Palace of Versailles

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Palace of Versailles is a French château and historic monument located in Versailles, in the Yvelines department. It was the principal residence of the French kings Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI. The king, the court and the government resided there on a permanent basis from 6 May 1682 to 6 October 1789, with the exception of the years of the Regency from 1715 to 1723. Commissioned by Louis XIV to glorify the French monarchy, the palace is the most important monument of his reign and one of the masterpieces of classical architecture. It exerted a great influence across Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the fields of architecture and the decorative arts. The palace consists of a complex ensemble of courtyards and building wings that preserve an architectural harmony. It covers 63,154 m², divided into 2,300 rooms, of which 1,000 are assigned to the Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. The palace grounds cover 815 hectares, compared with more than 8,000 hectares before the French Revolution, including 93 hectares of gardens. They comprise many features, among them the Petit and Grand Trianon (which was the residence of Napoleon I, Louis XVIII, Charles X, Louis-Philippe I, and Napoleon III), the Hameau de la Reine, the Grand and Petit Canal, a menagerie (now demolished), an orangery and the Swiss Lake. Among the most visited sites in Europe, the site lies at the heart of discussions on the management of overtourism.