Palace of Versailles

Palace of Versailles

The grandest palace in Europe

Just outside Paris stands the most magnificent palace France ever built: Versailles. Its endless golden façades, glittering halls and enormous gardens were designed to amaze, and they did — for more than a hundred years Versailles was the home of French kings, the centre of their government, and the model that other rulers across Europe tried to copy. Few buildings have shaped history quite like it.

From hunting lodge to palace

Versailles began as a modest hunting lodge built for King Louis XIII in the countryside. But his son, King Louis XIV — known as the "Sun King" because he chose the sun as his royal symbol — had far greater plans. From the 1660s onward, Louis XIV poured vast wealth into transforming the lodge into a colossal palace, employing the finest architects, artists and gardeners of the age.

In 1682 the king moved his entire court and government from Paris to Versailles. From then on, the nobles of France were expected to live at the palace, close to the king, where he could keep an eye on them and where they competed for his favour in a glittering, formal world ruled by strict etiquette.

The Hall of Mirrors

The most famous room in Versailles is the breathtaking Hall of Mirrors. This long gallery, lined on one side with great windows and on the other with seventeen huge mirrors reflecting the light and the gardens, was where the king held his grandest ceremonies. Glittering with gold, crystal chandeliers and painted ceilings, it was meant to overwhelm visitors with the power and splendour of the French crown.

Centuries later, the Hall of Mirrors became the setting for great historical moments, including the signing of the treaty that ended the First World War in 1919.

The gardens of the Sun King

Beyond the palace stretch the famous gardens of Versailles, designed by the master gardener André Le Nôtre. Laid out in vast, perfectly ordered patterns, they include long avenues, neatly clipped hedges, sparkling fountains, statues and a grand canal so large that the king once sailed small boats upon it. On special days the fountains play to music, just as they did for the royal court.

Revolution and rebirth

The luxury of Versailles, while ordinary people often went hungry, became a symbol of royal excess. In 1789 the French Revolution broke out, and an angry crowd marched on Versailles and brought the royal family back to Paris. The age of kings at Versailles was over.

Rather than being destroyed, the palace was eventually preserved as a museum of French history, so that everyone — not just kings and nobles — could walk its halls.

Visiting today

Today millions of visitors come to Versailles to walk through the Hall of Mirrors and the royal apartments, wander the immense gardens and fountains, and visit the smaller palaces and the rustic hamlet in the park where Queen Marie Antoinette played at country life. Protected by UNESCO, the Palace of Versailles remains one of the most spectacular monuments on earth — the shining symbol of the age of the Sun King.