When I first heard of the Vanisha- Amit wedding, I wondered why the father of the bride (steel baron Lakshmi Mittal) had selected a 16th century château as the venue. How could a bland palace, with no canopies (chhatris), balconies (jharokhas) or any other remote Indian elements host a six-day long traditional Indian affair?
My questions were answered when we visited the Château de Versailles (henceforth referred to as Versailles) one cold day. The palace may not have chhatris and jharokhas, but it has an element that is pivotal for Indian ceremonies - gold. And what’s a wedding without any bling? Visitors to the château are greeted by the Gate of Honour, an ornately decorated golden gate set bang in the middle of a golden grilled fence. If you think that was too much gold (like I did at that time), wait till you walk in. The fancy golden gate is just a teaser of the opulence inside the palace.
Louis XIV decided to set up both his home and court at Versailles so he began to convert his father's hunting lodge into a château and worked on expanding the grounds. He got the gardens landscaped, built new pavilions and added an opera theatre and a chapel just in time for his successor’s (Louis XVI) wedding with Marie Antoinette. The relatively poor Louis XVI had very little money to work with, so he and his queen did then what builders do now - raze a portion of the gardens to build a small hamlet, where they could ‘play act’ as peasants. Oh and by the way, all this remodelling and landscaping was happening while France was in a major financial crisis. The commoners got majorly peeved, and off began the French revolution. No king ever dared to live in the chateau after the French revolution, although Napolean Bonaparte re-established the Grand Trianon near Versailles as his home. Whew!
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| The small chapel in the chateau |
Versailles is basically the result of the kings splurging wealth in the most blasphemous manner to proclaim the greatness of the French monarchy, all the while turning a blind eye to the suffering populace. This is evident when one enters the private chambers of the royals, for the chambers seem to be touched by King Midas himself. The sight of walls covered in brocade (yes, the fabric) and the interiors of the King’s private apartments (think golden fireplace, golden furniture etc) not only made me sick, but also made me reach out for my sunglasses.
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| A small glimpse of the amount of gold in various corners of the chateau |
To top it all, the functionality of the rooms in the king’s chambers are simply preposterous! There are rooms where courtiers would watch the king play billiards, dress for an audience and even eat food.‘Ceremonial practices’ of the king included the courtiers watching him sleep and wake up. The sycophant courtiers would then extol the virtues of the king and the perfection of every activity he performed. I somehow associated the kings with Donald Trump, and the chateau with his Fifth Avenue apartment - any guesses why😜 ?
The sycophancy of the courtiers seems to live on in the audio guides, which drone on and on about the ‘greatness’ of the rulers. You can listen to the activities of the king and how he built one room specifically for a painting and one room especially as a temple to Apollo or something, but nowhere will you hear anything about what the king did for his people. I’d heard about whitewashing history, but man, Versailles paints over history with gold, much like its rulers!
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| The room with a modest amount of gold! |
But not all the royals were narcissists. Louis XVI’s cousin, Louis Phillippe I, who was a great supporter of the French Revolution, tore down useless chambers of princes and dukes to create Galeries des Batailles, a 120 m long gallery filled with 33 paintings chronicling the history of France through its military events. Taking a round of this gallery while reading the descriptions of the paintings gave us a quick glimpse of French history. There is probably no room in Versailles which doesn’t have gold, but the gold work in this gallery is done very subtly and tastefully on the ceilings, cornices and the pillars. But even Louis Philippe I was eager to show off, so instead of putting his portrait, he carved his monogrammed initials on the walls, so you will see a lot of ‘LP’ everywhere!
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| Galeries des Batailles |
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| The ceiling in the Galeries des Batailles |
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| Can you spot the LP? |
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| An example of a painting in the Galeries des Batailles |
Another beautiful room is the ‘Hall of Mirrors’, a seventy-metre long hall decorated with elaborate glass chandeliers, golden sculpted lamp posts and ceiling-to-floor arched mirrors. This highly reflective hall has evolved from being a passage to the chapel for the royal family to the site where historical events, such as the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, took place. The only oddities in this entire hall were the marble statues of Diana, the Goddess of Hunt, akin to the one found in the Louvre. A bit of twisted history possibly explains this anomaly - apparently during a costume party, Louis XV first met his future mistress, Madame Pompadour, who was dressed as Diana, and fell in love with her. The king’s priorities aren’t as gold-tinted as they seem, I guess -the wife got a gaudy golden chamber, but the mistress got beautiful statues in the best room of the entire chateau, overlooking the gardens!
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| The Hall of Mirrors |
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| (l-r) A chandelier, Diana and a carved lamp holder in the hall of mirrors |
Stretching on seemingly into the horizon, the well-manicured gardens of Versailles are really the best part of the entire estate. Spread over 800 hectares, the gardens comprise geometric groves, bronze-sculpted musical fountains and French gardens. The gardens, designed by Andre Le Notre, are green marvel and are believed to be the fountainhead for manicured gardens all over Europe. The waterwork technology is so sturdy that till date, Le Notre’s manual drainage system is used for the fountains.
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| The manicured gardens. To the left is the orangerie |
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| The views in the gardens! |
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| This was my favourite picture! |
But apparently Louis XIV did tire of maintaining this large estate as well as the country of France, so he decided to build a smaller ‘palace’ in the village of Trianon, slightly away from the chateau in Versailles. The result was the Grand Trianon, a chateau exclusively for the king, his chief mistress and closest courtiers.
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| The Grand Trianon |
I’m guessing it was dishonourable for Louis XIV’s successors to use the Grand Trianon as a retreat, for I see no reason as to why the Petit Trianon (a small chateau) was built. Come on man!
History has its reasons though - Louis XV wanted a separate place for his mistress and got the Petit Trianon built in the lawns of the Grand Trianon. The said mistress, however, died before the chateau could be completed (take a hint, XV!), so the king promptly presented the Petit Trianon to her successor, Madame Du Barry. The French do have a twisted concept of love!
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| The Petit Trianon |
The most ‘celebrated’ occupant of the Petit Trianon, however, was Marie Antoinette, the queen who acquired the property as a new bride. This chateau became the queen’s retreat and nobody, not even the king was permitted to visit her during her stay. The queen had her own sense of style, and decorated the chateau with her own small flourishes.
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| (clockwise from left) The Temple of Love, the pavilion and the French Pavilion |
For her love of flowers a French pavilion was built in the garden opposite the Petit Trianon and for her amusement a model village was built nearly a kilometer from the Petit Trianon where she could ‘play act’ being a peasant.
The Hameau De La Reine or the Queen’s hamlet is a tiny little village by the banks of a small lake. There are cosy cottages, mills, towers, stables and also a charming bridge connecting the two banks of the lake, basically all components of a French village. But there’s a twist - nobody ever lived in the cottages or operated the mill. The farm was the only part of the hamlet that was fully functional.
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| The Queen's Hamlet |
According the Versailles history, the hamlet was built for the King and Queen to give their children a glimpse of village life. According to other sources, the hamlet was another retreat for the queen where she, along with her friends, would pretend to be a peasant and just hang out in the farm, milking cows and whatnot. She apparently found peasant life to be idyllic, but clearly the real French peasants didn’t and their resentment for her grew. I personally thought that the dear Queen was delusional, but you’re free to pick whatever version of history you want and analyse it!
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| A sculpture of the Queen as a peasantwoman, I think? |
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| Isn't this a homely view? |
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| A cottage in the Queen's hamlet |
Surprisingly this hamlet, despite it convoluted history, was my favourite part of Versailles. Away from the sheen of all the gold and the claustrophobic chateau, the hamlet is a welcome, almost rejuvenating change. All we did there (after a quick tour) was sit by the lake, watch mandarin ducks swim by, take a couple of photographs and just look at the jet-patterned sky, reflecting on our day. Who knew that a day that had begun in the chaos of gold would end with us observing nature in all her glory?
Ending our day in the hamlet was in a way a precursor to the remainder of our Europe trip, for after soaking ourselves in baroque and modern architecture for over ten days, we were to spend the next two days in the lap of the Alps in Annecy & Geneva. More on that next week!
P.S: A very Happy Christmas to you all :-)
Tips:
- Read your history before going to Versailles - all the history on the site is whitewashed.
- Head to the Hall of mirrors and Gallery of Battles first - they are the most-visited part of the chateau, and presumably, fill up soon.
- Entry to the gardens is free, so i’d recommend having a picnic, Blyton-style, in the lawns of Versailles. That way you can see the lawns and bask in nature, and also avoid the exorbitantly priced restaurants in the gardens!
- Walking through the gardens can be a daunting task, but a handy map at the estate provides a perfect route to enable visitors to easily navigate through all the highlights of the garden. Follow the route!
- For the tired, there are battery-operated toy trains which take you all the way to the Grand Trianon, but the route they follow are rather odd, so....check them out first!
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