Versailles Note sheet The Palace was originally a hunting lodge for Louis XIII.

In the 1680s Louis XIV made it the official household of the King of France. The Palace served the following purposes: 1. A model of rational order 2. A symbol of French power 3. A tool of State Policy

1. Louis XIV, took a great interest in Versailles. He had grown up in the disorders of the civil war between rival factions of aristocrats called the Fronde, and wanted a site where he could organize and completely control a government of France by absolute personal rule 2. Following the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678, the court and French government began to be moved to Versailles. The court was officially established there on 6 May 1682..

3. By requiring that nobles of a certain rank and position spend time each year at Versailles,
Louis prevented them from developing their own regional power at the expense of his own and kept them from countering his efforts to centralize the French government in an absolute monarchy.

4. The King used architecture to awe his subjects and foreign visitors. 5. Under Louis XIV French became the language of diplomacy replacing Latin as the language of international scholarship and learning. 6. The etiquette of the French court was copied by the other Royal Courts of Europe: 7. As the centralizing organization of modern national government formulated by Richelieu was perfected by Louis XIV and his advisors, other European states hastened to copy it A. followed the French model in administration and particularly in military affairs (which is why some American government and military vocabulary, such as bureau, personnel, and materiel, are still French

8. When Peter I of Russia structured a new, Western-style government for Russia, he visited Versailles in a "Grand Embassy" and later decided to build a residence in the outskirts of Saint Petersburg. He had the Peterhof complex of buildings, gardens, and parks built. 6. Ludwig II of Bavaria commissioned a nearly identical copy of Versailles, Herrenchiemsee, to be built on an island on the bucolic Chiemsee lake in the countryside of Bavaria. His funds ran out too soon, but the central portion was finished, along with its own hall of mirrors, and formal French gardens were planted around it. 7. In the courts of Germany, several Versailles-like palaces were constructed, including Schloss Wilhelmshhe at Kassel, Schloss Augustusburg in Brhl, Ludwigsburg, Schloss Schleissheim and the Residenz in Wrzburg. Many others still stand, tiny and often exquisite little palaces that once ruled their postage-stamp principalities.