The Palace of Versailles in numbers

When France’s King Louis XIII died at the age of 41 in 1643, the monarchy passed to the eldest of his two children, Louis XIV, who was just four years old at the time. As the new king was far too young to rule over his 19 million subjects his mother, Anne, served as regent until Louis XIV’s coronation at the age of 15. King Louis XIV then ruled for 72 years and 110 days, until his death in 1715.

King Louis XIV was known as the “Sun King” as he reigned over a period of great prosperity in France. The Sun King personified this prosperity and spent the equivalent of around £1.5 billion in today’s money turning the Palace of Versailles into a decadent royal residence. The Palace served as the principal royal residence of France for 107 years, from 1682 until the start of the French Revolution in 1789.

The Palace is located approximately 12miles away from the centre of Paris, in Yvelines. The Palace and its surrounding grounds cover an area of 2,014 acres, making it the largest Royal Domain in the world. The Palace itself has over 60,000 square meters of floorspace, and can hold up to 20,000 people, who can peer out of 2,000 windows, light fires to fill the 1,250 chimneys, and climb up 67 staircases. The sheer size of the palace meant that during Louis XIV’s reign, up to 3,000 royals, courtesans, ministers, and servants could live there at any given time. Some estimates say that maintaining the palace, including feeding its huge number of occupants, may have, at times, cost up to 25% of the entire French government income.

Of the 700 rooms in Versailles, perhaps the most famous is the Hall of Mirrors. The Hall of Mirrors is 73m long, and contains 357 mirrors within 17 arches positioned opposite the hall’s windows. These mirrors were a great luxury and were meant to demonstrate that France could rival the Venetian monopoly on mirror manufacturing. And the mirrors aren’t the only impressive thing in the hall. The vaulted ceiling has 30 painted compositions depicting Louis XIV’s political successes, and 43 solid silver chandeliers, which would have held 1,000 candles. In fact, the Hall of Mirrors is so impressive that French presidents continue to receive official guests there.

In 1979, the Palace of Versailles was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, due to its influence on the development of architecture and landscape design, its unique historical testimony and the fact it is representative of a specific period of history and art history. Since then the Palace has become one of the most visited historic sites in the world, welcoming around 10million tourists each year. I hope that one day I will be one of them as I would really like to see it in all its glory, and reading these blogs just makes me want to go more!

Comments

  1. JeanieDecember 1, 2020 at 8:23 AM

    Love it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. BridgetDecember 1, 2020 at 2:08 PM

    Wow! Some of these numbers are gobsmacking. You can be tourist 10,000,001 some year

    ReplyDelete

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