famous painting of Napoleon I’s coronation by Jacques-Louis David. Other areas included the Hall of Battles, which showed large paintings of French victories, and the 1830 Room, which celebrated Louis Philippe’s rise to power in the 1830 revolution.
Some paintings were moved from the Louvre, including works by artists such as Philippe de Champaigne, Pierre Mignard, Laurent de La Hyre, Charles Le Brun, Adam Frans van der Meulen, Nicolas de Largillière, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean-Marc Nattier, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Hubert Robert, Thomas Lawrence, Jacques-Louis David, and Antoine-Jean Gros. Other paintings were created especially for the museum by artists like Eugène Delacroix, who painted Saint Louis at the Battle of Taillebourg in 1242. Other artists included Horace Vernet and François Gérard. One large painting by Vernet shows Louis Philippe with his sons standing in front of the palace gates.
When Louis Philippe was overthrown in 1848, his plans for the museum ended. However, the Gallery of Battles remains unchanged and is still visited by many people. On the first floor, another set of rooms now display galleries about Louis XIV and his court, showing furniture, paintings, and sculptures. In recent years, eleven rooms on the ground floor between the Chapel and the Opera have been turned into a history of the palace, with videos and models to explain its story.
Estate of Versailles
The estate of Versailles includes the palace, surrounding buildings, and its park and gardens. As of June 2021, the estate covers 800 hectares (8.0 km; 2,000 acres). The park and gardens are located to the south, west, and north of the palace. The palace is approached from the east by the Avenue de Paris, which is 27 kilometers (17 miles) long, stretching from Paris to a gate between the Grande and Petite Écuries. Beyond these stables is the Place d'Armes, where the Avenue de Paris meets the Avenue de Sceaux and Avenue de Saint-Cloud. These three roads formed the main streets of the city of Versailles. The point where the roads meet is a gate leading into the cour d'honneur, surrounded by the Ministers' Wings. Beyond this is the Royal Gate and the main palace, which wraps around the Royal and finally the Marble Courts.
The estate was created by Louis XIII as a hunting retreat, with a park to the west of his château. From 1661, Louis XIV expanded the estate until it reached its largest size, which included the Grand Parc, a hunting ground of 15,000 hectares (150 km; 37,000 acres), and the gardens, called the Petit Parc, covering 1,700 hectares (17 km; 4,200 acres). A 40-kilometer-long (25-mile), 3-meter-high (10-foot) wall with 24 gateways enclosed the estate.
The landscape of the estate was created from a wet, swampy area around Louis XIII's château using methods similar to those used in building fortresses. The path to the palace and gardens was carefully designed by moving earth and building terraces. Water from the marsh was directed into lakes and ponds around Versailles, but these were not enough to supply the palace, city, or gardens. Efforts were made to bring more water to Versailles, such as damming the river Bièvre in the 1660s, building a large pumping station near the river Seine in 1681, and attempting to divert water from the river Eure with a canal in the late 1680s.
The gardens of Versailles, as they exist today, were designed by André Le Nôtre. Before Le Nôtre, a simple garden was created in the 1630s by landscape architects Jacques Boyceau and Jacques de Nemours. Le Nôtre rearranged the garden along an east-west axis, which was expanded as land was purchased and forests were cleared. The gardens were a collaboration between Le Nôtre, Le Brun, Colbert, and Louis XIV, marked by order, open space, and features such as straight paths, flowerbeds, hedges, and ponds. These gardens became the model for French formal garden style and influenced many others.
The first of the supporting buildings of the Palace of Versailles was the Versailles Menagerie, built by Le Vau between 1662 and 1664 at the southern end of the Grand Canal. The apartments, which overlooked the animal enclosures, were renovated by Hardouin-Mansart from 1698 to 1700. However, the Menagerie was no longer used after 1712 and was later demolished in 1801. The Versailles Orangery, located just south of the palace, was first built by Le Vau in 1663 as part of the estate's construction. It was later rebuilt and expanded by Mansart between 1681 and 1685.
In late 1679, Louis XIV asked Mansart to build the Château de Marly, a retreat near the edge of the estate, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the palace. The château had a main building and twelve pavilions, arranged in two rows in the Palladian style. Construction was completed in 1686, and Louis XIV spent his first night there. The château was later sold and demolished in 1799. Industrial buildings were built on the site but were also demolished in 1805. In 1811, Napoleon purchased the estate. On
Modern political and ceremonial functions
The Palace of Versailles continues to be used for political purposes. Leaders of the country meet in the Hall of Mirrors, and the two parts of the French Parliament—the Senate and the National Assembly—gather in joint meetings at Versailles to change or update the French Constitution. This practice began when the 1875 Constitution was officially announced. For example, the Parliament met at Versailles in June 1999 to approve changes related to international court decisions and equal treatment of men and women in elections. They also met there in January 2000 to approve the Treaty of Amsterdam, in March 2003 to define the "decentralized organization" of the French Republic, and in March 2024 to ensure women’s right to choose to have an abortion.
In 2009, President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke about the economic crisis during a meeting at Versailles, the first time a president had done so since 1848, when Louis Napoleon Bonaparte addressed the French Second Republic. After the November 2015 Paris attacks, President François Hollande gave a speech during a rare joint meeting of Parliament at the Palace of Versailles. This was the third time since 1848 that a French president had addressed a joint session of Parliament at Versailles. The leader of the National Assembly has an official living space at the Palace of Versailles. In 2023, King Charles III of the United Kingdom visited France, and a formal dinner was held at the Palace during his visit.