The Story of Versailles by Francis Loring Payne

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After several years of contention, plan and counter-plan, the
Convention definitely saved Versailles for the nation by the decrees of
1794 and 1795. During this epoch of violence and revolt, thousands of
articles were offered for sale at the stables of Versailles, in the
presence of appointed representatives of the people. Linen, utensils,
mirrors, clocks, cabinets, chandeliers, stoves, damask curtains,
carriages, wines of Madeira, Malaga and Corinth, coffee, Sevres
porcelains, engravings, paintings, drawings, and some fine furniture
went for a song at this colossal auction. In 1796 the Minister of
finance ordered that remaining pieces of furniture of great beauty and
value be put on sale. In this way were summarily dispersed chairs of
tapestry and gilt that would to-day command extravagant sums; desks of
exquisite marquetry, at which kingly documents and _billets doux_ had
been penned; dressing-tables whose mirrors had reflected the faces, sad
or gay, frank or subtle, of queens and mistresses; wardrobes that had
held the linens and brocades of princes and courtiers; clocks of gold
and enamel that had registered the hours of portentous births and
marriages. Tables of mosaic and satinwood, cushions of gold brocade,
cameo medallions, porcelain panels, plaques of lacquer and bronze were
included on the list of articles to be disposed of. In the original
inventory, discovered in the library at Versailles, were included
pieces of Saxony ware, Watteau figures, Sevres vases, dishes and cups,
Beauvais tapestries, clocks made by Robin and de Sotian, candelabra of
crystal, chandeliers of silver--all from the apartments of the King,
the Queen and the Dauphin. For 20,000 francs there was sold a tapestry
emblematic of the American Revolution. Creditors of the new Government
were paid in furniture and art works whose value they estimated to
please their own purses. A brochure published at Paris by Charles
Davillier recites the romance of "The Sale of the Furnishings of
Versailles during the Terror." To a certain Monsieur Lanchere, a
former cab driver who had undertaken the conduct of military convoys
and transports for the State, were assigned clocks, carpets, statuary,
chests, secretaries and consoles that embarrassed every nook and corner
of the spacious Paris mansion of which he became proprietor.

"Paris," narrates Monsieur Davillier, "was gorged after the sale at the
chateau of Versailles with priceless furniture and objects of _vertu_."
Newspapers were filled with the advertisements of second-hand dealers
offering to the public these souvenirs--redolent, splendid, tragic--of
a dead-and-gone dynasty, of an epoch vanished never to return.

The institutions whose establishment at Versailles definitely saved the
chateau and its dependencies for posterity, were, at the Palace, a
conservatory of arts and sciences and a library of 30,000 volumes; in
the Kitchen Garden a school of gardening and husbandry; at the Grand
Commune, a manufactory of arms; at the Menagerie, a school of
agriculture. Halls that had echoed to the dance and the clink of gold
at gaming-tables now heard profound lectures on history, ancient
languages, mathematics, chemistry, and political economy! Classic
exercises beneath the painted ceilings of these memoried rooms!
Scholastic discourse where music and laughter had vibrated for a
hundred extravagant years!

The galleries at the Louvre contributed to the new Versailles museum
all the canvases of French artists that it possessed. Fragonard and
Greuze, Lebrun, Claude Lorrain, Mignard, Poussin, Rigaud, Vanloo,
Vernet--all were represented, some of them by numerous examples of
their graceful art. Besides, there was a Rubens Gallery, and two
salons filled with the works of Paul Veronese. Some of these treasures
were later removed to the Luxembourg Palace, where the French Senate
was sitting, and to the palace of Saint-Cloud, residence of Napoleon
Bonaparte, First Consul. Little by little the canvases were dispersed,
until, at the end of the Empire, the Versailles Museum of French Art
ceased to be.

At the beginning of the year 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte established at
Versailles a branch of the _Hotel des Invalides_ in Paris, and wounded
veterans of the Revolution to the number of 2,000 were installed for
two years in the vast apartments of Louis XV and in rooms overlooking
the garden and the Court of Ministers. During this period several of
the salons were opened to the people for exhibitions and assemblies,
and the public were free to enjoy the park, the Orangery and the
fragrant bosques of Trianon. Fetes of the Republic frequently took
place about a national altar raised near the Lake of the Swiss Guards,
and a Tree of Liberty was planted with great solemnity in the court of
the chateau, where the equestrian statue of Louis XIV now stands. In
illuminating contrast to the regal celebrations it succeeded was this
latter ceremony, which was inaugurated by a meeting in the historic
Tennis Court, where loyal republicans took a new oath of hatred for all
things royal, and swore devotion to the constitution. Into the
dwelling of former sovereigns the people then crowded to witness the
ceremony of breaking a scepter and crown into a thousand pieces. Next,
they gathered around the Liberty Oak to consecrate it; they hung it
with ribbons of the tricolor of France, a band played "a republican
air," and an orator delivered a speech in commemoration of the glorious
anniversary of the day on which "the last tyrant of the French" had
been guillotined. Fortunately for the peace of mind of the Sixteenth
Louis, he had no gift of prevision!

With the beginning of Napoleon's reign, Versailles and the Trianon
became once more part of the Crown lands. The Emperor ordered
necessary repairs to be made. In the theater the royal troupe of
comedians was sometimes heard. The canal, which had nearly dried up
during the neglectful rule of the Republic, was again filled with
water. The park and the facades of the palace were restored, and in
the Gallery and State Apartments artists renewed the colors of the
mural decorations. Many of the repairs and changes made by Dufour,
Napoleon's architect, have remained to the present time. Certain parts
of the palace giving on the courts were in ruins, Louis XV and his heir
having had no money to spare for their restoration. In 1811, after the
Peace of Vienna, Napoleon, then in residence at the Grand Trianon, took
under advisement the complete reconstruction of the palace. In
consternation he surveyed the tumbling walls and the general confusion
that confronted him during one of his promenades in the park and
Orangery. "Why," cried he, "did the Revolution, which destroyed
everything else, spare the chateau of Versailles! Then I would not
have had on my hands this embarrassing legacy from Louis XIV--an old
chateau poorly built--one much favored without just cause."

Architects busied themselves with innumerable plans for re-making the
shabby pile. Some would have torn down the Council Hall, the
bed-chamber of Louis XIV, the antechamber of the Bull's Eye, and all
the rest of the palace except the apartments of the King and Queen, the
Gallery with the salons at either end, the Chapel and the Opera House.
Napoleon was willing to spend 6,000 francs on the construction of
suites for himself and his family "and fifty others." "Then," said he,
"we could perhaps come to Versailles to pass a summer." The disasters
of the year 1812 and the fall of the Empire saved the palace from the
threatened renovation.

When Louis XVIII ascended the throne of his Bourbon ancestors after the
extinction of Napoleon's Star of Hope, he conceived a new plan "to put
the chateau of Versailles in a habitable state." During the next six
years (1814-1820) the King restored the Hall of Mirrors and all that
was especially associated with Louis XIV. He finished the facade on
the Paris side, begun by Gabriel under Louis XV, and built a pavilion
corresponding to the one designed and erected by this same architect.
He did away with a maze of small apartments, cleaned and simplified the
interior, restored painted ceilings and gilt embellishments, and with
great care put in order the entire palace and its surroundings. The
chapel was repaired and blessed anew by the Bishop of Strassbourg.

Many State visitors came to see Versailles, even in the days when it
was shorn of its glory. Pope Pius VII was there in 1805. From the
balcony outside the Gallery of Mirrors he bestowed his benediction upon
a crowd that stood below on the terraces. Two days later the Salon of
Hercules was the scene of a ball in celebration of the coronation of
the first Emperor of France. In May, 1814, Czar Alexander I of Russia
visited Versailles with his two brothers, following the example of
Peter the Great, who had been there when Louis XV was on the throne.
Another historic cortege was composed of Frederick William III of
Prussia and his two sons, one of whom, Prince William, was to return to
Versailles in the year 1870 on a mission less peaceful. The gates of
Versailles opened to the Duke of Wellington in 1818.

Other visitors there were that came to Versailles and, by the good will
of Louis XVIII, lodged there--homeless dependents, who dried their
laundry at the stately windows of the palace and installed goats and
cows on the roofs overlooking the inert bronze fountains.

After the reign of Charles X all the occupants at the chateau left,
following the Revolution of July, 1830. Once more the question arose
as to the disposition of the palace. Empty, abandoned, "What shall we
do with it?" cried the ministers. The answer was found in the project
proposed to Louis Philippe that Versailles should become a national
depository for souvenirs of French history, surrounded by the splendors
of Louis the Great. This suggestion had the king's approval and
cooperation. A confusion of offices, rooms, staircases and passages
was simplified in the two wings, and the main body of the chateau and
long galleries were created for the reception of thousands of battle
pictures, portraits and pieces of sculpture, reflecting events and
personalities concerned with the story of France.

The Queen's bed-chamber, the apartments of Madame de Maintenon and of
the daughters of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour were among those that
were altered. In the entrance court of the chateau were placed a group
of statues from the Paris bridge _de la Concorde_, all of them so
massive that they were out of proportion to the low surrounding walls.

On the face of the north and south wings Louis Philippe caused to be
engraved the dedication of the huge pile and its contents "To all the
Glories of France." The sum expended under the direction of the
architect, Nepveu, for the creation of the National Museum of
Versailles, exceeded 20,000,000 francs (about $4,000,000). The
inauguration of the museum in June, 1837, was attended by Louis
Philippe and his Queen, by officers of the Army and Government and
representatives of French Law, Commerce, Art and Education. Arriving
from Trianon, where they had been in residence, the King and his wife
entered the palace by the Marble Stairway, traversed the Grand Hall of
the Guards (to-day called the Hall of Napoleon) and the halls leading
to the Grand Gallery of Battles, where they saw portrayed on canvas all
the important military engagements of French armies, from Tolbiac to
Wagram. In the Chamber of Louis XIV the King and Queen examined the
restorations of the furniture, and found them well done. A royal
banquet was laid in the Grand Gallery and in adjacent salons. At eight
o'clock His Majesty, the royal family and 1500 guests assembled in the
brilliantly illuminated Opera House, where they witnessed a performance
of Moliere's _Misanthrope_ and extracts from the opera, _Robert le
Diable_, by Meyerbeer. The spectacle was concluded by a piece written
by Eugene Scribe, the famous French librettist, in celebration of the
founding of the Museum. At midnight the King and his family led a
procession through the galleries of the palace, lighted by footmen
carrying torches. At two o'clock in the morning the festivities were
at an end and the royal party left for Trianon.

Says a French author, writing two years after the opening of the
museum. "When Louis Philippe first cast his eye upon Versailles, he
saw at once the impiety of allowing such a monument to sink into utter
ruin. . . . He determined that the palace of Louis XIV, without losing
its individuality, should become a palace of the entire people; and
that the bygone spirit of absolutism should give shelter to the spirit
of modern liberty. Versailles, therefore, erected as a homage to
individual pride, has become, under the Orleans regime, a great
national monument--and certainly the most complete and splendid of its
class in all Europe. The temple of luxury was converted into a temple
of the arts, and French valor was recorded in immortal colors upon the
walls, by French genius."

In the vast edifice Louis Philippe created a pictorial record that
embraced not only the great battles from the beginning of the monarchy
down to his own day, but the chief incidents that distinguished the
reigns of Louis XIV, XV and XVI; the victories of the Republic; the
campaigns of Napoleon; the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X; the
Revolution of 1830, and the reign of Louis Philippe. The kings of
France, the members of their families and immediate entourage, great
French warriors, statesmen, artists, men of letters and science are
depicted on canvases that line the immense halls of Versailles. The
Gallery of Warriors was arranged by Louis Philippe in that part of the
palace formerly occupied by Madame de Montespan. The Gallery of
Napoleon, created by removing the partition from a dozen rooms
belonging to various members of the royal family, presents a complete
history of the Emperor's life. More than a hundred apartments, large
and small, were obliterated to make room for the galleries of
portraits--a most engrossing exhibition to students of French history.
Carlyle said, "I have found that the Portrait was a small lighted
candle by which the Biographies could for the first time be read, and
some human interpretation be made of them."

Unfortunately a considerable number of paintings hung in the new museum
suffered in quality through the desire of Louis Philippe to bring his
achievement to immediate completion. He gave commissions right and
left, always with the stipulation that the artists _make haste_. But
many canvases of high merit, artistically and historically, still grace
the walls of these galleries.

Portraits of the four unmarried daughters of Louis XV have been
appropriately arranged by the present curator of Versailles, Monsieur
de Nolhac, in the apartments on the ground floor where Mesdames passed
most of their dull, insignificant lives. Nattier made flattering
representations of all of them, sometimes in the costume of
mythological characters. Both Nattier and the great La Tour portrayed
Marie Leczinska, the mother of Louis XV's ten children. Nattier's
likeness shows a smiling, matronly lady with sweet-tempered brown eyes,
seated in a chair, the face softened by a frill and a black lace scarf.
Many of the portraits at Versailles painted by Charles Lebrun, Madame
Vigee Lebrun, Jean-Baptiste and Michel Vanloo, Boucher, Largilliere,
Pierre Mignard, Rigaud, are familiar to us through frequent
reproduction.

In the years following the inauguration of the National Museum,
Versailles was once again the scene of ostentatious fetes in the halls,
gardens and splendid Opera House. When Louis Napoleon succeeded Louis
Philippe as head of the French nation, he came to Versailles with his
bride of three days, the beautiful Eugenie, to see the portraits of
Marie Antoinette, for whom the young Empress cherished a special
admiration.

On an August night in 1855, "the grand court of the chateau shone with
a brilliance resembling day. The profile of the great edifice was
outlined in small lights. In the gardens, arches and columns were
raised and the fountains showered rainbow torrents. The Hall of
Mirrors presented a spectacle whose splendor recalled nights when Louis
XIV strolled here in brocade and ruffles. Garlands hung from the
ceiling, thousands of lights reproduced themselves in the lofty mirrors
and shed scintillating floods upon the handsome costumes of the invited
ones." Thus the _Moniteur Universel_ described to its readers the
reception offered by the Emperor of France to Queen Victoria, the
Prince Consort and the future King of England. A few years later
Emperor Napoleon III commanded another fete amid the grandeurs of
Versailles, this time in honor of the King of Spain.

But the days and nights of royal spectacles at last came to an end--and
for all time. In the month of September, 1870, the chateau offered
refuge to German soldiers wounded in the short but bitter war with
France. In the _Oeil-de-Boeuf_, the Council Hall, the little
apartments of Louis XV and those of Marie Antoinete were placed four
hundred invalid cots. By October, Bismarck arrived in the town of
Versailles. During the next five months he resided on the Rue de
Provence, in the villa of Madame Jesse, widow of a prosperous cloth
manufacturer. His quarters were the center of diplomatic action during
the period that preceded the signing of the shameful peace terms.
January 18, 1871, the anniversary of the day on which the first king of
Prussia had crowned himself at Konigsberg (1701), was fixed for the
proclamation of William II as German Emperor, in the Hall of Mirrors.
In the phrase of a chronicler of that time, "It was impossible for the
boldest imagination to picture a more thorough revenge on the
traditional foes of Germany than the proclamation of the German Empire
in the storied palace of the Kings of France. With the shades of
Richelieu and the Grand Monarch looking down upon them did the Teutonic
chieftains raise as it were, their leader on their shields, and with
clash of arms and martial music acclaim him kaiser of a re-united
Germany." King William passed from the altar in the middle of the
Gallery to a platform at the end of the hall and there took his place
before the colors, surrounded "by a brilliant multitude of princes,
generals, officers and troops." When he had announced the
re-establishment of the Empire, and when Bismarck, "looking pale, but
calm and self-possessed," had read to the assemblage the Proclamation
to the German people, "the bands burst forth with the national anthem,
colors and helmets were wildly waved, and the Hall of Mirrors shook
with a tremendous shout that was taken up and swelled till the rippling
thunder-roll of cheers struck the ears of the startled watchers on the
walls of Paris," where roar of cannon night and day summoned the French
to surrender. Thus the German Empire was born at the very seat of
French Monarchy.

The armistice terms were signed at Versailles on the twenty-eighth day
of January. One month later the representative of stricken France and
Bismarck, sitting in the Chancellor's headquarters, affixed their
signatures to the Peace Preliminaries, by which France surrendered
Alsace (except Belfort) and Lorraine, and agreed to pay within three
years a war indemnity of five thousand million francs.[*]

After the departure of the Prussians from Versailles (March 12, 1871),
the Deputies of France arrived from Bordeaux, the temporary capital,
and lodged in the Hall of Mirrors, which then became a dormitory, as it
had on occasion been a hospital ward, a ball-room and the banqueting
hall of royalty.

The insurrection of the Commune of Paris compelled the ministers to
seek a place of security at Versailles. Once more the palace was
chosen as the seat of Government. The ground floor, the upper floor
and the attic, the picture galleries, even the vestibule of the Queen's
Stairway and the servants' quarters served as offices for ministers and
secretaries. The Department of Justice was installed in the Guards'
Hall, the _Oeil-de-Boeuf_ and the rooms of Marie Antoinette. The
Secretary of Public Works directed his affairs within walls that had
sheltered the nefarious Dubarry. The official _Journal_ was printed in
the palace kitchens. For several years the Opera House, the north
wing, and the intimate apartments of Louis XV were given over to the
National Assembly.

A Republican fete offered in 1878 by the president, Marshal MacMahon,
was attended by twelve thousand guests. Once more the fountains of the
north parterre were illuminated, but this time with electric bulbs
instead of oil lanterns. There were ingenious fireworks on the
_Tapis-Vert_ that would have astounded even the courtiers of the Grand
Monarch. In the _Galerie des Glaces_, Dussieux tells us, there was a
ball "not exclusively aristocratic, but nevertheless very gay and
animated."

Within the past forty years the treasury of the French Republic has not
infrequently been taxed for repairs at Versailles and Trianon. More
than a million francs were spent on the chapel alone. Improvements in
the park, including the restoration of the Basin of Neptune, the
Orangery and the Colonnade, cost another million.

"This Versailles," exclaims a French author, "does it not attract to
our country strangers without number, does it not lend lasting prestige
to the land of France? . . . Outside of the Invalides and the Louvre,
what edifices equal it in evoking the memorable periods with which they
are associated? What lasting respect do these annals of stone and
bronze merit from men of taste! These salons, gardens, statues, works
of art, attached irrevocably to the Past, bid us pause and ponder long
upon the matchless Story of Versailles."

[*]The final treaty of peace between France and Germany was signed in
the Swan Hotel at Frankfort, Germany, on May 10, 1871.

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