Fantastic Versailles

Imagination, fantasy, creativity, and surprise animate the park, the decorations, and even the furniture of Versailles. An original world with astonishing shapes attracts the eye to highlight the balance of the site, but also the monarchy which triumphs over monsters and hostile demonstrations. Pleasant and entertaining, this fantastic universe is also moralizing.

The universe, like the kingdom, is perpetually in search of balance. Natural or political forces confront each other, collide, and if providence is benevolent, end up in a state of just measure conducive to a harmonious life. This theme is deeply anchored in the way of perceiving what surrounds the men of the 17th century. From the garden to human actions, nothing escapes this order. Monsters, giants, and hybrid and chimerical beings populate literature, imagination, dreams, fountains, and paintings. They are there to warn humans against the primitive forces of nature and the elements, the brutal effects of passions, which stimulate and enthuse, but destroy if not controlled. Evil is everywhere and man must fight it, even in his evil inclinations. Amid the chaos, we must glimpse measure, knowledge, and truth, which alone triumph; “the honest man” will be able to understand this fantastic world, if he shows himself to be educated and wise as defined in The Princess of Cleves in 1678.

Value conquers all

A fantastic route runs along the north-south axis of the Garden of Versailles. Preserved from the numerous modifications that have occurred in the park over time, this route introduces the visitor to a world in its raw state with the Neptune Basin, an allegory of the primordial ocean. Only decorated under Louis XIV with elegant vases punctuating its upper part, the basin only saw its decoration completed under Louis XV. At the creation of the world, frightening deities, titans, and giants populated the earth. The sea monsters sculpted by Bouchardon between 1736 and 1740 help us understand these supernatural forces. The emblematic companions of Proteus and the Ocean are whales with foam-spitting nostrils, a narwhal, and a bellowing sea calf. They depict the fears faced with the liquid, dark element, and particularly distressing for the navigators of ancient times, the multiple stories of shipwrecks caused by monsters with incredible appearances in no way help the serene observation of the seafaring people. Nearby, evil is present in the form of a dragon, which refers to the immense serpent that pursued Latona, making her life hellish.

The staging of the Dragon Pond (1667-1682) shows us the moment when this striking beast agonizes under the arrows fired by cupids, which here evoke the fight of Apollo against the monster who harassed his mother. The Marsy brothers dramatized this sequence by making the horrible monster, a formidable monster, writhe in pain, which in a final death rattle, releases an agonizing howl, materialized by the highest jet of water in the park. The solar god has defeated the Python born from the bowels of the earth, now life can flourish in bliss. Along the alley of Water which goes up to the castle, the marble basins are supported by bronze children who gradually come to life, engaging in hunting, games, music, and dancing. Some bear witness to this passage, this arrival of freedom and a new state, still half-goat, half-fish, or sculpted in terms. Their bust is alive but their legs are sheath-shaped. They are in this in-between state, half-man, and half-column, like other statues in the garden, which are at the edge of the paths, at crossroads. They embody the memory of the god Terminus, an enigmatic divinity of the borders that could not move. These marmosets manifest a moment between matter and humanity: they are to be shaped. The end of this epic is happy and leads us up the hill to the Palace of the Sun.

​​However, let us remain vigilant because some dragons remain undefeated, as evidenced by Medea's thirst for revenge. The enchantress abandoned by Jason kills the children she had had with the leader of the Argonauts, rushes on her chariot harnessed to a dragon, and sets the earth on fire. Medea, hurt by the abandonment of her beloved, threatens to destroy everything in her path. She warns us against uncontrolled passions and the madness that love can arouse. In the salon of Venus, the goddess who triggers tender passions, extends her influence from the center of the ceiling painted by René Houasse in 1679. The garlands of flowers are the links of these effects that unite hearts, even to the great couples of history depicted in the corners of the living room. As a warning of the torments born of the hymen, there is at Medea's foot a harmless dragon, ready to grow, to roar; eyes already bloodshot, the furious animal is in the making.

Medusa, terrifying guardian

She is the best-known of the Gorgon sisters since Perseus cut off her head and used it to petrify his enemies who, as soon as they caught sight of her gaze, turned into statues. To impress adversaries, soldiers liked to adorn their breastplates or shields with the grimacing face and serpentine hair of the terrifying Medusa. At Versailles, it is visible on either side of the pediment which surmounts the King's bedroom, in the heart of the Marble Courtyard. It slips over many doors and, closest to the Sun King, on the shield of Louis XIV dressed in the Roman style by Jean Warin in the Salon de Vénus in 1672. A sculpture, whose reliefs executed with great virtuosity play with the light makes it appear on the landing of the Petit Trianon staircase. Medusa remains astonishing with her wrinkled forehead, open mouth, and visible tongue, but the finesse of Guibert's sculpture around 1765 favors the graceful and kind side of the "antique" over the striking impression of this monster that has become familiar.

This fantastic head is thus found on multiple occasions, in the Grande Galerie, on the breastplates of busts sculpted or in painting, on a doorknob in the wardrobe of Louis XVI, on the leads sculpted by Pierre Mazeline in the Grove of the Dômes 1679-1680, and in bronze ornaments. She's everywhere, we play at scaring each other but this Medusa isn't scary anymore!

The Sphynx has fascinated people since Antiquity

Among the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks, it is so common that we end up getting used to this improbable physique combining the body of a lion, a human face, and in certain myths, the wings of an eagle. Enigmatic if ever there was one (since the sphinx which guarded the road to Thebes and posed a “riddle” which became famous), it combines the bestial and human universe, a mixture of strength and intellect. Protector, he guards the sacred places, the funerary fields, and the precious spaces, like the pair of sphinxes created by Houzeau and Lerambert in 1667-1669, which provide access to the Parterre du Midi, straddled by putti indicating in turn heaven and earth.

Prized since the Renaissance for their decorative effects, sphinxes are elegant figures treated in all materials: in stucco in the Hall of Mirrors, in wood in the panels sculpted in 1784 by Rousseau in Marie-Antoinette's Golden Cabinet. Fine and slender, they are surpassed in vigor and strength by chimerical characters, like those sculpted in 1824 by Félix Remond to support the immense teak top of a table today visible in the Salon des Seigneurs of the Grand Trianon. Combining the earth (the lion's paws), the air (the wings), the water (the fish's tail), and the human face, this improbable creature only comes across in legendary stories, fantastic stories, and fortunately not in the gardens of Trianon!

Emerging deities and annihilated giants

Imagined during the Great Order of statues launched in 1674 and intended to adorn the park, a set of groups of deities emerging from their celestial or infernal world, embody the effects of passions.

Taking up the play of serpentiform figures honored since the Renaissance by John of Bologna but with the passion inspired by the baroque masterpieces of Cavalier Bernini, the sculpted groups representing scenes of kidnappings were to inspire amazement and shock. to the spectators. Finally installed on the floor of the orangery, and often moved, this series lost its cohesion but not its expressiveness. If Boreas and Orythia as well as Cybele and Saturn are today in the Louvre museum, in the museum rooms their impact has lessened, but Pluto and Proserpina, in the heart of the Colonnade grove, retain all their strength. The shock is strong and we feel the power of the gods and their excess when we contemplate the rapture of Proserpina (goddess of germination) by Pluto (god of the underworld). François Girardon sets in motion the kidnapping of Proserpina, frightened, screaming, and struggling but nothing can resist the impulse of the infernal Pluto. Cynée tries to intervene but lies upside down on the ground. Thanks to the high pedestal, decorated in a frieze with the story of this passion which triggered the alternation of the seasons, we find ourselves in the same position as Proserpina's unfortunate companion, incapable of acting, crushed by the monumentality of the god, of the marble, of the violent scene, of the fantastic moment forever petrified which plays out before us.

Enceladus, also hidden in a grove, bears witness to these supernatural events that we are allowed to relive. Sculpted by Gaspar Marsy and installed in 1676 in the heart of a pool surrounded by a fine trellis gallery, this giant, son of Gaia, goddess of the Earth, and Ouranos, personification of the Starry Sky, wanted to overthrow the gods of Olympus. Minerva stopped him by throwing an immense block of stone at him, Jupiter struck him down, and Enceladus perished under the rocks that formed Sicily. From its roaring mouth still exhales today, vapors and lava, this is the mythical origin of Etna. The unreal action always plays out in front of the park walker. At the end of a peaceful alley, a tremendously violent moment repeats itself eternally. The impact is as vivid as ever, and this deployment of lead and sandstone invites us to preserve the established balances, the place of each person in the universe, and their sphere of action. In a word, respect the powerful and do not seek to disrupt the order that governs our world.

The medieval imagination in the time of the Sun King

Ancient travelers recorded their encounters with a monoceros animal in Persia and India. Between horse and goat, with a narwhal horn on its forehead, the unicorn travels through the imagination and finds itself in famous hangings, and today one of them is in the King's grand apartment. Fierce, the unicorn can only be approached by virgins, being itself a symbol of purity, its horn can cure poisons and illnesses. Adorned with this virtuous symbolism, this animal is associated with temperance by Simon Vouet when he painted, in 1637-1638, coffers for the ceiling of Anne of Austria's bedroom at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. octagonal which also illustrates Justice, Strength, Prudence, and queenly virtues. Louis-Philippe places these paintings above the doors of the Salon de Mars. Temperance is part of this series, embodied by a female character holding a bit which allows a horse to be restrained. A cherub flies away with bridles, others pour water into a container that probably contains wine to attenuate its effects, we have here the symbols of this virtue. In addition to this great moral quality, Chastity or Virginity is present in the form of a beautiful white unicorn, wild, and fiery, with a valiant hoof, a characteristic quivering goat's beard, and a piercing eye. The animal has crossed the ages to take refuge with Louis XIV but in the 19th century... after all, aren't we in the Fable?

Pleasure of ornaments

This fascinating world slips into the decorations for the pure pleasure of ornament. To liven up the furniture, the ornamentals will draw singular beings whose bodies end in foliage, they metamorphose at the corners of the desks to see their feet reappear in the form of goats' hooves or lions' paws. André-Charles Boulle cuts his plates of copper, brass, tortoiseshell, or tinted horn, giving free rein to his fertile imagination. Its furniture conceals astonishing characters who seem to embody mischievous geniuses, grimacing and irreverent masks of supernatural forces. Earthiness serves as an ornament, and pieces of bravura are concentrated at the corners of his desks, tables, and chests of drawers. The gilded bronzes protect the plating while becoming exceptional sculpted pieces. Heads with abundant and tortuous beards and faces topped with large plumes, one would expect to see underneath the whole body of a caryatid, but these apparitions are ephemeral, these Atlanteans turn into a thin sinuous line and disappear into the dark wood of the furniture. They are particularly impressive in the corners of the first chests of drawers invented by Boulle for the bedroom of Louis braided, topped with a high headdress, adorned with a necklace falling on a bust that disappears into an exquisite volume of gilded bronze. This immaterial body ends with lion paw slippers, aesthetically providing solid support to these fictitious feet, the weight resting on screw tops.

This ability to create and innovate amazes us. The artists were able to draw on legends, mythological stories, and their imagination so that at every moment our gaze is captivated by what turns out to be a fantastic Versailles!

The snakes hiss over our heads

A symbol of caution, snakes do not leave us alone and are often terrible. Just look at the sculpted group of Laocoon placed in 1701 near Trianon-sous-Bois. Tuby, Rousselet, and Vigier joined forces to cut the marble reproducing the famous ancient group discovered in Rome in 1506, originally placed in Nero's Domus Aurea. During the Trojan War, this priest tried to dissuade his fellow citizens from trickingly bringing the abandoned horse into front of the city gates. The Aeneid teaches us about his unfortunate fate: Athena silences him by sending snakes to suffocate him and his two sons. It is an atrocious death that we are witnessing live.