The Palace Of Versailles Knowing History Adds To Enjoyment

October 6, 1985|By Richard Bernstein, New York Times

VERSAILLES, FRANCE — It was in the exquisite opera house of balustrades and chandeliers built by King Louis XV for the wedding of his son and heir that, according to historians of the great palace at Versailles, a band of monarchist soldiers unleashed the anger that led to the palace's finish as a home for kings. That was 196 years ago.

The soldiers of the king of France, the representative of God on earth, were in the opera house for an evening of revelry. Singing monarchist songs, they trampled the Tricolor, which had already become the symbol of the simmering revolutionary movement. News of the soldiers' sacrilege reached Paris and, two days later, on Oct. 6, 1789, a revolutionary crowd stormed Versailles demanding that the king leave the palace and return to the city. Louis XVI and his much-disliked wife, Marie Antoinette, who appeared on a balcony of the palace to try to appease the revolutionaries' fury, had no choice. They left for Paris that night. The balance of power shifted to the revolutionaries. Three years later, Louis XVI and his Marie Antoinette died on the guillotine.

Knowing a bit of history helps one appreciate a visit to the palace of Versailles and turn it into something more than a plodding progression through a group of magnificent but empty and, to be frank, somewhat similar royal chambers. Versailles is one of the most visited single institutions in France, drawing as many people -- 8,000 to 10,000 a day during the summer -- each year as that other former royal palace, the Louvre.

The trick is to make your visit in an informed fashion; spend some time in the palace and the town; immerse yourself in the 17th and 18th centuries; get the message of Versailles not merely as an audacious and grandiose structure with wonderful views of gardens and parks outside, but also as the architectural embodiment of an idea and of a history, that of the rise and fall of absolute monarchical power.

Versailles these days is a pleasant, upper-middle-class town, its streets lined with sycamores and chestnut trees, its outdoor cafes sparkling in the sun. There are some other historical attractions in town, most notably the old foreign ministry of Louis XV, where from 1781 to 1783 Benjamin Franklin negotiated the treaty with Britain that formally ended the American Revolution. But Versailles is dominated by the 16th-century hunting lodge built by King Louis XIII, which was transformed into a concrete symbol of power by his son, Louis XIV, known as the Sun King.

In front of the palace, which sits behind an iron grating tipped by gold- leaf spikes, is a vast parking lot for buses and cars. And tourists see the palace quickly, first gazing at the magnificent stone and brick edifice from the expansive cobblestone plaza in front of it, then taking a walk with a guide through what are called the grand apartments, the bedrooms of the kings and the queens, the fabulous Hall of Mirrors (all 79 yards of it) the Cabinet Room, the Peace Room, the War Room and others.

They see rooms with some great paintings, many of them on the ceilings, lots of gold ornamentation, a few very busy post-Renaissance playthings, like a highly gilded clock, built in the days of Louis XV, that still tells the time and the date. The rooms are only scantily furnished, since most of the objects in the palace were deemed not authentic some years ago and removed; the museum's curators are trying to purchase the original pieces that were sold by the escaping nobility in the wake of the revolution. There is nothing wrong with such a visit; it is a wholly enjoyable tour through some timeworn splendor. But it is far better with some knowledge of history.

For me, Versailles is a kind of stage where some of the world's grandest players strutted through their parts. A preparatory exercise for a visit is to become familiar with the cast of characters that disported itself throughout the palace and who were at the center of French history for the 107 years that the palace was the royal capital.

First, there was, of course, Louis XIV, who created the palace because he hated Paris, where he was obliged to live in the Louvre.

In his childhood, Louis had been terrorized and shocked by the rebellion of the nobility known as the Fronde and, when he came of age in 1661 and decided to rule France himself, he turned his palace and its daily routine into the physical expression of his favorite maxim, ''L''etat, c'est moi'' -- ''I am the state.'' To this political idea, Louis added an enormous degree of self-love and an appetite for flattery and ceremony. Versailles, where Louis moved the court in 1682, became the place where the Sun King kept the troublesome nobility within view, creating the elaborate rituals performed by its members to recognize his absolute power.

Orlando Sentinel Articles