Château de Versailles

Continuation of our primary Paris entry!

Our first full day in Paris last November saw Ashley and I boarding a train from a Metro station towards the village of Versailles. Today a suburb of Paris, the Château de Versailles originally seemed slightly less imposing than one might have imagined.

It certainly seemed that way to me as we approached up the wide streets towards the front. Actually, having had the advantage of personally visiting many such palaces and great places of state, Versailles seemed to me to be much smaller and less grand than I would have imaged. The former royal hunting lodge whose expansion is most closely tied to King Louis XIV did not disappoint, however.

From the Hall of Mirrors and royal apartments, Versailles is truly a gorgeous work of art from a true pinnacle in European achievement. Ashley and I both are always ensured to get goosebumps when we stand in the presence of historic and important locations throughout the world. Here, we briefly shared the same spaces as so many colourful people whose minds raced with decisions and notions we are still reminded of today. It was in the Hall of Mirrors that this feeling began to strike me in earnest, having studied the history of the whole of Versailles so closely years ago.

It was also here that we were treated to our first view of the Estate of Versailles. From the gilded windows in the Hall, one has an unhindered and commanding view of the Gardens and the Grand Canal, the far end of which must be at least a kilometer away from the Palace.

In the above photo, one can see past the Veilhan Versailles modern art installations towards the Gardens and Canal. At the extreme far end of the view in the photo, the apparent edge of the water is the distance end of a monumental watery cross. The arm that appears to be stretching off towards the right abuts the Grand Trianon, much further through endless vistas of landscaped beauty.

When I was younger, my grandparents Walt and Bertie would take me to various beautifully landscaped gardens all across America. At the time, I believed that humans manipulating the natural world seemed rank and insulting to the beauty of the Earth as it is. At a place like Versailles, however, it is hard to remain uninspired by the delicate and intricate avenues and gardens.

This is especially true of the Grand and Petit Trianons, two smaller palaces nestled in the forests and fields that once fed the inhabitants of Versailles. During the Republic, Napoleon declared that the Palace of Versailles belonged to the people, but himself stayed in the pink-marbled halls of the Grand Trianon.

Marie-Antoinette’s Estate and the Queen’s Hamlet were nearby, brought more to life for me by the recent viewing of Sofia Coppolla’s Marie Antoinette. Here the grounds were more organic, landscaped in a more natural manner. They were, of course, not untamed. Just simply cultivated in the style of the period to provide the illusion of an English rose garden.

By far the favourite gem of the Versailles Estate for both Ashley and myself was the Queen’s Hamlet. Believing she was following Enlightenment philosophy, Marie-Antoinette essentially created one of the world’s first theme parks. Here at the Hameau de la Reine, the Queen and her ladies ‘collected’ already-cleaned eggs from chickens and milked docile cows with porcelain bowls painted to resemble wood. While Marie-Antoinette could for a time escape to her ersatz Normandy farm, she eventually couldn’t escape the truth of her frivolity, nor, apparently, could she the blade.

Eventually, after a chilly day walking through only a small portion of Versailles, Ashley and I began the long hike back to the train station to return to Paris for the evening, our heads and hearts full of the essential pull of history, tranquility, and strife at the Château de Versailles.