The Southern Parterre is part of three square miles of gardens at Versailles. BELOW Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre (1643–1715)
Versailles
HALF-HOUR RIDE WEST from the centre of Paris on the commuter train, the town and suburb of Versailles has grown up around a palace that stands as perhaps the most splendid example of control-freakery the world has ever seen. In 1661, the young Louis XIV embarked on a massive expansion of his father’s old hunting lodge, to glorify his rule and secure his crown against two troublesome quarters – Parisians, and ambitious nobles who might build private power bases in the provinces. French kings had long been in the habit of roaming between various country châteaux and residences in the capital that were uncomfortably exposed to unruly crowds. In 1651, one mob had even barged into the 12-year-old king’s bedchamber. From 1682, Louis moved permanently to Versailles, and required most of his court to live where he could keep an eye on them, in his ever-growing palace. On entering the state apartments, once
the immediate impact of the coloured marble and gilt has worn off, a running theme emerges – a sunburst with a face at the centre, repeated in the design. In Louis XIV’s propaganda, he was the Sun King, and solar metaphors were given free rein. Versailles’ original building plan followed a kind of yin and yang, with the king’s apartments and the Salon of War in one wing, and the queen’s rooms and the Salon of Peace in the other. But ultimately Louis moved his bedchamber to the very centre of the palace, facing the rising sun. Every morning at eight, he would be woken in his canopied bed, watched over by a gilded figure representing France herself. Over the next two hours, up to a hundred courtiers would crowd into his room to join in the ritual of the ‘lever’ (‘rising’), where handing a shirt or a glove to the king as he dressed was a social and political honour calculated, like all Versailles etiquette, down to the last degree. Yet despite the formality, security could be surprisingly relaxed. Almost anyone was allowed into the palace provided they
met a few minimum standards of attire, and gentlemen could rent the required dress-sword at the entrance if they had none of their own. ‘There are nations where the majesty of kings consists, in large part, in never letting themselves be seen,’ Louis XIV once said. ‘But that is not the genius of our French nation.’ The curious throng from all over the world who process through the Hall of Mirrors six days a week are unwittingly re-enacting a drama scripted by the Sun King. In its display and ritual, Versailles was a suit made to fit its creator. But Louis XV and Louis XVI who followed him were more private, as was the wife of the last, Marie Antoinette of Austria. Even a Habsburg princess like her found the etiquette oppressive, and she escaped when she could to her own miniature palace – the Petit Trianon, at the other end of the gardens. Although she never said ‘Let them eat cake’, the mock hamlet she had built in the grounds was a source of much ridicule at the time. Versailles’ reign ended on 6 October 1789, when an angry crowd overwhelmed the palace guard, forcing the royal family to return to Paris, sending them to the guillotine in 1793. The first and last piece of pomp in Versailles is the equestrian statue of Louis XIV at the entrance. Here the king sits, with his back turned on the château he willed into being and which his successors could never fully make their own, and his arm pointed back to Paris. TOP TIP O Book an e-ticket online and come Wednesday to Friday to avoid the biggest crowds (main palace Dhs78, all buildings Dhs90; chateauversailles.fr).