Smoke and Mirrors

Day 18 Wed 15th Jan

In visiting Chateau Versaille or the Palace of Versaille on the outskirts of Paris I was particularly interested in the connections of the chateau with the Revolution and a memorial to the Treaty of Versaille (signed in the Hall of Mirrors) the final treaty ended World War I on 28 June 1919.

I was disappointed on both counts with no focus on these events.

Another major treaty was signed at the Palace and was also not evident in the exhibitions. This was the treaty which involved the diplomacy of Benjamin Franklin between The United States and France committing France to enter the side of the United States against the English.  The French committed 6000 men and a lot of resources but 5 years later, when the war was won, the French State was bankrupt.  This was a major contributing factor to the mood towards Revolution.

Hall of Mirrors

The Palace was originally a hunting lodge util transformed by the Sun-King Louis XIV into a mega-palace with up to 10000 residents.  On 5 Oct a crowd of mainly women stormed the palace and Queen Marie Anoinette and King Louis XVI were taken to Paris under house arrest never to return.  

Opening of Estates Generale 1789

In 1789 Louis XVI had summoned the Estates General, an assembly of the three orders or classes – Nobility, Clergy and Third Estate (commoners) – that alone could decide to levy new taxes and undertake the reform of the country. The assembly of 1200 opened at Versailles on 5 May 1789 and none of the 3 estates were happy (especially the commoners) with what the King proposed.  On in Versailles also marked the beginning of the French Revolution.  

Overall I found the grandioise palace built on the suffering of the French people a little hard to stomach.  The oppression of the people by the French monarchy was unremarkable at the time and it is a wonder that the Palace was not destroyed , like the Bastille, in the Revolution.