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82-703: Genêt was born in Versailles in 1763. He was the ninth and final child of a French civil servant, Edmond Jacques Genêt (1726–1781), who was a head clerk in the ministry of foreign affairs. The elder Genêt analyzed British naval strength during the Seven Years' War and monitored the progress of the American Revolutionary War . His eldest sister was Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan , a lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie-Antoinette and later an educator and author. Aglaé-Louise Auguié (1782–1854), who

164-673: A Ministry of Foreign Affairs (where the Treaty of Paris (1783) ending the American Revolutionary War was signed in 1783 with the United Kingdom), and a Ministry of the Navy. By 1789, the population had reached 60,000 inhabitants, and Versailles was now the seventh or eighth-largest city in France, and one of the largest cities in Europe. Seat of political power, Versailles naturally became

246-564: A Parisian mob forced Louis XVI and the royal family to move to Paris. Versailles again became the unofficial capital of France from March 1871, when Adolphe Thiers ' government took refuge in Versailles, fleeing the insurrection of the Paris Commune , until November 1879, when the newly elected government and parliament returned to Paris. During the various periods when government affairs were conducted from Versailles, Paris remained

328-649: A city built symmetrically with respect to the Avenue de Paris (which starts from the entrance of the castle). The roofs of the buildings and houses of the new city were not to exceed the level of the Marble Courtyard, at the entrance of the castle (built above a hill dominating the city), so that the perspective from the windows of the castle would not be obstructed. The old village and the Saint Julien church were demolished to make room for buildings housing

410-456: A fair amount of sunshine. in the winter, sunshine is scarce; days are cool, and nights are cold but generally above freezing with low temperatures around 3 °C (37 °F). Light night frosts are however quite common, but the temperature seldom dips below −5 °C (23 °F). Snow falls every year, but rarely stays on the ground. The city sometimes sees light snow or flurries with or without accumulation. The name of Versailles appears for

492-588: A journalist, gained a following as a radical patriot Montagnard (members who identified with him became known as the Hébertists ) while Danton led a more moderate faction of the Mountain (followers came to be known as Dantonists ). Regardless of the divisions, the nightly sessions of the Jacobin club, which met in the rue Saint-Honoré , can be considered to be a type of caucus for the Mountain. In June 1793,

574-497: A lot in the new city for free. There were only two conditions to acquire a lot: 1- a token tax of 5 shillings ( 5 sols ) per arpent of land should be paid every year ($ 0.03 per 1,000 sq ft (93 m ) per year in 2005 US dollars); 2- a house should be built on the lot according to the plans and models established by the Surintendant des Bâtiments du Roi (architect in chief of the royal demesne). The plans provided for

656-709: A militia, Genêt set sail toward Philadelphia, stopping along the way to marshal support for the French cause and arriving on May 16. He encouraged Democratic-Republican societies , but President Washington denounced them and they quickly withered away. He was also hosted by the Democratic-Republican Tammany Society in 1793. His actions endangered American neutrality in the war between France and Britain, which Washington had pointedly declared in his Neutrality Proclamation of April 22. When Genêt met with Washington, he asked for what amounted to

738-543: A moderate political faction created during the Legislative Assembly period. They were the political opponents of the more radical representatives within the Mountain. The Girondins had wanted to avoid the execution of Louis XVI and supported a constitution which would have allowed a popular vote to overturn legislation. The Mountain accused the Girondins of plotting against Paris because this caveat within

820-545: A potential war with Austria, enabled the Montagnards to take over the administrative power of the National Convention under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre who openly advocated for a more peaceful external policy and rather focusing on the issues within the newly-founded First French Republic . This sharp transition of power from Girondins to Montagnards was proceeded after Robespierre accused

902-479: A prominent member of the Mountain, announced on 10 June the "good citizens demanded a constitution" and the "Constitution will be the reply of patriotic deputies, for it is the work of the Mountain". However, this constitution was never actually enacted. The Constitution of 1793 was delayed due to the situation in the war, and due to the Thermidorian Reaction that purged much of the government, it

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984-538: A string of parliamentary elections, defeating the parties supporting a restoration of the monarchy, and the new majority decided to relocate the government to Paris in November 1879. Versailles then experienced a new population setback (48,324 inhabitants at the 1881 census). After that, Versailles never again functioned as the seat of the capital of France, but the presence of the French Parliament there in

1066-660: A suspension of American neutrality to support the cause of France. When turned down by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and informed that his actions were unacceptable, Genêt protested. Meanwhile, Genêt's privateers were capturing British ships, and his militia was preparing to move against the Spanish. Genêt continued to defy the wishes of the United States government, capturing British ships and rearming them as privateers. Washington sent Genêt an 8,000-word letter of complaint on Jefferson's and Hamilton's advice – one of

1148-533: A weekly market on Thursdays. The population of Versailles was 500 inhabitants. Martial de Loménie was murdered during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (24 August 1572). In 1575, Albert de Gondi , a man from Florence who had come to France with Catherine de' Medici , bought the seigneury of Versailles. Henceforth Versailles was the possession of the Gondi family , a family of wealthy and influential parliamentarians at

1230-537: Is a commune in the department of the Yvelines , Île-de-France , renowned worldwide for the Château de Versailles and the gardens of Versailles , designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites . Located in the western suburbs of the French capital, 17.1 km (10.6 mi) from the centre of Paris , Versailles is a wealthy suburb of Paris with a service-based economy and is a major tourist destination. According to

1312-567: Is served by Versailles-Chantiers station , which is an interchange station on Paris RER line C , on the Transilien La Défense suburban rail line, on the Transilien Paris-Montparnasse suburban rail line, and on several national rail lines, including low-frequency TGV service. Versailles is also served by two other stations on Paris RER line C: Versailles-Château–Rive Gauche (the closest station to

1394-611: Is similar to Latin seminare ("to sow") which gave French semailles ("sowings", "sown seeds"). During the Revolution of 1789 , city officials had proposed to the convention to rename Versailles Berceau-de-la-Liberté ("Cradle of Liberty"), but they had to retract their proposal when confronted with the objections of the majority of the population. From May 1682, when Louis XIV moved the court and government permanently to Versailles, until his death in September 1715, Versailles

1476-561: Is still considered an immigrant in French statistics. On the other hand, persons born in France with foreign citizenship (the children of immigrants) are not listed as immigrants. The headquarters of the Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University is located in the city, as well as the ISIPCA , a post-graduate school in perfume, cosmetics products and food flavour formulation. Versailles

1558-508: Is the Palace , with its ornately decorated rooms and historic significance. The Potager du roi is a kitchen garden created under Louis XIV to supply fruits and vegetables to the Court. It is officially recognized as a Remarkable Garden of France . The town also has other points of cultural notability; in recent times, its position as an affluent suburb of Paris has meant that it forms a part of

1640-464: The Parlement of Paris. Several times during the 1610s, the de Gondis invited King Louis XIII to hunt in the large forests around Versailles. In 1622, the king purchased a parcel of forest for his private hunting. In 1624, he acquired more and entrusted Philibert Le Roy with the construction of a small hunting lodge of red bricks and stone with a slate roof. In 1632, the king bought the totality of

1722-551: The Girondins , which caused a break with Robespierre. After the trial of Girondins in 1793, Danton became strongly moderate while Robespierre and his allies continued their more radical policies. The moderates of Danton were also rival to the followers of Jacques Hébert who wanted the persecution of all non-Montagnards and the dechristianisation of France. When the Robespierrist and unaligned Montagnards eliminated first

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1804-471: The Hudson River . Living the life of a gentleman farmer, he wrote a book about inventions. Their children included: His wife Cornelia died in 1810, and on July 31, 1814, Genêt remarried to Martha Brandon Osgood (1787–1853), the daughter of Samuel Osgood , the United States' first Postmaster General . Together, they were the parents of: He died on July 14, 1834, and is buried in the churchyard behind

1886-615: The Hébertists (March 1794) and then the Dantonistes (April 1794), these groups held the most influence in The Mountain. This was until the Thermidorian Reaction , when several conspirators supported by The Plain instituted a coup d'état . They executed Robespierre and his supporters and split from The Mountain to form the Thermidorian Left . The Montagnards that survived were arrested, executed or deported. By 1795

1968-599: The Montagnards ( French: [mɔ̃taɲaʁ] ), sat on the highest benches in the National Convention . The term, first used during a session of the Legislative Assembly , came into general use in 1793. By the summer of 1793, that pair of opposed minority groups divided the National Convention . That year, the Montagnards were influential in what is commonly known as the Reign of Terror . The Mountain

2050-647: The National Assembly and the Senate , meet – gathers in the Château de Versailles to vote on revisions to the Constitution . The argument over the etymology of Versailles tends to privilege the Latin word versare , meaning "to keep turning, turn over and over", an expression used in medieval times for ploughed lands, cleared lands (lands that had been repeatedly "turned over"). This word formation

2132-639: The Palace of Versailles and consequently the station most frequently used by tourists) and Porchefontaine . Versailles is also served by two stations on the Transilien Paris-Saint-Lazare suburban rail line: Versailles-Rive Droite and Montreuil . Versailles is twinned with: The Mountain The Mountain ( French : La Montagne ) was a political group during the French Revolution . Its members, called

2214-588: The Seine-et-Oise département in 1790, then of Yvelines in 1968. It is also a Roman Catholic diocese . Versailles is historically known for numerous treaties such as the Treaty of Paris , which ended the American Revolution , and the Treaty of Versailles , after World War I. Today, the Congress of France – the name given to the body created when both houses of the French Parliament ,

2296-588: The United States to promote American support for France 's wars with Spain and Britain . Genêt arrived in Charleston , South Carolina , on the French frigate Embuscade on April 8. Instead of traveling to the then-capital of Philadelphia to present himself to U.S. President George Washington for accreditation, Genêt stayed in South Carolina. There he was greeted with enthusiasm by

2378-661: The presidential election of 1808 . Noting the honorary French citizenship afforded to Madison in 1792, Genêt reasoned that the Embargo Act of 1807 had been intended by Secretary of State Madison to aid Napoleon in the enforcement of the Berlin Decree , especially seeing that American trade with Britain was more important than that with France. Playing to a northeastern audience, Genêt continued that, judging by Jefferson's glorification of an agricultural lifestyle in Notes on

2460-542: The tricolour flag that had been adopted during the Revolution made the restoration of monarchy impossible for the time being. Versailles became again the political centre of France, full of buzz and rumours, with its population briefly peaking at 61,686 in 1872, matching the record level of population reached on the eve of the French Revolution 83 years earlier. Eventually, however, left-wing republicans won

2542-596: The 1870s left a vast hall, built in one aisle of the palace, which the French Parliament uses when it meets in Congress to amend the French Constitution, as well as when the President of France addresses the two chambers of the French Parliament. Only in 1911 did Versailles definitely recover its level of population of 1789, with 60,458 inhabitants at the 1911 census. In 1919, at the end of

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2624-412: The 1960s and 1970s, and somehow Versailles has become the main centre of the western suburbs of Paris. In the present times, the centre of the town has kept its very bourgeois atmosphere, while more middle-class neighbourhoods have developed around the train stations and on the outskirts of the city. Versailles is a chic suburb of Paris, well linked with the centre of Paris by several train lines. However,

2706-467: The 2017 census, the population of the city is 85,862 inhabitants, down from a peak of 94,145 in 1975. A new town founded at the will of King Louis XIV , Versailles was the de facto capital of the Kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789, before becoming the cradle of the French Revolution . After having lost its status as a royal city, it became the préfecture (regional capital) of

2788-625: The First World War, Versailles came into the limelight again as the various treaties ending the war were signed in the castle proper and in the Grand Trianon . After 1919, as the suburbs of Paris continued to expand, Versailles was absorbed by the urban area of Paris and the city experienced a strong demographic and economic growth, turning it into a large suburban city of the metropolitan area of Paris. The role of Versailles as an administrative and judicial centre has been reinforced in

2870-442: The French army, a tradition going back to the monarchy with, for instance, the military camp of Satory and other institutions. Versailles is located 17.1 km (10.6 mi) west-southwest from the centre of Paris. The city sits on an elevated plateau, 130 to 140 metres (430 to 460 ft) above sea level (whereas the elevation of the centre of Paris is only 33 m (108 ft) above sea level), surrounded by wooded hills: in

2952-498: The French coast. The Mountain also enacted policies restricting and granting religious freedom. These policies varied but began with a ban on religion, allowing only for "the worship of Reason" in 1793 and progressing to religious freedom with the separation of Church and State in 1795. The fall and exclusion of the Montagnards from the National Convention began with the collapse of the Revolution's radical phase and

3034-467: The French monarchy but all monarchical systems, including Tsarist Russia under Catherine the Great . In 1792, Catherine declared Genêt persona non grata , calling his presence "not only superfluous but even intolerable." The same year, the Girondins rose to power in France and appointed Genêt to the post of minister to the United States. The Citizen Genêt affair began in 1793 when he was dispatched to

3116-473: The Girondins. They used tactics previously employed by the Girondins to denounce them as liars and enemies of the Revolution. They also formed a legislative committee in which Nicolas Hentz proposed a limitation of inheritances, gaining more support for the Montagnards. Girondin members were subsequently banned from the Jacobin club and excluded from the National Convention on 31 May – 2 June 1793. Through attempted land redistribution policies,

3198-633: The Greenbush Reformed Church, about two miles east of his farm. Edmond Charles Clinton Genet (1896–1917), who served with the Lafayette Escadrille and was the first American flier to die in the First World War after the United States declared war against Germany in 1917, was Genêt's great-great-grandson. Versailles (city) Versailles ( French pronunciation: [vɛʁsɑj] )

3280-425: The Mountain showed some support for the rural poor. In August 1793, Montagnard member Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès drafted a piece of legislation which dealt with agricultural reform; in particular, he urged "relief from rent following harvest loss, compensation for improvements and fixity of tenure". This was in part to combat restlessness of share-croppers in the southwest. This draft never made it into law, but

3362-533: The Mountain successfully ousted most of the moderate Gironde members of the Convention with the assistance of radical sans-culottes. Following their coup, the Mountain, led by Hérault de Séchelles , quickly began construction on a new constitution which was completed eight days later. The Committee of Public Safety reported the constitution to the Convention on 10 June and a final draft was adopted on 24 June. The process occurred quickly because as Robespierre,

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3444-414: The Mountain was sensitive to the motivations of the city and responded strongly to demands from the working class sans-culottes . The Mountain operated on the belief that what was best for Paris would be best for all of France. Although they attempted some rural land reform, most of it was never enacted and they generally focused on the needs of the urban poor over that of rural France. The Girondins were

3526-506: The NATO unified command in 1966, nearby Rocquencourt functioned as the site for SHAPE . Versailles is an important military centre, with several units and training schools headquartered at the Satory military base, which hosted the headquarters of the famed 2nd French Armored Division until 1999, and where a military exhibition is organized annually. Versailles' primary cultural attraction

3608-628: The Paris artistic scene, and musical groups such as Phoenix , Air , Fuzati , and Daft Punk have some link to the city, as does the director Michel Gondry . Football Club de Versailles 78 is a semi-professional association football club founded in 1989. Their home stadium is the Stade de Montbauron, which has a capacity of 6,208 people. An immigrant is a person born in a foreign country not having French citizenship at birth. An immigrant may have acquired French citizenship since moving to France, but

3690-513: The Revolution, was left abandoned, with only Napoleon briefly staying one night there and then leaving the castle for good. Louis-Philippe , who took the throne in the July Revolution of 1830, transformed the palace into a National Museum dedicated to "all the glories of France" in 1837. Versailles had become a sleepy town, a place of pilgrimage for those nostalgic for the old monarchy. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 put Versailles in

3772-621: The State of Virginia , the Embargo was also acting as a covert means to destroy New England's commercial heritage. As such, New Englanders would be forced to turn to agriculture, and Virginia's dominance of American politics would continue. Genêt married Cornelia Tappen Clinton (1774–1810) in 1794, the daughter of New York Governor George Clinton . Genêt lived on a farm he called Prospect Hill located in East Greenbush , New York overlooking

3854-619: The administrative services managing the daily life in the castle. On both sides of the Avenue de Paris were built the Notre-Dame neighbourhood and the Saint-Louis neighbourhood, with new large churches, markets, and aristocratic mansions, all built in a very homogeneous style according to the models established by the Surintendant des Bâtiments du Roi . Versailles was a vast construction site for many years. Little by little came to Versailles all those who needed or desired to live close to

3936-476: The cabinet, convinced Washington to grant him safe haven in the United States. After obtaining asylum in the United States from Washington, Genêt moved to New York State. On June 26, 1808, Genêt wrote an article, "Madison as a 'French Citizen,'" for the New York Register in an attempt to promote the prospects of his father-in-law, the incumbent Vice President George Clinton , over James Madison in

4018-424: The castle of his father, as well as the park, in order to accommodate the court. In 1678, after the Treaty of Nijmegen , the king decided that the court and the government would be established permanently in Versailles, which happened on 6 May 1682. At the same time, a new city was emerging from the ground, resulting from an ingenious decree of the king dated 22 May 1671, whereby the king authorized anyone to acquire

4100-439: The city is extremely compartmentalized, divided by large avenues inherited from the monarchy which create the impression of several small cities ignoring each other. Versailles was never an industrial city, even though there are a few chemical and food-processing plants. Essentially, Versailles is a place of services, such as public administration, tourism, business congresses, and festivals. From 1951 until France's withdrawal from

4182-409: The contours of political groups presented an ever-evolving reality that shifted in response to events. Would-be prominent Montagnard leaders like Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet and Jean Bon Saint-André were tempted by early Girondin proposals and soon many moderates—even anti-radicals—felt the need to push for radical endeavors in light of threats both within and without the country. It was only after

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4264-626: The cradle of the French Revolution . The Estates-General met in Versailles on 5 May 1789. The members of the Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath on 20 June 1789, and the National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism on 4 August 1789. Eventually, on 5 and 6 October 1789, a crowd of women joined by some members of the national guard from Paris invaded the castle to protest bread prices and forced

4346-519: The death of Robespierre on 10 Thermidor (28 July 1794). While the Montagnards celebrated unity, there was growing heterogeneity within the group as the Committee of Public Safety extended themselves with their tight control over the military and their extreme opposition to corruption in the government. Their extension drew the ire of other revolutionary leaders and a number of plots coalesced on 9 Thermidor ( Thermidorian Reaction ) when collaborators with

4428-521: The drastic reforms suggest the Mountain's awareness of the need to please their base of support, both the rural and urban poor. Other policies aimed at supporting the poor included price controls enacted by the Mountain in 1793. This law, called the General Maximum , was supported by a group of agitators within the Mountain known as the Enragés . It fixed prices and wages throughout France. At

4510-520: The end of 1794 the Mountain largely devolved into a group called The Crest ( French : crête ), which lacked any real power. The Mountain was born in 1792, with the merger of two prominent left-wing clubs: the Jacobins and Cordeliers . The Jacobins were initially moderate republicans and the Cordeliers were radical populist. In late 1792, Danton and his supporters wanted a reconciliation with

4592-614: The few situations in which the Federalist Alexander Hamilton and the Republican Jefferson agreed. Genêt replied obstinately. President Washington and his Cabinet then demanded that France recall Genêt as its Ambassador. The Mountain , having taken power in France by January 1794, issued an arrest warrant for Genêt. Genêt, knowing that he would likely be sent to the guillotine , asked Washington for asylum. Hamilton, Genêt's fiercest opponent in

4674-466: The first time in a medieval document dated 1038. In the feudal system of medieval France, the lords of Versailles came directly under the king of France, with no intermediary overlords between them and the king; yet they were not very important lords. At the end of the 11th century, the village curled around a medieval castle and the Saint Julien church. Its farming activity and its location on the road from Paris to Dreux and Normandy brought prosperity to

4756-408: The former group of traitorous and counter-revolutionary activities as well as betraying the Republic, which resulted in the execution of fellow Revolutionists including considerably influential figures Jacques Pierre Brissot and later, the former Montagnard Georges Jacques Danton . The Mountain was composed mainly of members of the middle class, but represented the constituencies of Paris. As such,

4838-431: The king as figurehead. While the Girondins hesitated, the Montagnards took a united stand during the trial in December 1792–January 1793 and favored the king's execution. On 24 February the Convention decreed the first albeit unsuccessful Levée en Masse , triggering uprisings in rural France as the Montagnards' influence waned in Marseille, Toulon, and Lyon. Riding on this victory, the Montagnards then sought to discredit

4920-407: The land and seigneury of Versailles from Jean-François de Gondi . The hunting lodge was enlarged to the size of a small château between 1632 and 1634. At the death of Louis XIII, in 1643, the village had 1,000 inhabitants. This small château was the site of one of the historical events that took place during the reign of Louis XIII, on 10 November 1630, when, on the Day of the Dupes , the party of

5002-446: The limelight again. On 18 January 1871, the victorious Germans proclaimed the king of Prussia , Wilhelm I , emperor of Germany in the very Hall of Mirrors of the castle, in an attempt to take revenge for the conquests of Louis XIV two centuries earlier. Then in March of the same year, following the insurrection of the Paris Commune , the French Third Republic government under Thiers relocated to Versailles, and from there directed

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5084-453: The maximum power. At the death of the Sun King in 1715, the village of Versailles had turned into a city of approximately 30,000 inhabitants. When the court of King Louis XV returned to Versailles in 1722, the city had 24,000 inhabitants. With the reign of Louis XV, Versailles grew even further. Versailles was the capital of the most powerful kingdom in Europe, and the whole of Europe admired its new architecture and design trends. Soon enough,

5166-465: The military suppression of the insurrection. The government and the French parliament stayed in Versailles after the quelling of the Commune (May 1871), and it was even thought for some time that the capital of France would move definitely to Versailles in order to avoid the revolutionary mood of Paris in the future. Restoration of a monarchy almost occurred in 1873, with parliament offering the crown to Henri, comte de Chambord , but his refusal to accept

5248-469: The more moderate group the Dantonists acted in response to fears that Robespierre planned to execute them. The purge of Robespierre was strongly similar to previous measures employed by the Montagnards to expel factions, such as the Girondins. However, as Robespierre was widely considered the heart of the Montagnards, his death symbolized their collapse. Few desired to take on the name of Montagnards afterwards, leaving around only about 100 men. Finally, at

5330-421: The north the forests of Marly and Fausses-Reposes, and in the south the forests of Satory and Meudon . The city ( commune ) of Versailles has an area of 26.18 km (10.11 sq mi; 6,470 acres), which is a quarter of the area of the city of Paris. In 1989, Versailles had a population density of 3,344/km (8,660/sq mi), whereas Paris had a density of 20,696/km (53,600/sq mi). Born out of

5412-454: The official capital of France. Versailles was made the préfecture of the Seine-et-Oise département at its inception in March 1790 (at which time Seine-et-Oise had approximately 420,000 inhabitants). By the 1960s, with the growth of the Paris suburbs, the Seine-et-Oise had reached more than 2 million inhabitants, and was deemed too large and ungovernable, and thus it was split into three départements in January 1968. Versailles

5494-511: The people of Charleston, who threw a string of parties in his honor. Genêt's goals in South Carolina were to recruit and arm American privateers who would join French expeditions against the British. He commissioned four privateering ships in total, including the Republicaine , the Anti-George , the Sans-Culotte , and the Citizen Genêt . Working with French consul Michel Ange Bernard Mangourit , Genêt organized American volunteers to fight Britain's Spanish allies in Florida . After raising

5576-544: The proposed constitution would have allowed rural areas of France to vote against legislation that benefits Paris, the main constituency of the Mountain. However, the real discord in the Convention occurred not between the Mountain and the Gironde, but between the aggressive antics of the minority of the Mountain and the rest of the Convention. The Mountain was not unified as a party and relied on leaders like Maximilien Robespierre , Georges Danton and Jacques Hébert , who themselves came to represent different factions. Hébert,

5658-519: The queen mother was defeated and Richelieu was confirmed as Prime minister. King Louis XIV , son of Louis XIII, was only four years old when his father died. It was 20 years later, in 1661, when Louis XIV commenced his personal reign, that the young king showed interest in Versailles. The idea of leaving Paris, where, as a child, he had experienced first-hand the insurrection of the Fronde , had never left him. Louis XIV commissioned his architect Le Vau and his landscape architect Le Nôtre to transform

5740-501: The royal family to move to Paris. The National Constituent Assembly followed the king to Paris soon afterwards, and Versailles lost its role as capital city. During this turbulent time, Jean-François Coste , who had also been the chief physician of the King's Armies, was appointed mayor of Versailles. From then on, Versailles lost a good deal of its inhabitants. From 60,000, the population had declined to 26,974 inhabitants by 1806. The castle, stripped of its furniture and ornaments during

5822-429: The same time, bread prices were rising as the commodity became scarce, and in an initiative spearheaded by Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varenne , a law was enacted in July 1793 that forbade the hoarding of "daily necessities". The hoarding of grain became a crime punishable by death. Other economic policies enacted by the Mountain included an embargo on the export of French goods. As a result of this embargo, France

5904-403: The strict building rules decided under Louis XIV were not respected anymore, real estate speculation flourished, and the lots that had been given for free under Louis XIV were now on the market for hefty prices. By 1744, the population reached 37,000 inhabitants. The cityscape changed considerably under kings Louis XV and Louis XVI . Buildings were now taller. King Louis XV built a Ministry of War,

5986-458: The trial of Louis XVI in December 1792, which united the Montagnards on a position of regicide, that the ideals and power of the group fully consolidated. The rise of Montagnards corresponds to the fall of the Girondins. The Girondins hesitated on the correct course of action to take with Louis XVI after his attempt to flee France on 20 June 1791. Some of the Girondins believed they could use

6068-784: The village, culminating at the end of the 13th century, the so-called "century of Saint Louis ", famous for the prosperity of northern France and the building of Gothic cathedrals. The 14th century brought the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War , and with it death and destruction. At the end of the Hundred Years' War in the 15th century, the village started to recover, with a population of only 100 inhabitants. In 1561, Martial de Loménie , secretary of state for finances under King Charles IX , became lord of Versailles. He obtained permission to establish four annual fairs and

6150-483: The western suburbs of Paris. Since 1972, Versailles has been the seat of one of France's 30 nationwide académies (districts) of the Ministry of National Education. The académie de Versailles , the largest of France's thirty académies by its number of pupils and students, is in charge of supervising all the elementary schools and high schools of the western suburbs of Paris. Versailles is also an important node for

6232-436: The will of a king, the city has a rational and symmetrical grid of streets. By the standards of the 18th century, Versailles was a very modern European city. Versailles was used as a model for the building of Washington, D.C. , by Pierre Charles L'Enfant . Versailles has an oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb ). Summer days are usually warm and pleasant with average temperatures between 15 and 25 °C (59 and 77 °F), and

6314-464: Was essentially unable to trade with foreign markets and the import of goods effectively ended. In theory, this protected French markets from foreign goods and required French people to support French goods. In addition to the embargo against foreign goods, Act 1651, passed by the Mountain in October 1793, further isolated France from the rest of Europe by forbidding any foreign vessels from trading along

6396-569: Was eventually abandoned. It is difficult to pinpoint the conception of the Montagnard group because the lines which defined it were themselves quite nebulous early on. Originally, members of The Mountain were the men who sat in the highest rows of the Jacobin Clubs , loosely organized political debate clubs open to the public. Though members of the Montagnards were known for their commitment to radical political resolutions prior to 1793,

6478-426: Was made the préfecture of the Yvelines département , the largest chunk of the former Seine-et-Oise . At the 2017 census the Yvelines had 1,438,266 inhabitants. Versailles is the seat of a Roman Catholic diocese (bishopric) which was created in 1790. The diocese of Versailles is subordinate to the archdiocese of Paris . In 1975, Versailles was made the seat of a Court of Appeal whose jurisdiction covers

6560-774: Was the left-leaning radical group and opposed the more right-leaning Girondins . Despite the fact that both groups of the Jacobin Club had virtually no difference with regard to the establishment of the French Republic, the aggressive military intentions of the rich merchant class-backed Girondins such as conquering the Rhineland, Poland and the Netherlands with a goal of creating a protective ring of satellite republics in Great Britain, Spain and Italy and

6642-573: Was the unofficial capital of the kingdom of France. For the next seven years, during the Régence of Philippe d' Orléans , the royal court of the young King Louis XV was the first in Paris, while the Regent governed from his Parisian residence, the Palais-Royal . Versailles was again the unofficial capital of France from June 1722, when Louis XV returned to Versailles, until October 1789 , when

6724-474: Was the wife of Marshal Ney of France , was Genêt's niece. Genêt was a prodigy who could read French, English, Italian, Latin, Swedish, Greek, and German by the age of 12. At 18, Genêt was appointed court translator, and in 1788 he was sent to the French embassy in Saint Petersburg to serve as ambassador . Over time, Genêt became disenchanted with the ancien régime , learning to despise not just

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