CHAPTER XLVI.
VERSAILLES.
Derivation of the Name—Saint-Simon’s Description—Louis XIV.—The Grand Fête of July, 1668—Peter the Great and the Regent—Louis XV.—Marie Antoinette and the “Affair of the Necklace”—The Events of October, 1789.
A DESCRIPTION of the suburbs of Paris does not enter into the scope of the present work. Versailles, however, imperatively claims the attention of any writer on Paris, for Versailles is more than a suburb; it has, during the last two centuries, played almost as important a part in the annals of France as the capital itself.
The history of the town of Versailles is practically inseparable from that of its palace. Originally, indeed, the town was simply a dependency of the palace. In spite of its numerous historical associations, Versailles is comparatively modern. It sprang up suddenly, like the palace itself, by the will of Louis XIV. Its streets were opened and laid out so as to be in harmony with the façades of the palace, while the style and form of each building were regulated beforehand by police edicts. Hence the grand but monotonous aspect of the town.
The name of Versailles is derived, by some authorities, from that of an Italian nobleman, Hugo de Bersaglio, who at the end of one of the earliest of the Italian civil wars took refuge in France. By a familiar etymological change, the B became converted into V, and the name was further transformed from Versaglio into Versailis. Towards the year 1100, the proprietor of the land, Philippe de Versailis, retired to a monastery, and the district of Versailles then passed beneath the authority of the Abbey of Saint-Magloire at Paris.
A purely fantastic and not too ingenious derivation traces the name to “Blés versés,” the land at Versailles being, according to these enterprising etymologists, so high that the wind blew down the corn.
Henry IV. had a small hunting-box at Versailles, and Louis XIII. had another on a far more magnificent scale, which Saint-Simon in his “Memoirs” describes as a castle. It was a square building with a courtyard in the middle, and, according to the fashion of the time, was built of brick. The king’s horses and carriages were kept at a neighbouring farm. It was at Versailles, on the 11th of November, 1630, that the memorable day known in French history as the “Day of Dupes” took place on which, after a long struggle between Cardinal Richelieu and the queen-mother, Louis XIII. took part with his powerful minister. The “red Eminence,” as the much-feared cardinal was called, gave his name to one of the most ancient streets in Versailles, the Rue du Plessis.
After the death of Louis XIII., Versailles and the little castle of brick were abandoned by the court, and it was not until some twenty years afterwards that the Versailles of modern times was to arise. Strictly speaking, Versailles may be said to date from the reign of Louis XIII., but it owed its first importance to Louis XIV. This king, says an historian, “began by building a palace for himself; he then built a town for his palace.” To mark the distinction between the king and his subjects, the Great Monarch, while employing stone for his own royal residences, ordered that the houses of Versailles should be constructed exclusively of brick, or, if by exception stone were used, that the walls should be painted red, with dividing lines of white, so as to give them the appearance of bricks and mortar. The roof of each house was to be of slate, and the uniformity of the architecture, relieved by the verdure of the old trees, gave to the town a character and beauty of its own. Land was ceded to the principal members of the Court that they might build houses for themselves, and the new town grew up, as if by enchantment, on a general plan designed or approved by the king himself.
To study the history of Versailles one should turn to the pages of Saint-Simon, who, in vigorous terms, condemns the reckless extravagance with which Louis XIV. wasted on a pleasure-residence money urgently wanted for the maintenance of his troops.
“When all had been finished,” says the duke, “it appeared that water was everywhere wanting; and this in spite of the millions which had been spent in establishing seas of reservoirs on mud and moving sand. Who would have thought it? This lack of water proved the ruin of the king’s infantry. Madame de Maintenon[{339}] was in power. The minister, De Louvois, was on the best terms with her, and we were at peace. It occurred to him under these circumstances to turn the course of the river Eure between Chartres and Maintenon, and to conduct it to Versailles. Who can say what gold and what suffering this experiment cost us? It was forbidden under the severest penalties to speak, among the troops employed to turn the stream, about the sickness, the deaths caused by the exhalations from the ancient bed of the river. How many took years to recover from the contagion! How many never regained health at all! The officers, colonels, brigadiers, and others employed were not allowed, whoever they might be, to absent themselves for a quarter of an hour, nor to rest for a quarter of an hour at their work.