Palace of Versailles - The Cour de Marbre and the Appartement du Roi

Reference : FR036

POSTCARD AVAILABLE FOR TRADE
Size : 10 x 15 cm

"Versailles et ses merveilles - Le château : la cour de Marbre et l'appartement du Roi".

Location of VERSAILLES in FRANCE

The Palace of Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles, the Île-de-France region of France. In French, it is known as the Château de Versailles.

When the château was built, Versailles was a country village ; today, however, it is a suburb of Paris, some twenty kilometers southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the center of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime. One of the largest, it is also considered one of the most beautiful palaces in the world.

The appartement du roi is the suite of rooms in the Palace of Versailles that served as the living quarters of Louis XIV. Overlooking the cour de marbre, these rooms are situated in the oldest part of the chateau in rooms originally designated for use by the queen in Louis XIII’s chateau. Owing largely to discomfort of the grand appartement du roi and to the construction of the Hall of Mirrors, Louis XIV began to remodel these rooms for his use shortly after the death of Maria Theresa in 1684. The appartement du roi evolved to become the everyday working quarters for Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Initially, the appartement du roi consisted of a suite of eight rooms that issued from the Queen’s staircase (escalier de la reine). The number would later be reduced to seven after 1701 ; and in 1755 the number would reduced again to six.

UNESCO w.h.s. :
Palace and Park of Versailles

Date of inscription : 1979

The Palace of Versailles was the principal residence of the French kings from the time of Louis XIV to Louis XVI. Embellished by several generations of architects, sculptors, decorators and landscape architects, it provided Europe with a model of the ideal royal residence for over a century.