Versailles, July 7

Friday, July 7 Versailles Our busiest day yet. Today the four of us took an early train out to the Palace of Versailles. More... This is the building that King Louis XIV transformed from a small hunting lodge into a vast palace with silver furniture, 700 rooms, more than 2,000 windows, 1,250 fireplaces, 67 staircases, and 357 mirrors in the famous Hall of Mirrors alone. This is also where Louis moved the royal court and the seat of government in 1682 (along with much of the nobility, as a form of political control).

The French royal family continued to live at Versailles until 1789, when King Louis XVI and his family were forced to return to Paris (and their eventual deaths) during the French Revolution. The palace is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of absolute monarchy and its downfall.

The day we left for Paris (July 3), the new French President, Emmanuel Macron, used Versailles as the venue for a U.S.-style “state of the nation” speech in which he laid out his plans for his upcoming term. Because he chose to give this speech at Versailles, his political opponents immediately accused him of trying to “act like royalty.” That shows you how potent a symbol this palace still is!

The King’s Chapel at Versailles

The King's Bed in his Bedchamber

The Hall of Mirrors (Galerie des Glaces). Mirrors were considered a great luxury, so the King had over 350 in this one room alone, to demonstrate his wealth and power. Many ceremonial functions have been held here over the centuries. The current government of France, the Fifth Republic, still uses it for state receptions

It took several hours to tour the inside rooms of the palace. And we were nowhere near finished. After that, we still had the gardens (which cover 800 hectares or about 1,976 acres of land) and some of the subsidiary structures on the estate to see.

Back view of Versailles overlooking the gardens, showing the Fountain of Latona and the Grand Canal.

None of Versailles' 50 fountains were running the day we were there. Supplying enough water for them was -- and still is -- a big challenge. The royal gardeners would turn them on as the King walked by, then turn them off after he had passed.

The gardens feature 200,000 trees, and 210,000 flowers are planted annually.

One of the cottages in "The Queen's Hamlet." This is where Marie Antoinette used to pretend she was a simple country girl.

What is truly amazing about Versailles is that all of it was built for only a select group of people – the King and his court – from the taxes of the peasantry. It’s not surprising that they eventually rebelled and overthrew the monarchy. The whole place should act as a reminder of how out-of-hand an absolute monarchy can become.

I don’t know how many hours or how many miles we walked. The subsidiary buildings we visited were some distance away from the main palace. There were trolleys that could give you a lift to different areas of the estate (the King and his court used coaches, of course), but they charged a fee, so we walked everywhere.

It was pretty hot today. When we finally got back to Paris, we collapsed at an outdoor café – in the shade, of course -- for drinks. Here, we made a pact among ourselves that we will never visit Europe in the summer again, only in the spring or fall!

The evening was fun. We met up with Tim, Peggy, and Bernard again at a Thai restaurant called Madame Shawn on Rue Caffarelli. (Paris is a very popular destination for expats of many nationalities.) They had a great Asian duck salad there. Then we went back to the apartment, settled down in Tim and Peggy’s living room (theirs is larger than ours), and drank wine late into the night.