The role of Versailles – image-making

The famous palace of Versailles is always seen as the physical representation of the Sun King’s reign. This is valid in that Versailles was planned and built in accordance with Louis XIV’s wishes; a countryman at heart, he insisted on being surrounded by acres of carefully planned gardens and ponds, whilst the palace itself was all windows and balconies. It was a ‘castle’ in name only.

Louis imposed his conception on reluctant ministers and courtiers who preferred the convenience and bustle of Paris or the less pretentious palace at Marly. The grumpy duc de Saint-Simon loathed Versailles:

“‘Versailles is the gloomiest and most unpleasant of all places…the air is bad…Without following any general design, he built the beautiful and…ugly, all jumbled together…I might never finish talking about the monstrous defects of a palace so immense and so costly, with its trappings…

One might be forever pointing out the monstrous defects of that huge and immensely costly palace, its orangery, kitchen gardens, kennels, larger and smaller stables, all vast, all prodigiously expensive. Indeed, a whole city has sprung up where before was only a poor tavern, a windmill and a little pasteboard chateau. That Versailles of Louis XIV, that masterpiece whereon countless sums of money were thrown away merely in alteration of ponds and thickets, was so ruinously costly, so monstrously ill-planned, that it was never finished. The avenues and plantations, all laid out artificially, cannot mature and the coverts must continually be restocked with game.”

Many people have agreed with Saint-Simon. Versailles, it has been suggested, epitomized all that was wrong with French society between 1661 and 1715. Contemporaries and historians have depicted the Sun King surrounded by his courtiers indulging themselves whilst France starved. (Towards the end of his reign, Fénelon, the Archbishop of Cambrai, attacked the king’s disregard for his people, whilst Bossuet called Versailles the ‘city of the rich’). Or there is the typical picture of Louis imprisoning his potentially creative nobles in an endless round of sterile court ritual. Or, where they admit to the artistic excellence of the palace, they claim that this was an elite culture; 90% of the population was left behind in unenlightened ignorance. This morally rotten edifice was hallowed by the Church, whose wealthy, absentee bishops scuttled round the corridors of Versailles, ignoring their dioceses to say nothing of the Bible’s teaching on poverty. For, above all, Versailles allegedly represents the scandal of social and economic inequality, since the expense of financing the Sun King’s, and his courtiers’, self-indulgence was met by the wretched taxpayer. And it was the poor who paid the most.

However, much of this has been questioned by recent historians. Versailles may have been flashy and expensive; but it was not that expensive. It may have been built to the greater glory of Louis XIV; but this was all part of a rational, well-thought-out campaign with a recognizable political purpose. Louis and his bishops, we are told, took their responsibilities seriously, as did the aristocracy; few of them were simply palace drones. (There were very few absentee bishops at Versailles; the majority lived in their dioceses). Conditions in the towns and country may well have been far less adversely affected by Louis XIV’s building programme than has been suggested, whilst the cultural impact of royal patronage of the arts was widespread and beneficial.

Versailles had a cultural impact, political significance and had international significance, affecting French international prestige and status.

What Louis could not fulfill in the provinces, he fabricated at court. Constructing palace of Versailles (on the site of Louis XIII’s hunting lodge, 12 miles outside of Paris,) created a magnificent stage for acting out greatness and control over nature and a tamed aristocracy.

The role of Versailles – image-making

The key developments at Versailles during Louis’ reign included:

The gardens were enlarged to maximize theatrical space for spectacular fetes. (1661) A radical artistic and architectural transformation to impress and overwhelm (1668) Making the palace into Louis’ permanent royal residence and seat of government (1682).

What was the cultural impact of Versailles?

Versailles was the king’s home, the focus of the court and the centre of the government but it was also the showpiece of French artistic and cultural exuberance, with the purpose of not only glorifying France, but also putting across a flattering image of Louis XIV’s style of kingship.

Louis fell in love with the palace whilst it was still only an unpretentious hunting lodge built by his father in a peaceful forest. In May 1664 Louis staged a week long pageant for the court, The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle. Theoretically this week of court spectacles, masques, ballets and fireworks was in honour of the queen though everyone realized that Louis’ mistress Louise de la Vallière was the real enchantress. Louis himself took part in a theatrical procession. Lully, the court musicial presided over the music whilst Molière wrote Tartuffe for the occasion. Louis enjoyed this send-up of religious hypocrisy though both his mother and his wife were outraged. The play was a publicity exercise though – full of compliments to the Sun King.

The great fête of the ‘Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle’ at Versailles, May 1664.

It was this pageant that gave Louis his nickname of ‘Sun King’ after he played the part in the procession. Louis chose the sun as his emblem; it was associated with Apollo, god of peace and the arts. It was also a heavenly body giving life to all things, regulating everything as it rose and set. The regularity of his work habits and his daily ritual of his rising and retiring were also aimed at solar comparison. The path of the sun is also traced in the layout of the gardens, whilst the king’s entire state apartment is dominated by the solar myth.

When Louis decided to turn Versailles into the finest palace in the world, he employed the trio who had made Fouquet’s Vaux-le-Vicomte so provocatively beautiful: Le Vau the architect, Le Brun the painter and Le Nôtre the gardener. Together they created the impressive ensemble of gardens, lakes, statues and buildings, conforming to a perfect design. Once when Madame de Maintenon complained about the cold, Louis replied, ‘Well, at least we shall all die symmetrically.’

The palace was built as an allegory, representing the year with its four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter.

The role of Versailles – image-making

The whole palace advertises Louis XIV. Everywhere Louis is compared to Apollo the sun god. Louis also appears as Jupiter the king of the gods and Neptune the god of the sea. Le Brun’s influence is in evidence, especially his preference for order and decorum; he rejected a birth of Christ which included humble cattle. A typical example is his own Crossing of the Rhine in the Presence of the Enemy in the Hall of Mirrors; an impressive, pompous piece of propaganda, showing the French army’s victory over the Dutch in 1672, with Louis and his generals dressed as Roman heroes.

Louis XIV himself insisted on being consulted before his artists put their ideas into practice. For example, he rejected Le Brun’s first proposals for the Hall of Mirrors, insisting than he himself was to appear in the paintings rather than the heroes of antiquity, and that the captions emphasizing the triumphs of his reign were to be in French and not in Latin, so that everyone could understand them.

Portraits of the king could be found everywhere. Sometimes a particular event was recorded, for example the painting of the doge of Genoa apologizing to Louis XIV for building ships for the Spanish navy; he had come to Versailles to grovel. Burke has pointed out that Louis’ publicity men even mastered the technique of the media event, that is to say, an event which never happened. For example, Testelin’s portrait of Louis presiding over the Academy of Sciences which he never in fact visited. Louis himself conducted distinguished visitors around the palace and helped to write the guide-books.

Landscape gardener Le Nôtre ‘exempified the victory of rule over disorder’ by draining the marshland and transforming it into a garden with a classically formal pattern with:

Symmetrical lawns and paths Stately avenues, terraces and clipped yews 300 sculptures an orangery a 1,500 metre Grand Canal flower beds (changed daily so that they shone with colour all year round)

The role of Versailles – image-making

The gardens’ fountains generated awe and wonder. The 1,400 fountains: reflected the sky, showing Louis’ union of heaven and earth showed Louis’ control of nature, being supplied with Seine river water from three miles away

by using the 221 pump machine of Marly (built 1681-1688) reinforced Louis’ ‘Sun King’ universal influence. The Apollo fountain (1671) depicted the sun

god on his chariot. The Dragon fountain represented Apollo killing a python.

The Apollo Fountain The Dragon Fountain

Architect Le Vau further augmented Louis’ gloire by:

creating a three-sided courtyard to astound and overwhelm visitors adopting an Italian-style invisible roof, hidden by a balustrade adorned with trophies building a menagerie and seven royal apartments named after the planets, appealing to Louis’

desire for universal influence.

Le Vau also started the glorious Ambassadors’ Staircase, built to celebrate Louis’ triumphal return from wars and for ceremonial audiences. Completed by Hardouin-Mansart (architect from 1675), the staircase depicted trophies, chariots, and courtiers admiring Louis’ stately possessions. Its frescoed ceiling, showing peoples of four continents as subject to Louis’ power, astounded foreign dignitaries. Versailles perfectly satisfied Louis’ quest for gloire and positive representational culture in his Hall of Mirrors (completed in 1684). With 357 mirrors, 17 glass doors and thousands of crystal candles on chandeliers, the great hall offered the perfect backdrop for reflecting and illuminating Louis. The Hall of Mirrors also acted as an advertisement for French glass whilst the tapestries which depicted Louis’ triumphs were made at the Royal Gobelins works, subsidized by the government. Colbert had decided that all of the materials used to build the palace should be made in France; the artwork and architecture of men such as Rigaud and Le Brun showcased Louis XIV’s France as a centre for culture and enlightenment.

Ambassadors’ staircase Hall of Mirrors The three-sided courtyard

The role of Versailles – image-making

Versailles’ uniform façade

Mansart also:

imposed a uniform façade on Versailles’ garden side increased its total length to 550 metres

This created a vision of discipline, order and harmony. This was mirrored in the art and sculpture of Versailles which emphasized the importance of order, hierarchy and the power of Louis, the ‘Sun King’.

Versailles was also the venue for the development of French music. For example, Lully was a versatile composer, director and colleague of Molière in the production of court ballets and masques in which Louis himself took part. Visitors came from far and wide to hear the king’s choir. Versailles also attracted writers who were glad to sing the Sun King’s praises, such as Molière and Racine who both acted as court propagandists. Louis was often depicted as, or compared to, mythical gods such as Apollo or Mars in operas, plays and ballets whilst an abundance of classical imagery portayed Louis as a powerful and wise monarch born to rule. Racine even accompanied Louis on his military campaigns as official historian. Such propaganda was aimed at the nobility as 70% of people couldn’t even sign their name so would have been unaffected by the literary products of Versailles with an even higher proportion never having the opportunity to listen to Lully’s music or enjoy Molière’s plays.

It should be noted that there were changes to the nature of the development of Versailles during the lifetime of the palace under Louis. When it became Louis XIV’s home in 1682, his mistress Montespan had to be accommodated. She was provided with a gorgeous suite of rooms at the top of the grand staircase, plus an annexe on the ground floor beneath the king’s apartments. Twenty years later, the final addition to the palace was Mansart’s sober chapel, built in stone, not marble (Montespan’s bath had been constructed out of a single piece of marble costing 15,000 livres!) containing a shrine dedicated to Saint Louis. Louis’ chief companion was now his prudish wife, Madame de Maintenon and their chief preoccupation was no longer the gratification of his body but the salvation of his soul. aS the king aged, he tended to reside away from Versailles more and Paris became important again.

What was the political significance of Versailles:

The function of Versailles was to portray the image of an absolutist monarch appointed by God to rule.

On this vast stage, Louis basked in public spectacle virtually all of his waking life. Six successive parties of over one hundred people observed the petit lever (his morning wake up). A select few of the highest rank saw Louis leave his bed, whilst less favoured courters watched him compete dressing and put on his wig. It was a privilege to watch the king dressing. Processions formed to see Louis traverse the Hall of Mirrors to take mass; whilst he worshipped God, courtiers vied for involvement in his petit coucher (his bed time). He would have breakfast in public, relieve himself in public, have lunch in public, go for a walk in the afternoon or hunt in public, have dinner in public, play billiards or

The role of Versailles – image-making

cards in public. The whole court regularly assembled for music, dancing and entertainment of various kinds and for refreshments. The king conferred with his advisers offstage but Louis was occupying centre stage, literally, as his servile courtiers’ master. Louis spent part of each day in council with ministers, apart from Friday.

This never-ending public ritual involved Louis and his nobles in stringent rules of etiquette. It was an offence to turn your back on even a portrait of Louis XIV and it was customary to take your hat off in the presence of the king’s dining table, whether he was there or not. Historians discuss the extent to which Louis introduced more formality than there had been in previous reigns; possibly his Spanish blood, to say nothing of his Spanish wife, encouraged rituals formerly seen in Madrid but not in Paris.

On the surface, Versailles appeared to tame the nobility, reducing powerful individuals to a dependency upon courting Louis’ favour by attending to his every need. Competition for proximity to the king was fierce and rituals enticed former rebels. Louis was helped into his dressing gown by the Duc de Bouillon (whose father had rebelled), whilst ex-Frondeur Duc de la Rochefoucauld pulled on Louis’ breeches. Louis dominated patronage, refusing to give offices to the outspoken Fréjus bishop, Joseph Zongo Ondedei, and transferring court absentee the Duc de Longueville’s governorships to trusted courtier Duc de Montausier.

In reality, however, Versailles only allowed very limited domination over the elites, housing just 5% of French nobles, due to its prohibitively high expense and the lack of space. The court only settled at Versailles in 1682; before that date there would have been no room for hordes of aristocrats as the king moved around his various houses. Even after the move to Versailles only 4,000 members of the nobility at most could be accommodated in the excruciatingly cramped quarters provided for them in the great palace; but there were about 100,000 aristocrats in the whole of France.

In theory, anyone could visit Versailles and admire the court if they were properly dressed and could afford to hire a sword. In practice this meant the nobility of the robe. The lesser nobility who did not attend Versailles sank into provincial insignificance.

Versailles massaged Louis’ ego, engendering sycophancy and ambition. Louis’ domination of patronage enabled him to reward informants who helped to increase royal tax revenue, including noblewomen Louise Valençay and Lucrèce Bouhier. Comte d’Armagnac received 10,000 livres in 1685 for denouncing embezzler de Bruyn. Indeed, Versailles was the fount of patronage where nobles had to come in order to receive jobs, land and money. Not to be known at court could be fatal. ‘We never see him,’ was Louis’ sentence of social death on any nobleman who had failed to register his presence. From Versailles too went out the orders for the governing of France and her empire.

Life at Court was costly (opulent clothing / wigs / expensive lodgings / spectacular entertainment / costly gambling) but this was necessary if a noble were to gain court appointments, commands in the army and church offices, which were all gifts of the king. The nobility were left in no doubt that Louis XIV’s regime would protect their interests. Versailles itself represented the orderly and hierarchical nature of Louis XIV’s France; a France based around class rule.

Louis sees the image of Versailles changing according to his mistresses. The first, Louise de la Vallière, represented a link to the nobility of the robe, whilst her replacement, Madame de Montespan, demonstrated the snobbish, superior attitude of those within the court at Versailles. Finally, Madame de Maintenon, secret wife of the king from 1683 following the death of the queen, attained great influence, reflected in the increasingly devout and pious nature of the court.

The economic impact of the construction of Versailles has also been widely discussed by historians. The ‘city of the rich’ was built by the poor. Even after the court had moved there in 1682, there were

The role of Versailles – image-making

22,000 workmen toiling in the buildings and gardens. The cost in terms of human life was notoriously high. Madame de Sévigné wrote of the ‘great mortality affecting the workmen of whom every night wagons full of the dead are carried out...these melancholy processions are kept secret as far as possible in order not to alarm the other workmen. Louvois ruined the king’s Swiss guards by putting them to work on digging a lake in the palace gardens, whilst thousands of soldiers died in the abortive attempts to divert the River Eure across an aquaduct to feed the royal fountains. As Louis’ reign progressed, the splendor and wealth of Versailles became increasingly criticized. To some, it seemed irrelevant to the needs of France and isolated the King and his ministers from the people.

According to the historian Bluche in his biography of Louis XIV, Louis’ extravagance on his buildings was not excessive. In an extravagant year, 1683, these accounted for only 2.35% of national expenditure; from 1661 to 1715 Versailles ‘cost no more than 68 million livres.’ Bluche argues that ‘these are not astronomically high figures’, though of course this cost was met by those least able to pay, the Third Estate.

The role of Versailles – image-making

What was its international significance?

Versailles was envied across Europe and a magnificent illusion of his divine gloire. Foreign monarchs looked to replicate the style and grandeur of Versailles. Ambassadors informed their governments about the splendor of Versailles. In 1685, the doge of Genoa was treated to a reception at Versailles. On seeing the interior he declared, ‘A year ago it was Hell; now it is paradise.’ To receive the Persian ambassador shortly before his death in 1715, Louis wore a black and gold outfit so heavily embroidered with diamonds that he had to change out of it before dinner. The aim of such ostentation was to portray France as a nation to be feared as well as admired; one that was strong and powerful.

Louis’ media hype led to slavish imitation. Copies of Versailles sprang up all over Europe, most notably in Vienna, St. Petersburg and Madrid whilst, according to Bluche, Louis’ entertainments provoked amazement abroad. The Earl of Montagu was just one of many English country gentlemen who built a mini Versailles. French fashions, French manners, French styles of painting and French literature became all the rage. Although millions of Frenchmen still spoke their own local dialects, French became the language of diplomacy and of society all over the world (French became the language spoken by the aristocracy in Russia). Le Nôtre himself was begged by Charles II of England to visit Hampton Court to improve its gardens and, on a visit to Rome with the duc de Nevers in 1679, he was given a splendid reception by the Pope. His pupils became court gardeners in Russia, Austria and Germany.

According to Dr M. Lister, in his “A journey to Paris in the year 1698”, The way to it is new, and in some places the mountains are cut down forty feet, so that now you enjoy it a mile in prospect before you come to it.…The gilded tiles and roof have a marvellous effect in prospect. The esplanade towards the gardens and parterres are the noblest thing that can be seen, vastly great with a very large basin of water in the middle, low walled round with white marble, on which are placed a great number of incomparable bronze vases, and large brass figures couchant, of the best masters in sculpture. It were endless to tell all the furniture of these gardens, of marble statues, and vases of brass and marble, the multitude of fountains, and those wide canals like seas running in a straight line from the bottom of the gardens as far as the eye can reach. In a word, these gardens are a country laid out into alleys and walks, groves of trees, canals and fountains, and everywhere adorned with ancient and modern statues and vases innumerable.”

Versailles was not met with universal admiration abroad though, with criticism made of its excessive expense and its use in promoting Louis in his role as the sun king.

In the 1690s the former ambassador of Brandenburg, Spanheim, a somewhat hostile Protestant, criticized Louis and Versailles: “…there is often abundance where there should be restraint, economy where there should be expenditure. It is necessary only to consider a contrast: on the one hand the twenty-four million paid for the chateau, gardens and waters of Versailles, or the Maintenon Aqueduct, where thirty thousand men worked for three years to carry water sixteen French leagues from a river to the reservoirs of the same Versailles; on the other hand, the misery of the poor people and the folk of the countryside, exhausted by the tailles, by the billeting of soldiers and by the gabelles. Alongside this should be considered the King’s lack of care and tact in dealing with his friends and allies and in honouring the obligations which he has undertaken towards them.”

In comparison, the English Lord Montague, wrote “His house at Versailles is something the foolishest in the world; he is strutting in every panel and galloping over one’s head in every ceiling, and if he turns to spit he must see himself in person or his Viceregent the Sun …. I verily believe that there are of him statues, busts, bas-reliefs and pictures above two hundred in the house and gardens.”

The role of Versailles – image-making

The English poet Alexander Pope, meanwhile, criticized the work of le Notre, mocking his achievement,

“Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,And half the platform just reflects the other.”

Moreover, Versailles was unable to outweigh French failure to compete in overseas trade, eg against the Dutch, and was unable to counteract the failings of French foreign policy, particularly in the latter years of Louis’ rule. (See next set of notes on foreign policy). Versailles did not persuade foreign rulers to be in awe of Louis who alienated the papacy, quarrelled with the Holy Roman Emperor and failed to intimidate his foreign enemies, with the messengers who galloped up the spacious avenues from 1688 to 1714 bringing news of defeat at the hands of European powers.