After breakfast, we went straight to
Versailles. Versailles is actually not located in the city, but the suburb area. This was actually done on purpose. When Louis XIV ordered to build this palace, Louvre was actually the main palace where nobles lived in. Louis XIV thought that this place has got too crowded and too dangerous (as the palace was located at the middle of the city,) so he decided to move out. Thus, The Palace of Versailles was created.
Louis XIV started the construction, but it's not until Louis the XV got to the throne when the palace had finished building. Louis the XV enjoyed the life in the palace until his death. Then it came to Louis the XVI, the last king before French revolution happened. This is why there was a famous quote, and it pretty much goes like: "Louis XIV built the palace, XV enjoyed the life there, and XVI paid the price."
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| The front of the palace. It's huge and golden. |
There were a lot of people already in line. Good thing was that the line moved pretty fast so we got in after a while. The first things people asked for was bathroom. I think the breakfast had something bad in it as many ran for the bathroom. I was one of them, and after I finished my business, I realized that I pooped in a palace where nobles used to live, and I felt glorious, very glorious. Now I can tell people " I shitted in Palace of Versailles."
That aside, we started touring. Like many of the palaces we visited, there were many rooms, but only several were open. The main topic for the tour was the life of Louis the XIV, as he was the one who had a lot to do with this place. Louis XIV apparently had really long, wavy hair, and he was really proud of it. Many of the paintings, statues, or sculptures emphasize his long hair.
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Louis XIV in Roman warrior's outfit.
He really liked this apparently. |
This guy was such a narcissist. He not only loved his long hair but also his entire look. He called himself the Sun King and compared himself to Apollo, the Sun God. Well, he compared himself to the god of sun, but little did he know that his grandson became more of Icarus.
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| Another one of his portraits. |
We walked from the west wing (I think), through the Hall of Mirrors, to the west wing. Then we moved to the garden in the back. I'll just show some pictures.
Back then, they changed the decoration for each room when season changed (remember there are thousands of rooms.) In summers, they used things like silk to decorate; in winters, heavy carpet/linen was used to block out the cold. These are not like what we use today. They went bad (due to mold/tear) so fast so that they had to exchange them often. And you know royal people would not use cheap stuff. This all happened while the people were starving. No wonder revolution happened.
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| The chapel royals used. |
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| Nice paintings on the ceiling. |
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| I just wanna take this picture so I can link this. |
Okay, so this room deserves some words. During French Revolution, the rebels stormed this palace, and they started burning everything. However, soon enough they realized "wait a second......we burn shit down and we got nothing back! WE SHOULD FUCKING SELL THESE SHITS INSTEAD!!!!" So they grabbed whatever they can see, furniture, art pieces, people, whatever and sell them outside.
After a long time, the French government actually tried to purchase all the stolen stuff back to restore the old look of Versailles, but they don't know what belongs to which room, except this one. They found that all the furniture share the same patterns as the fire place. Since the fire place was not movable, the rebels couldn't take it, so they let it be. Therefore, this room is claimed to be the only room that has the full set of what was supposed to be here before the revolution.
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| Look at the swirls on the furniture |
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| Then compare the patterns to the fire place. |
This following painting shows the crown of Queen Josephine, Napoleon's wife. There are actually two of the same paintings, one here, and the other in Louvre. This painting describes what happened during the crowning of Napoleon and Josephine. The paint is called
Le Sacre de Napoléon, or the "Coronation of Napoleon". The tour guide thinks that it should be called the Coronation of Josephine because it's actually showing Josephine, not Napoleon. However, I have a theory.
Back then, the crowning of a king is done by the Pope. Since Catholicism was the main religion and sometimes treated higher than the kingship, Pope was always the one doing the crowning. The kings, of course, are not so happy about it.
"I'm the king. Why should I still listen to you?" Is usually what the kings thought. Napoleon went further. Remember Napoleon wasn't born in a royal family. He was just a great general who gained so much popularity, and he fought so hard in every battle to get to where he was. Therefore, he was like "all you priests are completely useless. Why are you so mighty? When it comes to war, you still need people like me to fight for you. You don't deserve to crown me!" So he basically took the crown and crowned himself as king. The painter, Jacques-Louis David, doesn't want to piss off the religious people too much, so he, with help of hundred of his students, painted the crowning of Josephine instead of Napoleon even though the name of the painting is still "Coronation of Napoleon."
There are two of these. One here and one in Louvre. These two are supposed to be identical, but to tell the difference, Jacques-Louis made a minor alteration. Check out the bottom left corner where five girls are standing. One of them is wearing pink dress while the other four are wearing white. This pink dress shows that this one is the second one being painted. Remember, both are real and painted by the same people. The difference is only for telling which one comes first.
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| Coronation of Napoleon |
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| Back outside |
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| Must be expensive to build this. |
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| Backyard (huge), it started raining so there weren't many pictures. |
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| This gives an idea how big this place is. |
There are actually many other pictures about the rooms and palace, but I guess I'm not gonna save them to save some space on my blog.
Next stop: Louvre, Moulin Rouge, Arch of Triumph, Champs Elysees
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