The Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles.

When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a wealthy suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometres southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the center of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to 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.

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org

Some facts concerning Palace of Versailles:

• Impressed with the location of Versailles during his hunting trips in the surrounding forests, Louis XIII ordered the construction of a hunting lodge in 1624.
• In 1632, Louis XIII obtained the seigneury of Versailles from the Gondi family and began to make enlargements to the château.
• When Chateau de Versailles was completed, it could accommodate up to 5,000 people, including servants.
• The chateau is one of the largest palaces in the world. It has more than 700 rooms, 2000 windows, 1250 fireplaces, 67 staircases and more than 1800 acres of park.
• The most famous feature of the Palace of Versailles is the Hall of Mirrors. Spanning across a length of 240 feet the hall was once used to be lit with 3,000 candles. On the either side of the hallway are two salons namely the ‘de la guerre’ and the Hall of Mirrors called ‘de la paix’.
• The paintings, tapestries, sculptures and furniture of this fabulous palace have been executed by the best Italian and French artists of the earlier times.
• On October 8, 1789, a group of townspeople, especially the women, marched up to the palace and demanded bread.
• It was in the Hall of Mirrors, Chateau de Versailles, that the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, after World War I.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=852eroBwDrA&hd=1

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Versailles

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Posted in: France