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Hardcover
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN13: 9780312357856
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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The behind-the-scenes story of the world’s most famous palace, painting a picture of the way its residents truly lived and examining the palace’s legacy, from French history through today
The story of Versailles is one of historical drama, under the last three kings of France’s old regime, mixed with the high camp and glamour of the European courts, all in an iconic home for the French arts. The palace itself has been radically altered since 1789, and the court was long ago swept away. Versailles sets out to rediscover what is now a vanished world: a great center of power, seat of royal government, and, for thousands, a home both grand and squalid, bound by social codes almost incomprehensible to us today. Using eyewitness testimony as well as the latest historical research, Spawforth offers the first full account of Versailles in English in over thirty years. Blowing away the myths of Versailles, he analyses afresh the politics behind the Sun King’s construction of the palace and shows how Versailles worked as the seat of a royal court. He probes the conventional picture of a “perpetual house party” of courtiers and gives full weight to the darker side: not just the mounting discomfort of the aging buildings but also the intrigue and status anxiety of its aristocrats. The book brings out clearly the fateful consequences for the French monarchy of its relocation to Versailles and also examines the changing place of Versailles in France’s national identity since 1789. Many books have told the stories of the royals and artists living in Versailles, but this is the first to turn its focus on the palace itself---from architecture and politics to scandal and restoration.
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| Beautiful Versailles book |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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It's a beautiful book- haven't read it yet, but it is everything I was looking for to find out more about Versailles.
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| A sweeping look at Versailles and the inhabitants. |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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These days, more often than not, I tend to explore from the confines of my chair. While I dream of seeing the extravagant and faraway, I also want to understand what I am looking at as well, and for that, I turn to books on history and art. When I saw an alert pop up for this volume by Tony Spawforth, I knew it was one that I had to read.
Versailles: A Biography of a Palace takes the unique tactic of looking at an archetectural marvel as an entity in and of itself, and treats it as a living, breathing creature. From the earliest days of Versailles as a tiny village near a royal hunting lodge to the present day, Spawforth chronicles the chaotic history, from the grand dreams and vision of Louis XIV to the days of the French revolution and finally, the precarious rebirth and restoration efforts of today. He uses contemporatory journals, diaries, letters, paintings, and the palace and buildings itself to allow the reader to walk in the gilded corridors and breathtaking state rooms to the not-so-appealing attics and hidden places where so much intrigue and living took place.
Spawforth begins with Louis XIII, and like all Bourbon kings of France, a great lover of hunting. The small village of Versailles, about twelve miles to the west of Paris, and convenient to the then royal palace of St. Germain-en-Laye, was perfect for the king to slip away and enjoy the chase with his courtiers and cronies. But it was Louis XIV, his son, who took a swampy backwater and turned it into the centre for European culture and spectacle for more than a century.
Haivng endured a childhood that was turbultent from revolts from his nobility and a certain sense of insecurity, Louis XIV developed a sense of political astuteness and a love of showmanship, and used it to bring the nobility of France to heel. By creating an aura of exclusivity, and the use of grand festivals that required the nobility to spend money on attiring themselves in the finest array and comsumption of luxury goods, the Sun-King (as Louis XIV has come to be known as) managed to stop the nobles from spending money on private armies and potential rivals. It also created a market for France's textile workers and artisans, and in Versailles showcased the talent that France had to bear. The king also showed his dominion over nature by diverting rivers for waterworks, flattening and rearranging forests and hills, and creating a paradise that provided bounty for those who came.
But there was also a downside to all of this magnificent. Servants and courtiers intrigued for positions and favour with the monarchs, using bribes, gossip, and whatever else they could to gain the notice of kings and their consorts. Lavish sums were raised, and helped along by the custom of the nobility being exempt from taxation -- a situation that helped to fuel the later Revolution that brought down Louis XVI and his queen, Marie-Antoinette.
The book explores the living conditions -- rooms and suites were a fiercely competitive goal for everyone -- the question of sanitation and controlling squalor, feeding thousands at the royal table, guarding the royal person, and the desire for ever increasing privacy. One aspect that really struck me was Marie-Antoinette's hunger for privacy, and the creation of private rooms and even locks on her doors -- either to keep her husband out, or to protect a possible romance with Axel Fersen, her rumoured lover. But it also showed a side of monarchy that lived in public, where the rituals of arising in the morning and going to bed at night were attended by the highest in the land. And even queens wracked by the turmoil of childbirth were not allowed to be alone -- it was to make certain that the infant had indeed come from the queen's body -- all with a noisy crush of onlookers and spectactors who were there out of ancient right or mere curiosity.
Spawforth fills the narrative with vignettes of royal misdeeds, an attempted assassination, the ever-changing architecture, and above all, the various personalities that populated the chambers and gardens. I found it to be fascinating reading and one that I recommend to anyone interested in the history of royal France and especially the Sun-king. While there are maps of the village and a splendid reproduction of the grounds of Versailles from 1764 for the endpapers, the biggest fault lays in that there are not more colour photographs in the single insert. I wanted to see more of Versailles' grandeur. But the writing style flows well and coherently, and by exploring various aspects of the palace and grounds in turn, the author is able to tell the story but also keep it from overwhelming the reader and bogging it down.
Overall, highly recommended, and a good leaping off point for looking at the sociology of royalty. Four and a half stars, rounded up to five.
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| Abridged Memoirs |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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The expansive title and good press that accompanied this book promised an interesting history of the palace of Versailles. Unfortunately it reads more along the lines of an abridged version of the Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon. While there are numerous anecdotes of the various people that lived at Versailles, they can be read elsewhere in greater detail with more relevance to their significance to society and history. There is no order to what is written, and while the author jumps back and forth across decades, the focus is primarily that of the reign of Louis XIV. There is little or no mention of Marly or the evolution of the Trianons under Louis XIV, the petits appartments of Louis XV, the Petit Trianon, Hamlet, and gardens of Marie Antoinette much less the inventiveness that accompanied their creation. There is little history post revolution that could include fascinating stories from Napoleon through the end of WWI. The history that would complement and illustrate the lives of the people that made Versailles the center of European culture for decades is lacking. Surely there are better books that capture these details and tell a more complete story of Versailles. Unfortunately this is not one of them as it never appears to aspire to be more than what the Duc de Saint-Simon saw and wrote about in his lifetime.
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| I've Been Waiting For This Book... |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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This is not a "coffee table" picturebook of Versailles. There are plenty of those to be had. What's been missing from the literature on this subject has been a book that explains the workings of the palace, its social and political context and the routines and rhythms of day-to-day life in what was, essentially, an enormous gilded cage for the French nobility. This book begins to fill that niche. My only complaint would be that the author could have included a few more architectural drawings to illustrate the evolution of the palace and the changing arrangement of rooms over the reigns of the three kings of France who lived in Versailles. These developments are discussed in interesting detail, but the effect is diminished without a visual to assist the reader. Overall, a very good and interesting read.
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| Wonderful Surprise! |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Everything you ever wanted to know about living in this palace and then some. The book covers the hygeine or lack of it; the expenses and stressors of placing yourself in the Kings' company; the political importance of the location of assigned apartments--the scandals, what more can be squeezed into this space by a review? Buy this book--I had a hard time putting it down.
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