Versailles at the time of the Regency (1715-1722)

A little over three hundred years ago, on June 15, 1722, the young King Louis XV moved with his court to the Palace of Versailles where he was born twelve years previously. Deserted since the death of Louis XIV seven years earlier, the castle emerged from its torpor to once again become the seat of royal power. The work having been suspended during this period of abandonment, the young monarch, upon his return, ordered the necessary repairs to be carried out and the apartments to be refurbished to restore Versailles to its former glory.

Two days after the death of Louis XIV, on September 3 and 4, 1715, the young Louis -grandfather at the Chapel of Versailles, then later received the assembly of clergy who came to celebrate his accession. At this same time, the nephew of the late king, Philippe d'Orléans, having obtained from the Parliament of Paris to "break" the will of Louis XIV which only granted him a purely honorary office of "president of the regency council", was entrusted with the custody and guardianship of young Louis XV. Having become regent, Philippe d'Orléans took the first step of bringing Louis XV and the court back to Paris. If this goes against the wishes of the Sun King, this decision is part of a desire to bring the king closer to the people. The memory of the Fronde, in the middle of the 17th century, is still vivid, and the Regent thus wishes to establish a strong link between the young Louis XV and the Parisians.

The monarch and the court therefore left Versailles on September 9, 1715. The news is already known, many Versailles residents gathered at the bottom of the Place d’Armes. As they passed, Louis XV threw them a few silver coins. It was at the Château de Vincennes that the court was first established. It will be like this until December, the time to arrange the Tuileries Palace where Louis XV will then reside. The Regent, for his part, governs the kingdom from the Palais-Royal, while the courtiers disperse into the hotels of the capital. Thirty-three years after being erected as the seat of government, the Palace of Versailles finds itself deserted. A period of abandonment that will extend over almost seven years and which will not be without consequences for the city of Versailles.

A depopulated town and a deserted castle

The king and his court having left, it was soon the officers of the King's Household, the officeholders, and certain merchants who followed suit. In a few weeks, the city emptied and lost almost half of its population. Versailles therefore only has barely more than approximately fifteen thousand inhabitants, compared to more than twenty-five thousand previously. Innkeepers find themselves devoid of customers and tenants demand the termination of their leases. Aware of the situation, the Regent decides that the people of Versailles “who live there through former establishments or through the considerable expenses they have made for the construction of their house” will be definitively exempt from property tax. Concerning the tenants, a royal declaration dated June 23, 1716, admitted the automatic termination of all rentals and sub-rentals, considering that the tenants only resided in Versailles to exercise their duties or their jobs and that they were required to follow the court. In addition to the sudden collapse in rent prices, there is also a drop in house sales prices, to the point where many owners prefer to keep their property rather than sell it at a loss, while, moreover, astute speculators take advantage of the situation. “Versailles, deprived of the presence of the king, was deprived during the same time of the entire administration because in this place there is only the court which can give life and movement,” wrote an attorney general.

The castle, for its part, is not entirely deserted since certain services remain there. Thus, the Superintendency of Buildings, which ensured its maintenance, remains in Versailles, as do the Stables and the School of Pages. In addition, Louis Blouin, the steward of the place, got the Grandes Eaux to be played every two weeks to maintain some entertainment. It was during this period when Versailles was no longer the capital of the kingdom that its legal status underwent a significant change.

Since the reign of King Louis XIII, the estate has retained a private character, which Louis XIV maintained, despite the enormous expansion of his possessions around Versailles. Thus, the edict of December 1693 reaffirmed the royal desire to enjoy it separately from the domain of the crown. Less than a year after the death of the Sun King, by the edict of May 1716, it was decided to reunite the domain of Versailles with the domain of the Crown and its integration into the ordinary administration. From then on, revenues and expenses were entrusted to the receivers general of the estates of the generality of Paris, while the woods were allocated to the mastery of Saint-Germain. As a result of this legal change, the royal edict of May 1716 granted the intendant the title of "captain and governor of the city and the castles of Versailles, Marly and its dependencies and captain of the hunts of our parks dependent on the said places". Louis Blouin finds himself on the same level as the governors of the other royal houses. On September 1, 1719, he received his new letters of commission. However, the future of Versailles remains uncertain. Philippe d'Orléans, having never appreciated this palace, greatly reduced the endowments allocated to it.

For seven years, the castle found itself rather poorly maintained, apart from a few repairs made necessary over time. On the other hand, the windows will be opened and cleaned, the opportunity to bring breaths of fresh air into different rooms of the castle which have until now remained closed. However, the question of the future of this immense deserted palace persists. Close to the Regent, the Duke of Noailles would have gone so far as to suggest that he simply destroy the castle and transport its riches to Saint-Germain-en-Laye. To the memoirist Saint-Simon to whom he entrusted his project, the Duke of Noailles would have been told: “Sir, when you have the fairies at your disposal with their wands, I will be of your opinion on this. » The idea goes no further. Having become governor of the place, Louis Blouin, decided to grant free accommodation in the wings of the castle, in the Grand Commun, and in the stables, so that these advantages attracted a good number of bourgeois from Paris to Versailles. “The city was populated by a large number of honest people, curious to enjoy in peace the beauty of the walks and the goodness of the air,” writes Pierre Narbonne in his work Journal des reigns de Louis XIV et Louis XV from the year 1701 to the year 1744. But this is far from being enough to revitalize the city.

The stay of the Tsar of Russia

An event will nevertheless wake Versailles from its slumber. From April to June 1717, the Tsar of Russia, Peter the Great, made a triumphant visit to France. The sovereign has wanted to visit this country for a long time. Before ascending the throne, the Tsar was warmly received by all the courts of Europe, except King Louis XIV. Russia's enemies, Sweden and Turkey, are then France's allies. The Sun King dissuaded Peter the Great from going to Versailles. Philippe d'Orléans, wishing to establish a new alliance to counterbalance the power of the Habsburgs, chose, on the contrary, to welcome the tsar to France with great fanfare.

As if to take his revenge on King Louis XIV, who refused to receive him, Peter the Great asked to visit and stay at Versailles. The Regent hastens to fulfill his wish. Hastily, the dauphine's apartments were arranged to receive him. The Tsar and his retinue of around sixty people arrived at Versailles on May 24, 1717. The Duke of Antin, Superintendent of Buildings, was responsible for welcoming him and doing him the honors of the place. The sovereign will sleep in one of the small cabinets. Early the next day, Peter the Great walks through the gardens, enjoys the spectacle offered by the fountains, takes a gondola ride on the Grand Canal, and visits the Menagerie and the Grand Trianon. Very regularly, the tsar made sketches took notes, and had the gardens that fascinated him measured. In the Peterhof Palace that he had built not far from Saint Petersburg, he aimed to surpass the Versailles fountains by controlling the irrigation of the park by an aqueduct, more efficient than the hydraulic machine of Marly. Peter the Great was struck by the scale of the estate, where the gaze extends to infinity thanks to the skillfully worked perspectives. If the Grand Trianon particularly appeals to him with its reduced proportions and its modern design, this is far from being the same for the palace whose architecture he judges to be disproportionate, to the point of declaring that the Palace of Versailles seems to him to be "a pigeon with the wings of an eagle.” After staying three nights in Versailles, the Tsar and his retinue will head to the Château de Fontainebleau. They will return on June 3 to take up residence at the Grand Trianon where they will stay until June 12.

During these nine days, the sovereign visits the surrounding area. Before leaving the estate for good, he makes a more in-depth tour of the palace. In addition to the various apartments, he notably discovered the cabinet of curiosities where medals, shells, rare books, and prints from the old ballets of King Louis XIV were presented to him. Peter the Great then went to the Great and Little Stables where several squires rode the horses in his presence. At the end of the day, he will dine at the castle before returning to Paris. At the end of this stay of the Tsar of Russia, Versailles regained its lethargy.

The return of Louis XV

On February 22, 1722, five hundred of the king's guards, making up four squadrons, arrived at Versailles where they were housed in the outbuildings, with residents or in cabarets. Their horses are then housed in the king's Large and Small Stables. Their mission consisted, on the following March 2, of escorting to the gates of Paris the convoy of the Infanta Marie-Anne-Victoire, daughter of King Philip V of Spain, who had just been engaged to the young King Louis XV. Returning to Versailles in the evening, the five hundred guards remained there until March 4 before leaving to return to their quarters. This animation, for a handful of days, will soon precede a rumor that cannot indifferently affect the people of Versailles. If the people of Paris had taken a liking to the young King Louis XV, the Regent, for his part, had to face criticism from parliamentarians who began to secretly agitate the Parisians. Faced with the hostility of the crowd who sometimes uttered insults against him and threw projectiles at his carriage, Philippe d'Orléans, without officially announcing it, planned to bring the court back to the Palace of Versailles. The Regent then mentions that this wish would come from the young sovereign, but probably the latter was not consulted.

It was during April 1722 that the inhabitants of Versailles learned that the king and his court could soon return to resettle there. In his work Chronicle of the regency and reign of Louis to remain there, it is said, until All Saints' Day. All ministers and all offices follow as in the time of Louis XIV. » A few days later, the author specifies: “The trip is postponed until May because Versailles is in poor condition and it must be repaired, which will even cost a lot. »

While the owners and innkeepers are agitated in Versailles, the Superintendency of Buildings must accomplish the feat of restoring everything and fitting out the palace in the space of a few weeks. Just like the definitive installation of Louis XIV in Versailles in 1682, the return of Louis XV to the capital of his ancestor is noted in the gazettes and memoirs of the time as a considerable event. While Versailles was, in 1722, "like an abandoned town where fire had passed for eighteen months" as Pierre Narbonne wrote, suddenly the deserted houses were repopulated, and the shops and inns closed. reopen. In his Journal and memoirs on the Regency and the reign of Louis. The Parliament, all the courts, and the city were there..." and added, the next day: "The king left around three o'clock in the afternoon for Versailles. All of Paris was […] to see him pass. One said: he would come back, the other: he would not come back. »

The big day therefore came on June 15, 1722. Already, at Versailles, while the royal carriage was heading towards the castle, a considerable crowd was waiting for it along the Avenue de Paris and on the square. Seven years previously, the people of Versailles saw a five-year-old boy leave; On this spring day, it is a twelve-year-old boy who returns to settle down and take possession of this sumptuous palace. Arriving at five o'clock in the afternoon, Louis XV, as soon as he got out of his carriage, went to the royal chapel to say his prayers. As the memoirist Saint-Simon recounts, the young king, despite the oppressive heat, immediately after launching into a mad race through the park, visiting each of the groves. Louis XV preserved the memory of these marvelous gardens, these flowing waters, these ponds around which he played during his early childhood.

After a two-hour walk, eager to see and find everything, he headed towards the castle, followed by his exhausted courtiers, starting with the Regent "who couldn't take it anymore", comments Mathieu Marais. Arriving in the Hall of Mirrors, the king lies down on the parquet floor, imitated by the people accompanying him, to better contemplate the ceiling decorated with paintings by Charles Le Brun. At the end of this exhausting escapade, Louis XV retired to his apartments. In the evening, the inhabitants of Versailles, to demonstrate their contentment, expressed the wish to set off fireworks to celebrate the arrival of the king, but Philippe d'Orléans, not in favor of this, did not give his agreement. On June 15, 1722, Versailles once again became a royal residence and symbolized the return to Louis-Quatorzian politics.

The Rebirth of Versailles

Back in his native castle, Louis XV's first concern was to complete the work of his great-grandfather but also to create more intimate and secluded spaces to complete his education. His shyness pushed him to multiply small offices in which he felt more at ease than in the large rooms and public spaces designed by Louis XIV. Four months later, a declaration, dated October 6, 1722, confirmed the edict of May 1716 on the attachment of the domain of Versailles to the Crown but reestablished a particular administration that would remain until the French Revolution. With the return of Louis XV, more than 8,000 people moved to Versailles, including courtiers, servants, and guards. The city returned to a population level equivalent to that which it had experienced in the last years of the reign of Louis XIV, at around 25,000 inhabitants.

Once the courtyard returns, life resumes more intensely and noisily than before in the city. Soon, hotels and furnished rooms are overflowing with people and Versailles is nothing more than a vast inn that becomes too small for its inhabitants. Thus, in the years that followed, the city will grow and expand southwards to the Satory woods and north towards Chesnay. A new neighborhood will rise as if by magic with the birth of a second parish. Twenty-two years later, in 1744, the city had more than 37,000 inhabitants. Louis XV reigned from Versailles until he died in 1774, becoming the only monarch in French history to be born and died at the castle. The city remained the political capital of the kingdom until the Revolution and the departure of the royal family for Paris on October 6, 1789... before experiencing a new period of abandonment.

Making Versailles an industrial city

In 1718, the banker John Law, future superintendent of finances, considered transforming Versailles into an industrial city. It was with this in mind that he brought 200 watchmaking workers from England to settle in the Grand Commun to set up a watch factory to “raise the honor of watchmaking”. This will be created in a private mansion located on rue de l’Orangerie. “They melted down a prodigious quantity of gold Louis […] to make cases and dials for their watches. Since that time, watches, snuff boxes, and canes with golden apples have become so common that the simplest individuals, and even master lackeys, wear them,” wrote Pierre Narbonne. However, this enterprise did not achieve the desired effect and did not survive the fall of John Law in 1720.

A sacrilege

During the second night that Tsar Peter the Great spent at Versailles, people from his retinue brought young ladies of easy virtue to distract themselves and the sovereign. These will be installed near him in the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, the very pious last wife of King Louis XIV. The governor of Versailles, Louis Blouin, former first valet of the Sun King, was scandalized by what he considered a form of desecration.