Versailles at the time of Louis XIII

In 1619, Louis XIII once again turned his attention to Versailles, the place where, when he was younger, he had already hunted. After six to eight years of searching, he finally found what he can call his “home”. At the top of the hill overlooking the town, he built a main building: the first Versailles was born.

By Jean-Claude Le Guillou, historian

In the spring of 1615, Louis XIII inherited a beautiful house with a garden and park bequeathed to him by Queen Marguerite, Duchess of Valois, and the first wife of her father, Henri IV.

Looking for a house

For the young king, this house, located south of Paris in the parish of Issy, was a godsend. Indeed, as he is soon to get married, he sees the opportunity to make it a residence where he can retire from time to time with his future wife, or even possibly alone, to escape the oppression exercised over him by the queen's mother, Marie de Medici.

However, although he accepted the legacy, he couldn't enjoy it immediately because he was then obliged to concentrate on the preparations for the trip which would take him to Bordeaux, where his marriage was to be celebrated.

Leaving the Louvre on August 17, 1615, married on November 25 with the Infanta Anne of Austria, he did not return to Paris until May 16, 1616. For him, the wait had lasted long enough. So, on May 26, he rushed to take possession of the house: “Get in a carriage and go to Issy to see one of the houses of the late Queen Marguerite. » He returned there the next day, then again on the 30th to “work on his lawn” and again on June 8 where he had fun preparing an omelet in the kitchen.

Unfortunately, the queen mother, believing that her son's attitude constitutes an intolerable manifestation of independence, claims that the house of Issy must be used to pay off the debts of the late Queen Marguerite, and, consequently, she forces him to sell the park on July 9, then the house and gardens sometime later.

Having been dispossessed of Issy, Louis XIII sought compensation by turning his gaze, at the end of 1616, towards the suburbs of the north-west of Paris, particularly on three gaps in the parishes of Clichy and Villiers where he bought three small houses named “Courcelles”, “la Planchette” and “Les Ternes”. He came there with pleasure several times in December 1616 and had minor work done there. But at the beginning of the following year, he gave it up, probably still under maternal influence.

Then came the day of May 3, 1617, during which the king, increasingly exasperated by the omnipresence of his mother, firmly freed himself from it by exiling her to the castle of Blois, after having deprived her of the support of his favorite Concini, assassinated on April 24.

The day after the departure of the queen mother, the king left for the Château de Vincennes where a recently built home could perhaps become the residence he was looking for. But eastern Paris does not suit him. Decidedly preferring the western region, at the end of summer, he set his sights on the Château de Madrid, on the borders of the Bois de Boulogne. This time, as he was finally able to use the funds allocated to the royal buildings as he wished, he had significant restoration and development work carried out there. Everything was completed at the beginning of the year 1618, the king went there on Friday, January 19, and “visited all the accommodation in the castle, had it himself marked for lodging there”. Then the following Tuesday, accompanied by his wife, he “went to Madrid to stay there, it was the first time.” They stayed there for ten days, until February 1st. But such a residence, a little too royal, does not exactly correspond to the idea of ​​retirement that Louis XIII had deep down.

Hunting in Versailles

It was then that he remembered a place where he hunted as a child, and where he returned by chance in September 1617 while hunting in Maisons-sur-Seine: “The deer crosses the water [ the Seine] and the king also fords the river there and goes to Versailles. »

In February 1619, the name of Versailles reappeared, intentionally this time, on the occasion of a great hunt organized by the king in honor of Prince Victor-Amédée of Piedmont-Savoy, who had just married Princess Christine of France, sister of the king. This hunt led them "to the plain of Versailles where they stole from everything and took everything, chased the hare with greyhounds, there where the king's dog, a little pointer called Bonne-piece, stopped a partridge which she took by the foot thus let it rise to fly away.”

After this hunt, we find the king at Versailles on November 23 of the same year: “Arrived at Versailles at nine o'clock, where he dined at ten […]. At noon gets on horseback, leaves Versailles, and hunting, arrives at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. » Likewise on February 15, 1621, still for a hunt followed by a dinner.

At this time, Versailles therefore began to hold a notable place among the king's activities. So much so that he decided to buy the seigneurial warren there, that is to say, a small reserve of small game (1).

From then on, we see him, attentive to his hunting rights, issuing regulations and drawing up an exhaustive list of people authorized to hunt on the land; in this case himself, the lord of Glatigny, the priest of Buc, the lieutenant of the provost of L'Isle and four inhabitants of the place. He already suppressed cases of poaching there, and in a more serious matter, on May 31, 1622, he ordered an investigation to shed light on the subject of the villainous murder perpetrated against the “guard of [his] warren of Versailles”.

The first house of Louis XIII at Versailles

This time, the die is cast: the personal house he has hoped to own for seven or eight years will be in Versailles. Certainly, there is a stately manor there that he could have purchased; but as this manor is enclosed in the middle of the town, its location is inconvenient; moreover, it is occupied by several families of villagers who rent the rooms and the garden to the lord of the place, Jean-François de Gondi, archbishop of Paris.

Under these conditions, the king decided to build his own house, and for this, he chose land which, being outside the lordship of Gondi, fell within the lordship of the Saint-Julien Priory of Versailles. For Louis XIII, this feudal particularity presented a serious advantage since the lordship of Saint-Julien was a “free fief” dependent directly on the King of France and, therefore on himself.

The chosen location is the top of the hill overlooking the town of Versailles. The space the king needs consists of only three hectares of cultivated land, as well as a small mound on which a windmill is built. At the end of the summer of 1623, His Majesty requisitioned the property without paying anything to the six owners concerned but promising to compensate them later.

As the house he built there would be isolated, and therefore exposed to brigandage, or even attacks, Louis XIII wanted to give it the characteristics of a fortified house resting on a bastioned platform. In more detail, the house will have the shape of a quadrilateral made up of a main building, two return wings, and a surrounding wall, leaving a square courtyard in the middle. As a precaution, all exterior windows on the ground floor will be protected by large iron bars. As for the platform, punctuated by four bastions, it will be surrounded by four-pointed star military-type ditches. Naturally, the whole will be supplemented by a farmyard for the service and a garden for pleasure – all of which is contained in a rectangular enclosure closed by a wall high enough to deter unwelcome people and bandits.

Inside, the king wanted a four-room apartment for himself, around fifteen rooms for his hunting companions, as well as service premises such as a kitchen, pantry, and armory. No accommodation is provided for the queen because the king does not want her there: “I fear the large number of women who would spoil everything for me if the queen came there,” he said one day.

The first visit

The construction work carried out from September 1623 by Nicolas Huau, Parisian master mason, was completed in March 1624. Or, at least, they were quite advanced since the king, impatient to enjoy his house, wanted to sleep there during his visit on the 9th of that month. As this decision is impromptu, and there is still no furniture in the house, he dispatches a courier to Paris with the mission of having his bed brought from the Louvre to Versailles. Around seven o'clock in the evening, the bed having been delivered, the king himself helps to set it up.

The next morning, which is Sunday, the sovereign wakes up at half past five. After having lunch, he goes to the parish church for mass and then sets off to chase the fox until eleven o'clock. He goes to “dinner” in one of the inns in the town, the kitchen in his house not yet being equipped. Then, on horseback, he left for Paris where he arrived at two o'clock in the afternoon.

This first day at Versailles is like those that followed for several years, except that, if the stays were prolonged, the evenings of the king and his hunting companions were livened up by supper in the large room on the first floor. , then through instrumental or sung music, board games, and billiards.

During the summer of 1624, the house having been furnished, the king came on August 2 to examine the effect produced, amusing himself "at seeing all the kinds of furnishings that the Sieur de Blainville, first gentleman of the room had purchased, even the cookware”.

The following December 16, the queen's mother Marie de Medici, with whom the king had reconciled, took the pleasure or duty of offering him a tapestry for his bedroom and the great hall, as well as a quantity of linen. table. The set is of truly royal quality since it includes eight large pieces of Flanders tapestry relating to the history of Mark Antony, and “twelve dozen napkins and eighteen white tablecloths, worked and fashioned from little Venice.”

For the king, the least he can do is resoundingly thank his mother by doing her the honors of his house. But he hesitated for a long time since it was not until November 3, 1626, that he decided to invite him, as well as his wife, for a brief visit. That day, he offered “an excellent feast to the Queens and Princesses where he brought the first course, then sat down near the two Queens; he kept wonderful order there. Then gave them the pleasure of hunting. A chased hare came to join their troop.

The Park of the House of Versailles

As the house does not yet have a park, this hunt took place in the small seigneurial warren. Understanding that there was something petty there, the king remained alone in Versailles after the departure of the queens, to think about it and work on the design of a real hunting park. Having defined the basis of his project, he certainly drew a basic plan himself which he transmitted to a surveyor.

This time, it involves requisitioning 44 ha, the largest part of which (26 ha) consists of commoner lands dependent on the free fief of the priory, and the rest in a few pieces held in censive of the lordship of Jean-François de Gondi, and even in a fiefdom under Glatigny.

Without further ado, surveyor Pierre Lesage measured the land from November 13, 1626, in the presence of the king. Immediately afterward, they proceed to trace long perpendicular paths delimiting eight large squares of 195 m on each side, and two other smaller ones. In these squares, today called "groves", various species of trees are then planted by Jean Mouffle, a "wood planter living in Glatigny", and by Jean Maignan, "another planter living in Noisy". Their workload – consisting of transforming 44 ha of former agricultural land into wood – having been considerable, they did not complete their plantations until the beginning of the summer of 1629.

The castle of Louis XIII at Versailles

During the same year, Louis XIII took care of providing his estate with the amenities necessary for possible stays a little longer than usual. To this end, he built a tennis court and established a pipe with a pump to bring drinking water up to the house.

This is significant progress, but the king did much more at the end of the following year when he decided to replace his house with a real castle. Perhaps he has already been thinking about it for a while, but the idea came to him as a result of a new confrontation with his mother.

Having thus irreversibly freed himself from a tutelage that had weighed on him for twenty years, Louis XIII reorganized his system of governance using a political and topographical restructuring of places of power. This reorganization consists of definitively abandoning the Louvre in favor of western Paris where three carefully hierarchical places of sovereignty will be installed: firstly, the castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye which will be the new place of majesty where the Court will reside; secondly, the Château de Rueil, Richelieu's residence where the Council will be held; thirdly, the house of Versailles, the personal residence of the king which, promoted to the rank of “Château”, will be the sanctuary where, in his private life, His Majesty will have the grace to honor persons of distinction, foreign princes and ambassadors.

Obviously, in this context, the modest house of Versailles is no longer suitable. It is important to make it disappear and replace it with a residence more in keeping with the image that the king must produce. This presupposes the construction of a quality building, majestic but of knowingly measured proportions so that those invited can judge the privilege granted to them of being received in royal intimacy.

The construction of this new Palace of Versailles was undertaken in the spring of 1631. Built according to the plans of the architect-engineer Philibert Le Roy on the site of the old house, the residence will have almost the same plan, but the body of the housing and the wings in return will be longer, wider and higher, and punctuated at the four exterior corners by as many projecting pavilions. In elevation, the facades will be made of stone and brick, highlighted at the corners by colossal Doric stone pilasters. On the entrance side, the enclosing wall of the courtyard will be replaced by a beautiful portico with seven dressed stone arcades, decorated with rich ironwork.

To avoid too much construction which would inevitably have hampered royal stays, it was decided that the reconstruction would be spread over four years, in successive installments. We therefore began at the beginning of May 1631 with the reconstruction of the main building, which was lengthened, thickened, and framed by two protruding or detached pavilions. In 1632, the right-wing was rebuilt, ending with a third pavilion. The following year, the facade of the house at the back of the courtyard was rebuilt, as well as the left wing, identical to the right wing, also with a pavilion. Finally, on the arrival side, everything was completed in 1634 by replacing the enclosure wall of the courtyard with the portico.

On August 15, 1634, everything was finished, but the king, detained in Chantilly then in Montceaux, could not come and discover his new palace of Versailles until the afternoon of October 13. He can be satisfied with this: now, instead of his dull, precarious rural house of the early years, stands a dashing building with slender lines colored in pink and pale ocher, bristling with slate roofs in a bluish-gray tone, and enhanced with ironwork painted green with gold ornaments.

Payment for land and acquisition of the lordship of Versailles

While the new castle began to rise, Louis XIII felt that it was high time to regularize his position by finally compensating the owners of the land requisitioned in 1623 to build his first house, then in 1626 to develop his park. Furthermore, to be the master of his home, he acquired the lordship of Versailles with all its lands, meadows, woods, and feudal rights.

Compensation relating to the land took place from April 23, 1631, one week before the start of work on the castle. On that day and the following days, all owners, with their title deeds, were invited to present their claims regarding "the estimate of their funds and assessments of the compensation due in compensation for the non-enjoyment of their property ". After which, during June and July, each was paid by Pierre Lopin, notary at the bailiwick of Versailles.

And that's not all, since at the very moment he regularized his situation, the king had just increased his park by adding several additional squares (2). This time the owners concerned were compensated without much delay since their lands and meadows were settled during the spring of 1632.

At the same time, the king acquired the lordship. Not the one over which his castle and its park extended, that is to say, that of the priory of Saint-Julien – he does not have to worry about it since it is a free fief dependent on him – but he needs that of Jean-François de Gondi to ensure a dominant position throughout the Versailles region.

On this point, it is appropriate that the acquisition be made by the Crown and not by the king in a personal capacity since it will be in his capacity as sovereign that Louis XIII will receive his state guests at Versailles. It was therefore necessary, in 1631, to carry out preliminary formalities with the Chamber of Accounts. Finally, on April 8, 1632, the matter being settled, Jean-François de Gondi ceded to His Majesty all the lands and feudal rights of Versailles, in return for the sum of 66,000 pounds which was paid to him in cash by Monsieur de Guénégaud, advisor to the king in his State and Private Councils and treasurer of Savings.

So it took almost ten years for the king to secure control of Versailles. However, it is clear that he hardly goes there. Having now abandoned Paris where he only came for essential ceremonies, he divided his time between his main residence in Saint-Germain-en-Laye (twenty weeks per year on average between 1631 and 1643) and his military campaigns (fourteen weeks). The rest of each year, he goes from one hunting residence to another, for seasonal stays. His favorite place is Chantilly, where he spends an average of five weeks each year, generally over two seasons. Next in the order of his preferences come Fontainebleau (four weeks), Montceaux-lès-Meaux (two weeks), and, more rarely, Compiègne, Dourdan, etc.

His Palace of Versailles having become in a way an annex of Saint-Germain, it allowed him to intersperse his official stays, sometimes for hunting, sometimes to receive people of distinction. He goes there seven to ten times a year, but as he generally stays there for only one day, or, very rarely, three or four days in a row, his stays at Versailles hardly total more than three to four weeks each year.

Official receptions at Versailles

We said above that Louis XIII did not come to see his finished castle until October 13, 1634, two months after the completion of the work. If he delayed his visit, it was because he wanted to inaugurate it dazzlingly in the presence of a select audience, to whom he was proud to gradually show the beauty of the architecture and then the splendor of the interiors. , just adorned with the extremely rich furnishings that his sister Christine, Duchess of Savoy, had just given him “to put in his castle at Versailles”. These furnishings consist of four complete sets, that is to say comprising seats and hangings “of velvet with a silver background; one blue, the other flax gray, the third green and the fourth narrator [pinkish-red].” It was moreover during this inaugural visit that he had the grace to distinguish the Savoy ambassador, representing the duchess, by offering him “a rich ensign [clasp set] of diamonds”.

Six months later, on April 12, 1635, returning from a stay in Chantilly, he presented Versailles to his wife the Queen: “The Queen came here yesterday, accompanied by the Duchess of Montbazon and her daughters. Monsieur [the king’s brother] also arrived there from Paris at the same time. Her Majesty went to meet the Queen and after showing her the house, made a very nice snack for her and the Ladies of her suite. […] After this snack, the Queen & all the Ladies went on horseback in the park to see the King's dogs hunt the fox […] and as this entertainment was only for the Queen & the Ladies, there was no had also them on horseback; the King, Monsieur and all the Lords were on foot near them. »

Having then moved away from the Paris region, the king returned to Versailles on February 25, 1636, to receive for dinner the Duke of Parma Edward Farnese, then visited France to seek help in his conflict against Spain which was coming to seize his duchy of Plaisance.

The following year, Monsieur, after having dined in Rueil with Cardinal Richelieu on February 16, was invited by his brother to Versailles where he had an apartment that he occupied for four days. In May 1638, it was the turn of Mademoiselle (daughter of Monsieur), accompanied by numerous ladies “who on horseback in hats, had the pleasure of fox hunting in the park of this beautiful house; at the end of which the King gave them a magnificent snack, where they were served by all the Lords who were then near the King.

As we can judge, Versailles has indeed become a place of visits and receptions very far from its modest initial vocation of 1623. Moreover, this is apparent when reading the book Le Voyage de France which, published on March 1, 1639, already attracted the attention of art-loving travelers: “We would do well, during our stay in Paris, to visit Versailles where the reigning King built a bastion. » Thus, a first tourist impulse is launched…

In 1640, the king still made brief stays in Versailles at the beginning and end of the year, but without doing anything memorable there. In October 1641, he housed his two sons there, the Dauphin "(future Louis XIV aged three) and his younger brother Philippe (one year old) in order to distance them from an epidemic that was then ravaging Saint-Germain."

On December 30, the king received Jules Mazarin who, newly promoted to cardinal, came to thank him for his intercession with Pope Urban VIII. Louis XIII, who can only congratulate himself on his good offices in diplomatic missions that he has entrusted to him for a long time, “gave him great caresses and showed indescribable contentment”.

A few days later, on January 9, 1642, the king returned to Versailles in large company: “He ran at the same time into the bushes of Versailles six deer with as many different packs; have two of His Majesty, that of Monsieur and those of the Duke of Angoulesme, the Bishop of Metz and the Lord of Souvré. On his return, not feeling at all tired, the king orders several Lords of his Court to dine at his table. »

At the end of the year, before and after Christmas, Louis XIII made two more stays of two days each in Versailles. Then in January 1643, he returned twice; first on the 5th and 6th, then from the 24th to the 28th. That day, he received “Cardinal Bichi who went to find the King at Versailles, where he was perfectly received”. Then come the last two stays: “The King having remained in Versailles since the 8th [February 1643]. Until the eleventh of this month and returned there on the 14th, having given supper at his table to his brother, where there was also the Bishop of Metz, the Marshal of Schomberg, and six other Lords. The previous Tuesday His Majesty had also honored at his table Cardinal Mazarin, the said Bishop of Metz, Marshal de Guiche, Sieur de Chavigny Secretary of State, and four other Lords. »

Returning to Saint-Germain on February 18, the king fell ill on the 21st. Very weakened, he kept his room where he tried to distract himself by taking up painting and music. At the beginning of March, a period of remission allowed him to hunt, but soon a relapse led him to no longer go out.

One day in April, regaining hope in a possible recovery, he confided to his confessor Father Dinet: "If God restores my health, as soon as I see my Dauphin able to ride a horse and at the age of majority, I will put in my place and I will retire to Versailles with four of your fathers to discuss divine things with them; in reserve for the entertainment of hunting which I always wish to take, but with more moderation than usual. »

His wish is not granted. He died in the early afternoon of May 14, the anniversary of the death of his father Henri IV.

1• Located there is the location of the current “Versailles Château Rive Gauche” station.

2• The current four groves at the bottom of the park, plus half of the parterres of the North, Midi, and Orangerie

The architectural style

Louis XIII wanted a building with a rustic taste, made of the least expensive materials possible such as local rubble plastered and plastered for the exterior and interior walls, with fir parquet floors, terracotta tiles, and even plaster areas for the floors of the attic rooms. Obviously, due to the fragility of the materials, the house will be doomed to a rather short lifespan. But this in no way repels the king since he builds at Versailles for his current use, and not for posterity.

The king's break with his mother

On November 11, 1630, during a scene of outrageous verbal violence, Marie de Medici demanded from her son the dismissal of her principal minister Cardinal Richelieu, whom she wanted to replace with Michel de Marillac, one of of his creatures. Coldly, the king withdrew without responding but, having gone to isolate himself at Versailles, he confirmed Richelieu to the ministry, had Marillac imprisoned, and definitively got rid of his mother by relegating her to Compiègne, from where she finally manages to escape to take refuge in the Spanish Netherlands.

Financial compensation

Compensation from the former landowners cost a sum of around 7,700 pounds for the land, 1,300 pounds for eight years of rent for the spaces occupied by the house since 1623-1624, but only four years for the enclosed land in the park from 1626-1627. To this are added 70 pounds for lost seed and plowing and another 424 pounds for reimbursement of cents and tithe duties.