Bonjour,

From the moment that we arrived at the Versailles Palace, I knew why there was a French Revolution. The Palace originally was just a hunting lodge, started back in 1624 by Louis XIII. The hunting lodge was on 37,000 acres which is an enormous amount of land. The palace was built in four campaigns from 1664 to 1710, mostly by Louis XIV. Versailles was the center of political power in France from 1682, under Louis XIV, until the French Revolution started in 1789 when it was moved back to Paris. Versailles is only about ten miles west or southwest of Paris.

Versailles Palace and gardens today is only a bit over 19,000 acres which is still larger that Paris or Manhattan Island. Cost estimates in today’s dollars to build Versailles palace are around two billion dollars. The palace is something like 550,000 square feet with over 700 rooms. It had a stables for 2000 horses with fire places. It housed thousands of nobleman. It was stocked full of paintings, sculptures, marble, around 1000 chandeliers, and on and on.

1. This was our first view of Versailles palace. Even on an overcast day and from this distance, we couldn’t miss all the gold around the entrance area.

2. This is a portion of a stairwell. I put this in to impress the fact that if this was how they built a stairwell, you can imagine the rest of the palace.

3. This is the Hall of Mirrors. I would say that this was the most impressive room in the palace. The treaty ending World War I was signed in this room in 1919.

4. This is the Counsel Room. Ben Franklin spent a substantial amount of time in this room, representing the United States. I’m impressed that our U.S. representatives spent so much time here and yet formed our own government so different from what they saw of the French government. It might have been tempting to emulate the French king and Versailles but they went the other way.

5. I just put this photo in because it shows some of the different types of art work that were displayed in the palace.

Voila,

Bill