Welcome to Versailles! This massive palace, just twelve miles from Paris, actually began as a humble hunting lodge, a favorite escape for Louis XIII. His eldest son —Louis XIV—became king at the age of five. As a boy on the throne, he endured two civil wars, spearheaded by France’s fractious nobles, some of whom were the king’s own relatives. These rebellions left Louis XIV with a steadfast determination to maintain a watchful eye over France’s nobility.

Louis intended to find a way to keep the rebellious aristocrats out of Paris where they may plot and scheme - and steer them toward a venue where he could not only monitor their activities, but where they would all but beg for an invitation. 

Louis set out to create a masterpiece for the crown, hiring the most accomplished architects and craftsmen to complete the task. Architect Louis LeVau was the first to enlarge the humble hunting lodge in the boggy town of Versailles into a grand château. Jules Hardouin-Mansart subsequently expanded the palace’s footprint even more. Landscape designer André LeNôtre literally changed the course of nature, bringing water to a marshland with no view, in order to create the magnificent fountains and gardens you still see today. The interior décor was the work of the brilliant master painter Charles LeBrun.

 
By transforming Versailles into an enormous pleasure palace, Louis XIV was able to consolidate his power. He offered lavish spectacles and entertainments and created such a fear of missing out that the members of the nobility preferred to dwell in cramped, airless rooms within the Château, rather than remain at their sprawling provincial properties or in their Paris townhomes.

Versailles was built as a monument to the glories of France-in-allegory, as well as to the glories of Louis XIV himself. By filling the château with design elements and works of art manufactured solely in France, and opening the palace to everyone, the aim was to showcase France’s king and court as the most cultured and sophisticated in the world. Louis XIV had tamed the four elements of water, air, earth, and fire, to suit his fantasies. Ultimately, it took thousands of laborers and artisans more than half a century to build and decorate the palace’s thousand rooms.