The Story of Versailles

by Francis Loring Payne

In the years following the inauguration of the National Museum, Versailles was once again the scene of ostentatious fêtes 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 Eugénie, 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 château 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 fête 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 Jessé, 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 fête 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."