Brief French Royal History

• - French Rulers
• - French Royal Family Tree
• - France Historical Dates
• - Style Chart
• - Reference of Styles
• - Glossary

The name Versailles is known around the world as that of the vastest and most luxurious château ever built by a king. To the visitor with little knowledge of the ins and outs of French history, the name of Louis XIV and Marie-Antoinette are linked, often casting aside to other kings, queens, and princes who lived here. Certain authors, striving for excessive symbolism only created with hindsight, have at times tried to explain Versailles as a representation of the myth of the sun, under the pretext that Louis XIV was known as the sun King (as were several of his ancestors). And that his bedchamber had been placed in the geometric center of the château (this fact owing to an oversight during the conversion of the royal apartments in 1701).

In fact, the importance of Versailles and those who lived there should be explained otherwise. Rather than a solar symbol, Versailles stood for the past Régime, or so-called absolute monarchy, a force, which it would be more appropriate to term as on of divine and individual right. Curiously enough, it was a hunting lodge at Versailles, soon to be replaced by a small château, that in 1630 on the "Journée des Dupes" (Day of the Duped) Louis XIII confirmed the rights of Cardinal Richelieu, already engrossing power like the first king to hunt in the woods at Versailles Henri IV. In addition, it was at Versailles that the States General met for the last time in 1789, marking the end for the ancient line of the Capetians, who had ruled over France since AD 987.

Between 1630 and 1789 the château grew in size, its gardens were laid out and a new town was built. Louis XIV made Louis XIII's hunting lodge into a bigger and more and more luxurious country residence until, in April of 1682, he decided to make Versailles the seat of his government. During those years his architects, first Levau then Hardouin-Mansart, his painter Lebrun and his gardener Le Nôtre had left their mark. However, the king's influence had been decisive: from his mother, Anne of Austria, his grandmother Marie de Médicis and his ancestor Marguerite de Valois (sister of François I), he had inherited a taste for the plastic arts. From his father Louis XIII, whom he had hardly known and of which little was said, he had a taste for music and sound government, a principle defended by almost all his ancestors since the creation of the French monarchy. His grandson Louis XV succeeded him in 1716, and though he only decided to transform the château's architecture at the end of his reign, in 1770, he nonetheless inherited his ancestor's taste for the arts, as can be seen in his private apartments. He took after his Italian ancestors, the Medici or House of Savoy, regarding secrecy in politics as essential, and it was, in fact, in his private apartments - far form the Court's lack of discretion - that the Bien-Aimé ("beloved") took some of his most important decisions. But neither did he neglect etiquette, the rules of which had been set down by his predecessors, nor family life of which he was reminded at times by a somewhat neglected wife, and in particular by his daughters of whom he was especially fond.

Finally, Louis XVI, grandson and heir to Louis XV whose reign was inopportunely cut short by the Revolution, had inherited Herculean strength from his grandfather Augustus of Saxony, King of Poland. From his ancestors of the House of Bourbon he got not only a taste of hunting, but also a genuine interest in science. By his side Marie-Antoinette, daughter of the former Duc de Lorraine crowned emperor and therefore great-granddaughter of Louis XIV's brother Monsieur, Philippe Duc d'Orléans and the famous Princess Palatine, left on Versailles the mark of her love for music and theater, which she had acquired, from the Habsburgs of Austria as well as form Louis XIII. Much more than just a history of 17th and 18th-century art, a visit to Versailles will leave the visitor with a broader image of France's past.