Day 27 Continuation

Now, back to Versilles:

I was saying about the ABCs – Versailles was certainly one of these.  As we anticipated, we have seen so many statues, so much gold, so many frescoes, so many wonderfu vaulted or domed ceilings.   But I was still excited to see Versailles.  Now for its history:

Louis X111 and all the kings of France before him live at what is now the Louvre, central Paris.  Their favourite hunting ground was near the village of Versailles which is now only a short drive through the suburbs, but at that time was a three hour ride each way on horseback.   Clearly this was impractical for several day’s hunting in a succession, so around 1837, Louis X111 built a small hunting lodge of something like twenty-eight rooms at Versailles.  He was succeeded by Louis X1V, who called himself the ‘Sun King”.

Louis X1V had the palace extended and it was extended again by Louis XV, until eventually, in the time of Louis XV1, it was a 2000 room palace! Louis the Sun King, cleary a narcissistic egotist, was keen to have his image very well engraved on the known world.  In the palace there are portraits of him, busts of him and statues of him.  There is even a `statue of him dressed as a Roman god, which clearly looks very odd with his long curly wig in place of the short hair and wreath on the head.  He had the sculptor Bernini do a statue of him but he didn’t like it, so it is placed in the garden of the palace.  It can be seen from one of the windows, way in the distance as far from the building as possible.  Louis X1V was known to have many wigs and to make up to six changes of clothing, wig included,  every day.

Looking after himself so well obviously paid off, because Louis X1V reigned for 77 years and lived into his eighties at a time when life expectancy was about forty to fifty.  He outlived his son and his grandson, so it was his great grandson who succeeded him to the throne of France.  Louis XV inherited the longevity genes and he reigned for fifty-two years.  He was married to a princess from Czechoslovakia and even though she was fairly ugly and fifteen years older than him, it was apparently love at first sight.  Never-the-less, he had two official mistresses, the most famous of whom was Madame Pompadour, and something like two hundred unofficial mistresses!   Clearly too busy to do too much out of the bedroom, Louis XV’s reign was peaceful and uncontroversial in historical terms.

With his reign also being a long one, he too outlived his son and it was his grandson who became Louis XV1.  This Louis was the one married to Marie Antoinette, who was one of the sixteen children of Marie Christina of the Austrian Empire with whom we became so familiar in the Czech Republic and Austria.  By the reign of Louis XV1, the Louvre had been abandoned as a palace and Versailles had become the seat of government and the monarch’s residence.

Contrary to what is commonly believed about the French Revolution, the people did not want to get rid of the monarchy.  That was the only form of government that the people knew and in 200 years, the had only had three kings!   To the people, the kings were like gods and represented stability.  However, they hated  the burocracy  that was tying up their lives and so they put pressure on Louis XV1 for a Constitutional Monarchy.  He was ready to sign the documentation for a Constitutional Monarchy, but Robespiere was determined to have a Republic.   So then there was the storming of the Bastille, the storming of Versailles, the arrest, imprisonment and eventual beheading of Louis XV1 and Marie Antoinette and the French Republic was born.

Some years later, the monarchy was restored for a brief period, when first one and then another of Louis XV1’s brothers became king.   However there was another revolution in 1830, the monarchy was overthrown again and it has been a republic ever since.

This is the history as I can remember oit from Victor and our guide at Versailles.  No doubt there will be some amendments to be made, so as I find them I will amend.

One last word about wonderful Versailles:  the excsses of the monarchy are well described by the fact that the wallpaper in each room was changed twice a year.   They had velvet embossed paper for winter and silk paper for summer!  Unbelievable!!  Fortunately today the same paper remains throughout the year – it is an embossed velvet paper.

Returning to the hotel thoroughly chilled and damp. We had time for a nap before going to the group’s farewell dinner.  We then had a boat trip along the Seine and a night tour of Paris to see it lit up for Christmas – yes, still Christmas.   The Champs d’Elysee had all the trees with lights in them and there were various other parts of the city lit up too.  The Eiffel Tower was a picture all lit up – much prettier than it was in the day –and fortunately the rain had stopped and we had a nice clear view of it.