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91-513: It was built in 1872 as an Italian chateau on neoclassical lines, at a time when modernism had set in. It belonged to the Nawabs of Bahawalpur princely state , during the British Raj . Mr. Heennan, an Englishman who was the state engineer, designed the building. The foundation of Noor Palace was laid in 1872. A map and coins of the state were buried in its foundation as a good omen. Most of

182-575: A World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979 for its importance as the centre of power, art, and science in France during the 17th and 18th centuries. The French Ministry of Culture has placed the palace, its gardens, and some of its subsidiary structures on its list of culturally significant monuments . In 1623, Louis XIII , king of France , built a hunting lodge on a hill in a favourite hunting ground, 19 kilometres (12 mi) west of Paris , and 16 kilometres (10 mi) from his primary residence,

273-668: A ballroom in the north wing, and the expansion of the king's private apartment , which required the demolition of the Ambassadors' Staircase. In 1748, Louis XV began construction of a palace theatre, the Royal Opera of Versailles at the northernmost end of the palace, but completion was delayed until 1770; construction was interrupted in the 1740s by the War of the Austrian Succession and then again in 1756 with

364-577: A château may be any stately residence built in a French style; the term is additionally often used for a winegrower's estate, especially in the Bordeaux region of France . The word château is a French word that has entered the English language, where its meaning is more specific than it is in French. The French word château denotes buildings as diverse as a medieval fortress, a Renaissance palace and

455-545: A demesne that rendered the society of the château largely self-sufficient, in the manner of the historic Roman and early medieval villa system (cf. manorialism , hacienda ). The open villas of Rome in the times of Pliny the Elder , Maecenas , and Emperor Tiberius began to be walled-in, and then fortified in the 3rd century AD, thus evolving to castellar "châteaux". In modern usage, a château retains some enclosures that are distant descendants of these fortifying outworks :

546-591: A "power house", as Sir John Summerson dubbed the British and Irish " stately homes " that are the British Isles' architectural counterparts to French châteaux. It is the personal (and usually hereditary) badge of a family that, with some official rank, locally represents the royal authority; thus, the word château often refers to the dwelling of a member of either the French nobility or royalty. However, some fine châteaux, such as Vaux-le-Vicomte , were built by

637-478: A feature dubbed the enveloppe . This gave the château a new, Italianate façade overlooking the gardens, but preserved the courtyard façade, resulting in a mix of styles and materials that dismayed Louis XIV and that Colbert described as a "patchwork". Attempts to homogenize the two façades failed, and in 1670 Le Vau died, leaving the post of First Architect to the King vacant for the next seven years. Le Vau

728-401: A fenced, gated, closeable forecourt, perhaps a gatehouse or a keeper's lodge, and supporting outbuildings (stables, kitchens, breweries, bakeries, manservant quarters in the garçonnière ). Besides the cour d'honneur (court of honour) entrance, the château might have an inner cour ("court"), and inside, in the private residence, the château faces a simply and discreetly enclosed park. In

819-530: A fine 19th-century country house. Care should therefore be taken when translating the French word château into English, noting the nature of the building in question. Most French châteaux are " palaces " or fine " country houses " rather than "castles", and for these, the word "château" is appropriate in English. Sometimes the word "palace" is more appropriate. To give an outstanding example, the Château de Versailles , also called in French le palais de Versailles ,

910-420: A forecourt to the château. But in 1668–69, as a response to the growth of the gardens, and victory over Spain in the War of Devolution , Louis XIV decided to turn Versailles into a full-scale royal residence. He vacillated between replacing or incorporating his father's château, but settled on the latter by the end of the decade, and from 1668 to 1671, Louis XIII's château was encased on three sides in

1001-586: A great influence on architecture and horticulture from the mid-17th century to the end of the 18th century. Examples of works influenced 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 . The construction in 1668–1671 of Louis Le Vau 's enveloppe around

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1092-473: A halt when Louis Philippe was overthrown in 1848, though the paintings of French heroes and great battles still remain in the south wing. Emperor Napoleon III used the palace on occasion as a stage for grand ceremonies. One of the most lavish was the banquet that he hosted for Queen Victoria in the Royal Opera of Versailles on 25 August 1855. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871,

1183-509: A new restoration initiative – the "Grand Versailles" project – was started, which began with the replanting of the gardens, which had lost over 10,000 trees during Cyclone Lothar on 26 December 1999. One part of the initiative, the restoration of the Hall of Mirrors , was completed in 2006. Another major project was the further restoration of the backstage areas of the Royal Opera of Versailles in 2007 to 2009. The Palace of Versailles

1274-402: A protégé of Mazarin and enemy of Fouquet, and charged him with managing the corps of artisans in royal employment. Colbert acted as the intermediary between them and Louis XIV, who personally directed and inspected the planning and construction of Versailles. Work at Versailles was at first concentrated on gardens , and through the 1660s, Le Vau only added two detached service wings and

1365-537: A restored budget and large workforce of former soldiers. Mansart began his tenure with the addition from 1678 to 1681 of the Hall of Mirrors , a renovation of the courtyard façade of Louis XIII's château, and the expansion of d'Orbay's pavilions to create the Ministers' Wings in 1678–79. Adjacent to the palace, Hardouin-Mansart built a pair of stables called the Grande and Petite Écuries from 1679 to 1682 and

1456-518: A tinge of subcontinental style. The Corinthian touch is visible in the columns, balustrade , pediments and the vaulted ceiling of Durbar Hall. The Islamic style is evident in the five domes, whereas the angular elliptical shapes are a stroke of subcontinent style. The building was declared a "protected monument" in September 2001 by the Government of Pakistan's Department of Archeology, and it

1547-641: A week, from six to ten in the evening, with various entertainments. This was originally a chapel. It was rebuilt beginning in 1712 under the supervision of the First Architect to the King , Robert de Cotte , to showcase two paintings by Paolo Veronese , Eleazar and Rebecca and Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee , which was a gift to Louis XIV from the Republic of Venice in 1664. The painting on

1638-596: Is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles , about 18 kilometres (11 mi) west of Paris , France . The palace is owned by the government of France and since 1995 has been managed, under the direction of the French Ministry of Culture , by the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles . About 15,000,000 people visit

1729-413: Is a royal château in Versailles , in the Île-de-France region of France. When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a wealthy suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the centre of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to

1820-399: Is a visual history of French architecture from the 1630s to the 1780s. Its earliest portion, the corps de logis , was built for Louis XIII in the style of his reign with brick, marble, and slate , which Le Vau surrounded in the 1660s with Enveloppe , an edifice that was inspired by Renaissance-era Italian villas. When Jules Hardouin-Mansart made further expansions to the palace in

1911-422: Is currently owned by the French state. Its formal title is the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles . Since 1995, it has been run as a Public Establishment, with an independent administration and management supervised by the French Ministry of Culture . The grounds of the palace hosted the equestrian competition during the 2024 Summer Olympics . The Palace of Versailles

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2002-498: Is first mentioned in writing in the 11th century. The current château was built in 1514–1522 on the foundations of an old mill and was later extended to span the river. The bridge over the river was built from 1556 to 1559 to designs by the French Renaissance architect Philibert de l'Orme , and the gallery on the bridge, built from 1570 to 1576 to designs by Jean Bullant . Built by Jules Hardouin-Mansart , 1675–1683 for

2093-602: Is now open for general visitors, students trips and other interested persons. 29°22′46″N 71°40′05″E  /  29.37944°N 71.66806°E  / 29.37944; 71.66806 Ch%C3%A2teau A château ( French pronunciation: [ʃɑto] ; plural: châteaux ) is a manor house , or palace , or residence of the lord of the manor , or a fine country house of nobility or gentry , with or without fortifications , originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Nowadays,

2184-405: Is so-called because it was located in the countryside when it was built, but it does not bear any resemblance to a castle, so it is usually known in English as the Palace of Versailles. When clarification is needed in French, the term château fort is used to describe a fortified castle, such as the Château fort de Roquetaillade . The urban counterpart of a château is a palais in French, which

2275-1046: Is used with its original definition. In Canada, especially in English, château usually denotes a hotel, not a house, and applies only to the country's most elaborate railway hotels , built during the Canadian railroad golden age, such as the Château Lake Louise in Lake Louise, Alberta , the Château Laurier in Ottawa, the Château Montebello in Montebello, Quebec , and most famously, the Château Frontenac in Quebec City . There are many estates with true châteaux on them in

2366-399: Is usually applied only to very grand residences in a city. This usage is again different from that of the term "palace" in English, where there is no requirement that a palace must be in a city, but the word palais is rarely used for buildings other than the grandest royal residences. The term hôtel particulier is used in French for an urban "private house" of a grand sort. A château is

2457-577: The Bordeaux wine regions , but it is customary for any wine-producing estate since the 19th century, no matter how humble, to prefix its name with "Château". This term became the default way of designating an estate in Bordeaux , in the same way that Domaine did in Burgundy . Both Château and Domaine are aristocratic in implication, but Bordeaux had a better claim to the association: nobles had owned Bordeaux's best vineyards for centuries. Most of Burgundy's best vineyards, in contrast, had been owned by

2548-630: The Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye . The site, near a village named Versailles, was a wooded wetland that Louis XIII's court scorned as being generally unworthy 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, who 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 relocate to Versailles with his three-year-old heir,

2639-515: The Grand Commun  [ fr ] , which housed the palace's servants and general kitchens, from 1682 to 1684. Hardouin-Mansart also added two entirely new wings in Le Vau's Italianate style to house the court, first at the south end of the palace from 1679 to 1681 and then at its north end from 1685 to 1689. War and the resulting diminished funding slowed construction at Versailles for

2730-461: The Grand Trianon restored and refurnished as a springtime residence for himself and his family, in the style of furnishing that it is seen today. In 1815, with the final downfall of Napoleon, Louis XVIII , the younger brother of Louis XVI, became king, and considered returning the royal residence to Versailles, where he had been born. He ordered the restoration of the royal apartments, but

2821-844: The Treaty of Paris at the Hôtel d'York (now 56 Rue Jacob) in Paris, granting the United States independence. On 4 September, Spain and France signed separate treaties with Britain at the Palace of Versailles, formally ending the war. The King and Queen learned of the Storming of the Bastille in Paris on 14 July 1789, while they were at the palace, and remained isolated there as the Revolution in Paris spread. The growing anger in Paris led to

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2912-546: The Women's March on Versailles on 5 October 1789. A crowd of several thousand men and women, protesting the high price and scarcity of bread, marched from the markets of Paris to Versailles. They took weapons from the city armoury, besieged the palace, and compelled the King and royal family and the members of the National Constituent Assembly to return with them to Paris the following day. As soon as

3003-446: The château neuf , with three rooms in each apartment facing the garden to the west and four facing the garden parterres to the north and south, respectively. The private apartments of the king (the appartement du roi and the petit appartement du roi ) and those of the queen (the petit appartement de la reine ) remained in the château vieux (old château). Le Vau's design for the state apartments closely followed Italian models of

3094-447: The duc de Chevreuse , Colbert 's son-in-law, the Château de Dampierre is a French Baroque château of manageable size. Protected behind fine wrought iron double gates, the main block and its outbuildings ( corps de logis ), linked by balustrades, are ranged symmetrically around a dry paved and gravelled cour d'honneur . Behind, the central axis is extended between the former parterres , now mown hay. The park with formally shaped water

3185-735: The grand appartement du roi . After the addition of the Hall of Mirrors (1678–1684) the king's apartment was reduced to five rooms (until the reign of Louis XV , when two more rooms were added) and the queen's to four. The queen's apartments served as the residence of 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 . Additionally, Louis XIV's granddaughter-in-law, Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy , duchess of Burgundy, wife of Louis, Duke of Burgundy , occupied these rooms from 1697 (the year of her marriage) to her death in 1712. The Ambassadors' Staircase  [ fr ] ( Escalier des Ambassadeurs )

3276-503: The princes of the blood , Louis XIV's extended family, for influence over him. In the aftermath of the Fronde, Louis XIV became determined to rule alone. Following Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis XIV reformed his government to exclude his mother and the princes of the blood, 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

3367-579: The 10th and 20th centuries, firstly by the French kings followed soon thereafter by the nobility; hence, the Valley is termed " The Valley of the Kings ". Alternatively, due to its moderate climate, wine-growing soils and rich agricultural land, the Loire Valley is referred to as " The Garden of France ". The châteaux range from the very large (often now in public hands) to more 'human-scale' châteaux such as

3458-540: The 1650s, but did not take any special interest in Versailles until 1661. On 17 August 1661, Louis XIV was a guest at a sumptuous festival hosted by Nicolas Fouquet , the Superintendent of Finances , at his palatial residence, the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte . Louis XIV was impressed by the château and its gardens, which were the work of Louis Le Vau , the court architect since 1654, André Le Nôtre ,

3549-565: The 1680s, he used the Enveloppe as the model for his work. Neoclassical additions were made to the palace with the remodelling of the Ministers' Wings in the 1770s, by Ange-Jacques Gabriel , and after the Bourbon Restoration . The palace was largely completed by the death of Louis XIV in 1715. The eastern facing palace has a U-shaped layout, with the corps de logis and symmetrical advancing secondary wings terminating with

3640-566: The Church. The term Château became a permanent verbal fixture in Bordeaux, and it was emulated in other French regions and outside France. The winery denomination Château is now protected by French law, and confirmed in 1981 by European Union law, as "traditional appellation". The term Château may be used only if two conditions are fulfilled: The Loire Valley (Vallée de la Loire) is home to more than 300 châteaux . They were built between

3731-634: The Château de Beaulieu in Saumur or the medieval Château du Rivau close to Chinon which were built of the local tuffeau stone. The Château de Chenonceau is a French château spanning the river Cher, near the small village of Chenonceaux in the Indre-et-Loire department of the Loire Valley in France. It is one of the best-known châteaux of the Loire Valley. The estate of Chenonceau

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3822-584: The Commune at the end of May was directed from Versailles, and the prisoners of the Commune were marched there and put on trial in military courts. In 1875 a second parliamentary body, the French Senate , was created and held its meetings for the election of a President of the Republic in a new hall created in 1876 in the south wing of the palace. The French Senate and National Assembly continue to meet in

3913-643: The Dufour Pavilion on the south and the Gabriel Pavilion to the north, creating an expansive cour d'honneur known as the Royal Court (Cour Royale). Flanking the Royal Court are two enormous asymmetrical wings that result in a façade of 402 metres (1,319 ft) in length. Covered by around 10 hectares (1.1 million square feet) of roof, the palace has 2,143 windows, 1,252 chimneys, and 67 staircases. The palace and its grounds have had

4004-650: The King. The 7-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played several works during his stay and later dedicated his first two harpsichord sonatas, published in 1764 in Paris, to Madame Victoria , daughter of Louis XV. In 1783, the palace was the site of the signing of the last two of the three treaties of the Peace of Paris (1783) , which ended the American Revolutionary War . On 3 September, British and American delegates, led by Benjamin Franklin , signed

4095-614: The armistice in March 1871. In that month, the government of the new Third French Republic , which had departed Paris during the war for Tours and then Bordeaux , moved into the palace. The National Assembly held its meetings in the Opera House. The uprising of the Paris Commune in March 1871, prevented the French government, under Adolphe Thiers , from returning immediately to Paris. The military operation which suppressed

4186-606: The capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution . Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime . Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( / v ɛər ˈ s aɪ , v ɜːr ˈ s aɪ / vair- SY , vur- SY ; French : château de Versailles [ʃɑto d(ə) vɛʁsɑj] )

4277-496: The ceiling illustrate mythological themes. The Salon of Mercury was the original State Bedchamber when Louis XIV officially moved the court and government to the palace in 1682. The bed is a replica of the original commissioned by King Louis-Philippe in the 19th century when he turned the palace into a museum. The ceiling paintings by the Flemish artist Jean Baptiste de Champaigne depict the god Mercury in his chariot, drawn by

4368-460: The ceiling over the door opposite the windows. This salon was used for serving light meals during evening receptions. The principal feature in this room is Jean Warin 's life-size statue of Louis XIV in the costume of a Roman emperor. On the ceiling in a gilded oval frame is another painting by Houasse, Venus subjugating the Gods and Powers (1672–1681). Trompe-l'œil paintings and sculpture around

4459-605: The ceiling, The Apotheosis of Hercules , by François Lemoyne , was completed in 1736, and gave the room its name. The Salon of Abundance was the antechamber to the Cabinet of Curios (now the Games Room), which displayed Louis XIV's collection of precious jewels and rare objects. Some of the objects in the collection are depicted in René-Antoine Houasse 's painting Abundance and Liberality (1683), located on

4550-432: The centralization of royal power. Louis XIV first used Versailles to promote himself with a series of nighttime festivals in its gardens in 1664, 1668, and 1674, the events of which were disseminated throughout Europe by print and engravings. As early as 1669, but especially from 1678, Louis XIV sought to make Versailles his seat of government, and he expanded the palace so as to fit the court within it. The moving of

4641-521: The city of Paris, the Louvre (fortified) and the Luxembourg Palace (the latter originally suburban) were originally referred to as châteaux, but became "palaces" when the city enclosed them. In other French-speaking European regions, such as Wallonia ( Belgium ), the word château is used with the same definition as in France. In Belgium, a strong French architectural influence is evident in

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4732-819: The construction of townhouses that resembled the palace began in 1671. The next year, the Franco-Dutch War began and funding for Versailles was cut until 1674, when Louis XIV had work begun on the Ambassadors' Staircase  [ fr ] , a grand staircase for the reception of guests, and demolished the last of the village of Versailles. Following the end of the Franco-Dutch War with French victory in 1678, Louis XIV appointed as First Architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart , an experienced architect in Louis XIV's confidence, who would benefit from

4823-449: The court to Versailles did not come until 1682, however, and not officially, as opinion on Versailles was mixed among the nobility of France . By 1687, however, it was evident to all that Versailles was the de facto capital of France, and Louis XIV succeeded in attracting the nobility to Versailles to pursue prestige and royal patronage within a strict court etiquette, thus eroding their traditional provincial power bases. It

4914-561: The creation of the Museum of the History of France , dedicated to "all the glories of France", which had been used to house some members of the royal family. The museum was begun in 1833 and inaugurated on 30 June 1837. Its most famous room is the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles), which lies on most of the length of the second floor of the south wing. The museum project largely came to

5005-421: The day, including the placement of the apartments on the main floor (the piano nobile , the next floor up from the ground level), a convention the architect borrowed from Italian palace design. The king's State Apartment consisted of an enfilade of seven rooms, each dedicated to one of the known planets and their associated titular Roman deity . The queen's apartment formed a parallel enfilade with that of

5096-448: The essentially high- bourgeois —people but recently ennobled : tax-farmers and ministers of Louis XIII and his royal successors. The quality of the residences could vary considerably, from grand châteaux owned by royalty and the wealthy elite near larger towns to run-down châteaux vacated by poor nobility and officials in the countryside, isolated and vulnerable. A château was historically supported by its terres (lands), composing

5187-606: The first landing of the staircase. The construction of the Hall of Mirrors between 1678 and 1686 coincided with a major alteration to the State Apartments. They were originally intended as his residence, but the King transformed them into galleries for his finest paintings, and venues for his many receptions for courtiers. During the season from All-Saints Day in November until Easter , these were usually held three times

5278-429: The future Louis XIV . When Louis XIII died in 1643, Anne became Louis XIV's regent , and 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 monetary practices. This led to the Fronde , a series of revolts against royal authority from 1648 to 1653 that masked a struggle between Mazarin and

5369-422: The king soon after the end of the Hundred years war. The French dramatist Alexandre Dumas made the château de Montsoreau world famous with his trilogy on the French Wars of Religion of which the lady of Monsoreau is the second volume. The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a baroque French château located in Maincy , near Melun , 55 km southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne département of France. It

5460-442: The more costly endeavours for the museum and the French Fifth Republic has been to repurchase as much of the original furnishings as possible. Consequently, because furniture with a royal provenance – and especially furniture that was made for Versailles – is a highly sought-after commodity on the international market, the museum has spent considerable funds on retrieving much of the palace's original furnishings. In 2003,

5551-407: The objective was to restore the palace to its state – or as close to it as possible – in 1789 when the royal family left the palace. Among the early projects was the repair of the roof over the Hall of Mirrors; the publicity campaign brought international attention to the plight of post-war Versailles and garnered much foreign money including a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation . One of

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5642-404: The outside of Louis XIII 's red brick and white stone château added state apartments for the king and the queen. The addition was known at the time as the château neuf (new château). The grands appartements (Grand Apartments, also referred to as the State Apartments ) include the grand appartement du roi and the grand appartement de la reine . They occupied the main or principal floor of

5733-440: The palace for his wife, Noor. However, after spending only one night in the palace, Noor decided not to return due to its close proximity to the Basti Malook Shah graveyard , which was visible from her balcony . She instead chose to reside in Darbar Mahal . On January 11, 1890, Prince Albert Victor visited the palace. From December 22 to 24, 1892, Sir McOrth Beck, a senior finance commissioner of Punjab, and his family stayed at

5824-410: The palace in joint session on special occasions, such as the amendment of the Constitution of France . The end of the 19th and the early 20th century saw the beginning of restoration efforts at the palace, first led by Pierre de Nolhac , poet and scholar and the first conservator, who began his work in 1892. The conservation and restoration were interrupted by two world wars but have continued until

5915-470: The palace on March 8, 1934. In 1956, when Bahawalpur State was merged into Pakistan , the building was taken over by the Auqaf department. The palace was leased to the army in 1971; in 1997 the army purchased it for the sum of 119 million. Noor Palace covers an area of 44,600 square feet (4,140 m). It has 32 rooms including 14 in the basement, 6 verandas and 5 domes. The design encompasses features of Corinthian and Islamic styles of architecture with

6006-468: The palace the de facto capital of France. This state of affairs was continued by Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI , who primarily made interior alterations to the palace, but in 1789 the royal family and French court returned to Paris. For the rest of the French Revolution , the Palace of Versailles was largely abandoned and emptied of its contents, and the population of the surrounding city plummeted. Napoleon , following his coronation as Emperor , used

6097-403: The palace was occupied by the general staff of the victorious German Army. Parts of the château, including the Hall of Mirrors, were turned into a military hospital. The creation of the German Empire , combining Prussia and the surrounding German states under William I , was formally proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors on 18 January 1871. The Germans remained in the palace until the signing of

6188-423: The palace's materials and furniture were imported from England and Italy . The construction of the palace was completed in 1875 at a cost of Rs. 1.2 million. The palace was originally constructed to serve as a residence for the Nawabs of the Bahawalpur princely state during the British Raj era. Nawab Sadiq Khan IV, who was known for his love of architecture and often compared to Shahjahan of Bahawalpur, commissioned

6279-437: The palace, including the furniture, mirrors, baths, and kitchen equipment, were sold in seventeen thousand lots. All fleurs-de-lys and royal emblems on the buildings were chambered or chiselled off. The empty buildings were turned into a storehouse for furnishings, art and libraries confiscated from the nobility. The empty grand apartments were opened for tours beginning in 1793, and a small museum of French paintings and art school

6370-444: The palace, park, or gardens of Versailles every year, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. Louis XIII built a hunting lodge at Versailles in 1623. His successor, Louis XIV expanded the château into a palace that went through several expansions in phases from 1661 to 1715. It was a favourite residence for both kings, and in 1682, Louis XIV moved the seat of his court and government to Versailles, making

6461-416: The palace. More work took place after World War II, with the restoration of the Royal Opera of Versailles . The theatre was reopened in 1957, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. In 1978, parts of the palace were heavily damaged in a bombing committed by Breton terrorists . Starting in the 1950s, when the museum of Versailles was under the directorship of Gérald van der Kemp,

6552-570: The palace. The palace also served as the location for the celebration of Queen Victoria's 60th birthday on May 11, 1897. In 1906, Nawab Muhammad Bahawal Khan the fifth added a mosque to the palace at the cost of Rs. 20,000. On February 9, 1933, an important event was held at Noor Mahal to celebrate the union between the British Government and the Bahawalpur State. The State of Bahawalpur also celebrated its 10-year jubilee at

6643-582: The present day. The palace returned to the world stage in June 1919, when, after six months of negotiations, the Treaty of Versailles , formally ending the First World War, was signed in the Hall of Mirrors . Between 1925 and 1928, the American philanthropist and multi-millionaire John D. Rockefeller, Jr. gave $ 2,166,000, the equivalent of about thirty million dollars today, to restore and refurbish

6734-530: The remodelling of the courtyard façade in the Italianate style. Louis XIV and Hardouin-Mansart focused on a permanent palace chapel , the construction of which lasted from 1699 to 1710. Louis XIV's successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI , largely left Versailles as they inherited it and focused on the palace's interiors. Louis XV's modifications began in the 1730s, with the completion of the Salon d'Hercule ,

6825-473: The rest of the 17th century. The Nine Years' War , which began in 1688, stopped work altogether until 1698. Three years later, however, the even more expensive War of the Spanish Succession began and, combined with poor harvests in 1693–94 and 1709–10, plunged France into crisis. Louis XIV thus slashed funding and cancelled some of the work Hardouin-Mansart had planned in the 1680s, such as

6916-570: The royal family departed, the palace was closed. In 1792, the National Convention , the new revolutionary government, ordered the transfer of all the paintings and sculptures from the palace to the Louvre . In 1793, the Convention declared the abolition of the monarchy and ordered all of the royal property in the palace to be sold at auction. The auction took place between 25 August 1793 and 11 August 1794. The furnishings and art of

7007-427: The royal family to the Château de Saint-Cloud ahead of more renovations to the Palace of Versailles, but construction could not begin because of financial difficulty and political crisis . In 1789, the French Revolution swept the royal family and government out of Versailles forever. The Palace of Versailles was key to Louis XIV's politics, as an expression and concentration of French art and culture , and for

7098-400: The royal gardener since 1657, and Charles Le Brun , a painter in royal service since 1647. Vaux-le-Vicomte's scale and opulence led him to imprison Fouquet that September, as he had also built an island fortress and a private army. But Louis XIV was also inspired by Vaux-le-Vicomte, and he recruited its authors for his own projects. Louis XIV replaced Fouquet with Jean-Baptiste Colbert ,

7189-466: The seventeenth-century Château des Comtes de Marchin and the eighteenth-century Château de Seneffe . In the United States, the word château took root selectively – in the Gilded Age resort town of Newport, Rhode Island , large manor homes were called "cottages", but north of Wilmington, Delaware , in the rich, rural "Château Country" centred upon the powerful Du Pont family , the word château

7280-573: The staircase were trompe-l'œil paintings of people from the Four Parts of the World looking into the staircase over a balustrade, a motif repeated on the ceiling fresco. There they were joined by allegorical figures for the twelve months of the year and various Classical Greek figures such as the Muses . A marble bust of Louis XIV, sculpted by Jean Warin in 1665–66, was placed in a niche above

7371-462: The staircase – famously lit naturally with a skylight – so as to overawe visitors. The staircase and walls of the room that contained it were clad in polychrome marble and gilded bronze, with decor in the Ionic order. Charles Le Brun painted the walls and ceiling of the room according to a festive theme to celebrate Louis XIV's victory in the Franco-Dutch War . On the wall immediately above

7462-607: The start of the Seven Years' War . These wars emptied the royal treasury and thereafter construction was mostly funded by Madame du Barry , Louis XV's favourite mistress. In 1771, Louis XV had the northern Ministers' Wing rebuilt in Neoclassical style by Ange-Jacques Gabriel , his court architect, as it was in the process of falling down. That work was also stopped by financial constraints, and it remained incomplete when Louis XV died in 1774. In 1784, Louis XVI briefly moved

7553-441: The subsidiary palace, Grand Trianon , as a summer residence from 1810 to 1814, but did not use the main palace. Following the Bourbon Restoration , when the king was returned to the throne, he resided in Paris and it was not until the 1830s that meaningful repairs were made to the palace. A museum of French history was installed within it, replacing the courtiers apartments of the southern wing. The palace and park were designated

7644-584: The task and cost was too great. Louis XVIII had the far end of the south wing of the Cour Royale demolished and rebuilt (1814–1824) to match the Gabriel wing of 1780 opposite, which gave greater uniformity of appearance to the front entrance. Neither he nor his successor Charles X lived at Versailles. The French Revolution of 1830 brought a new monarch, Louis-Philippe to power, and a new ambition for Versailles. He did not reside at Versailles but began

7735-399: Was an imperial staircase built from 1674 to 1680 by François d'Orbay . Until Louis XV had it demolished in 1752 to create a courtyard for his private apartments, the staircase was the primary entrance into the Palace of Versailles and the royal apartments especially. It was entered from the courtyard via a vestibule that, cramped and dark, contrasted greatly with the tall, open space of

7826-613: Was at the Palace of Versailles that Louis XIV received the Doge of Genoa , Francesco Maria Imperiale Lercari in 1685, an embassy from the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1686, and an embassy from Safavid Iran in 1715. Louis XIV died at Versailles on 1 September 1715 and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV , then the duke of Anjou , who was moved to the Château de Vincennes and then to Paris by Louis XV's regent, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans . Versailles

7917-480: Was built by Louis Le Vau from 1658 to 1661 for Nicolas Fouquet , Marquis de Belle-Isle ( Belle-Île-en-Mer ), Viscount of Melun and Vaux, the superintendent of finances of Louis XIV . The interior was lavishly decorated by painter Charles Le Brun . Louis Le Vau as well as Charles Le Brun were later called by Louis XIV to work at Versailles. The Palace of Versailles , or in French Château de Versailles ,

8008-452: Was laid out by André Le Notre . The Château de Montsoreau is the only Château of the Loire Valley to have been built directly in the Loire riverbed. It is also one of the first example of a renaissance architecture in France. Montsoreau was built in 1453 by Jean II de Chambes (first counsellor of Charles VII of France and ambassador of France to Venice and to Turkey ) by order of

8099-401: Was neglected until 1722, when Philippe II removed the court to Versailles to escape the unpopularity of his regency, and when Louis XV began his majority. The 1715 move, however, broke the cultural power of Versailles, and during the reign of Louis XVI , courtiers spent their leisure in Paris, not Versailles. During Christmas 1763, Mozart and his family visited Versailles and dined with

8190-679: Was opened in some of the empty rooms. By virtue of an order issued by the Versailles district directorate in August 1794, the Royal Gate was destroyed, the Cour Royale was cleared and the Cour de Marbre lost its precious floor. When Napoleon became Emperor of the French in 1804, he considered making Versailles his residence but abandoned the idea because of the cost of the renovation. Prior to his marriage with Marie-Louise in 1810, he had

8281-535: Was succeeded at Versailles by his assistant, architect François d'Orbay . Work at the palace during the 1670s focused on its interiors, as the palace was then nearing completion, though d'Orbay expanded Le Vau's service wings and connected them to the château, and built a pair of pavilions for government employees in the forecourt. In 1670, d'Orbay was tasked by Louis XIV with designing a city, also called Versailles , to house and service Louis XIV's growing government and court. The granting of land to courtiers for

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