Palace of Versailles
Louis XIV’s hunting lodge was enlarged into a palace for the entire court and became the seat of the French government in 1682. Everything was arranged along axes extending into the gardens and the landscape. The Hall of Mirrors, the Royal Chapel and the park became models for princes throughout Europe – Sweden included.
Louis XIII built a small hunting lodge at Versailles in the 1620s and 1630s. Louis XIV began enlarging it in the 1660s, partly to get away from Paris, where he had experienced rebellion as a child. Louis Le Vau built a new palace enveloping the old one, Charles Le Brun directed the artistic decoration and André Le Nôtre laid out the gardens. From 1678 Jules Hardouin-Mansart took over and built the Hall of Mirrors, the great side wings and the Royal Chapel. In 1682 the court and the government moved there. The building demanded enormous resources: thousands of workers, and the water for the fountains was pumped up from the Seine by the Machine de Marly. Versailles became a stage for the king’s power and for the ceremonies of the court.
The palace is built around the Marble Court, the oldest part, and from it wings extend in both directions. The King’s Bedchamber lies on the central axis, and his daily life was a public ceremony. The State Apartments are a suite of rooms named after planets and gods, with painted ceilings and marble. The Hall of Mirrors runs along the garden side, where the windows facing the park are matched by an equal number of arches filled with mirrors, and the ceiling shows paintings of Louis XIV’s reign. The garden is arranged along the main axis with parterres, fountains, bosquets and the long Grand Canal. Further out in the park lie the Grand Trianon and later the Petit Trianon, smaller palaces where the royal family could withdraw.
Louis XV built the opera house and the Petit Trianon, and Marie Antoinette was given her own rustic hamlet in the park. During the Revolution the royal family was forced to move to Paris in 1789, and the palace furnishings were sold at auction. In the 1830s King Louis Philippe turned the palace into a museum of the history of France. The German Empire was proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors in 1871, and the peace treaty after the First World War was signed there in 1919. Versailles became a World Heritage Site in 1979. The palace influenced princes throughout Europe, and Sweden was no exception. Nicodemus Tessin the Younger visited Versailles and kept himself informed about French architecture through contacts in Paris. His plans for the Royal Palace in Stockholm, the garden at Drottningholm and interiors in Sweden show that Versailles was a constant point of reference.