Versailles is a French commune, capital of the Yvelines
department in the Île-de-France region, known worldwide for its
castle as well as for its gardens, sites classified under the aegis
of UNESCO in the list of world heritage of humanity. According to
the 2015 census, the city's population is 85,771.
A new city
created by the will of King Louis XIV, it was the seat of French
political power for a century, from 1682 to 1789, but also in 1871
and became one of the cradles of the French Revolution, with the
city of Vizille (which began the Revolution on July 21, 1788).
After losing its status as a royal city, it became the capital
of the department of Seine-et-Oise in 1790, then that of Yvelines in
1968, and of a bishopric.
Versailles is also historically
known for having been the place of signature of two treaties: the
Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the American War of
Independence, the Treaty of Versailles signed at the end of the
First World War.
Located in the western suburbs of the French
capital, 17.1 km from the center of Paris, Versailles was a wealthy
residential city in the 21st century with a mainly tertiary economy
and a leading international tourist destination. It is always in
Versailles that congress at the castle, deputies and senators meet,
to ratify any modification of the constitution. Headquarters of the
University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin (UVSQ) and home to many
companies, the city is part of the Paris-Saclay technological
competitiveness cluster project.
The origins
The site of Versailles was probably not inhabited
in prehistoric times since no archaeological remains have been found
there. However, as the land was greatly disturbed during the
construction of the castle and the development of the park, some
traces may have been destroyed. In the immediate vicinity, covered
alleys from the Neolithic period, belonging to the
“Seine-et-Marne-Oise” civilization, were found in L'Étang-la-Ville
and Marly-le-Roi.
In Gallo-Roman times, the site was on the
route from Paris to Normandy via Villepreux and Neauphle-le-Château.
The first mention of Versailles is cited in a charter, dated the
year 1038, of the abbey of Saint-Père de Chartres in which the name
of a local lord, a certain Hugues de Versailles (Hugo de Versalliis)
is mentioned. . He would be the first known lord of Versailles.
A second allusion appears in 1065 in an act by which a certain
Geoffroy de Gometz founded on that date the priory of Bazainville,
not far from Houdan, which he gave to the abbey of Marmoutier in
Tours. To ensure regular and sufficient resources, he granted him
several lands and privileges, with in particular “three prebends at
Versailles, one of which is in domino”. From these three canonical
prebends, we can hypothesize that that in domino came under the lord
of Versailles, the other two from the Touraine abbey. The village of
Versailles would therefore have been born around the middle of the
eleventh century from a double seigniorial and religious initiative.
In the feudal system of medieval France, the lords of Versailles
were directly subordinated to the king, with no overlord between
them and the king. They were not very important then.
By the
end of the eleventh century, the first village had been established
near a medieval manor house and around the Saint-Julien church. The
parish of Saint-Julien de Versailles is mentioned in a charter of
1084. Its agricultural activity and its position on the road from
Paris to Dreux and Normandy made it a prosperous village, especially
during the thirteenth century known as the "century of Saint Louis
”, which was a period of prosperity in the north of France, marked
by the construction of Gothic cathedrals.
The fourteenth
century brought the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War, with
their processions of death and destruction. At the end of the
Hundred Years War in the 15th century, the village began to rebuild
itself with a population of only 100. At that time two other
villages existed in the territory of the current commune:
Choisy-aux-Bœufs and Trianon. They subsequently disappeared into the
castle grounds. The name of Choisy-aux-Bœufs recalls that this
village was on the path by which the herds of oxen coming from
Normandy were taken to Paris.
In the fourteenth century,
Gilles de Versailles held the office of the king's bailiff.
In 1561, Martial de Loménie, Secretary of State for Finance to King
Charles IX, became sole lord of Versailles. He obtained permission
to establish four annual fairs and a weekly Thursday market. The
population of Versailles then reached 500 inhabitants. Castle and
land hardly resembled what they later became under Louis XIV. They
nevertheless aroused the jealousy and greed of the family of Retz.
On April 6, 1571, Martial, prosecuted under the guise of
Protestantism, in fact, because of his attachment to the young Henry
IV and his family, was deprived of his charges by arrest and
imprisoned. The Duke of Retz Albert de Gondi, originally from
Florence, arrived in France with Catherine de Medici (who later
became Marshal de Retz), went to find him in his prison. During a
dramatic scene, "using atrocious threats", he made her sign the sale
at a low price of the Lordship of Versailles for his benefit.
Martial was nonetheless slaughtered in his prison on
Saint-Barthélémy Day (August 24, 1572). From then on, Versailles was
the property of the Gondi, a family of rich and influential jurists
in the Parliament of Paris. Albert’s grandson, Henri de Gondi, who
became cardinal, received King Henry IV on several occasions in his
mansion in Versailles. In the 1610s, the Gondi several times invited
the young king Louis XIII to hunting parties in the vast forests of
Versailles.
The time of kings
Under Louis XIII
In 1623, King Louis XIII
had a hunting lodge built on land of one hundred and seventeen
arpents (or about 350 hectares) bought from various owners.
On April 8, 1632, Louis XIII bought the entire seigneury of
Versailles from his last lord, Jean-François de Gondi, Archbishop of
Paris for the sum of 66,000 pounds. It is the decisive turning point
in the installation of royalty in Versailles. That same year, he
appointed his valet de chambre, Arnault, as governor of Versailles,
whose function was to administer the domain, that is to say both the
city and the castle.
In 1634, the work entrusted to the
architect Philibert Le Roy was completed. The first manor house was
rebuilt and extended on site in the “Louis XIII” style.
When
the king died in 1643, the village of Versailles had changed little.
Under Louis XIV
To promote the construction of the city, King
Louis XIV took two important decisions, on May 22, 1671, by donating
building land against the commitment to build and the payment of a
fee, modest, of five sols per acre and on November 24, 1672 by
making the buildings built elusive.
In 1673, it was decided
to destroy the old village of Versailles. A new Saint-Julien church,
intended to replace that of the old village, was built in 1681-1682
near the new cemetery of Ville Neuve. From 1684, work began on the
construction of the new Notre-Dame church intended to replace it.
Located in the axis of rue Dauphine, it was consecrated in 1686 and
became the royal parish of Versailles.
In 1682, the Small
Stable and the Large Stable were completed, intended to house saddle
horses and royal coaches. Built by Jules-Hardouin Mansart, on both
sides of the avenue de Paris, they complete the Place d'Armes
opposite the castle.
In 1694, representatives of the
inhabitants, the quaterniers, were elected for the first time,
headed by a syndic.
In 1713, the privilege of exemption from
seizure of buildings established in 1672 was revoked to put an end
to abuses.
With the installation of King Louis XIV and his
court on May 6, 1682, the small city will experience a flamboyant
destiny during the latter's reign with a population of about 30,000
inhabitants at his death and will continue to grow under his rule.
successors until reaching 50,000 souls when the Revolution arrives.
Under Louis XV
When Louis XIV died on September 1, 1715, the
regent Philippe d'Orléans decided to transfer the Court to Paris.
Then began a phase of decline for the city which saw its population
rapidly halving: the real estate market collapsed.
The
situation was restored seven years later, on June 15, 1722, with the
return of King Louis XV, then aged twelve.
In 1737, the
Clagny pond, located north of Ville Neuve and which had then become
a cesspool receiving all the sewers, was filled in and made it
possible to recover twenty-four hectares immediately open to
construction.
In 1740, a riot took place in the flour store
in the Ville Neuve market, known as the “Weight the King”. In a
context of bad harvest, the Versaillaises, wanting to oppose the
removal of flour by Parisian bakers, were repressed by the Swiss
guards.
In 1743, under the direction of Jacques
Hardouin-Mansart de Sagonne, began the construction of the
Saint-Louis church which was completed nine years later, and
contributed with the creation of the "Carrés Saint-Louis" market. to
the urbanization of the Saint-Louis district.
In 1759, to
accommodate the services of the State, in particular the Ministries
of Foreign Affairs and War, the king had the architect Jean-Baptiste
Berthier built, on the one hand, the Hôtel de la Marine et des
Affaires foreign affairs and, on the other hand, that of War. Many
mansions were also built at this time.
Under Louis XVI
On
November 18, 1777, the Versailles theater, one of the oldest in
France, was inaugurated on rue des Reservoirs, on the initiative of
Miss Montansier.
One of the first hot-air balloon flights
took place in Versailles on September 19, 1783. A balloon, prepared
by Étienne de Montgolfier, carrying a sheep, a rooster and a duck,
rose from the place of the castle to rest three kilometers further.
In 1787, the suburb of Montreuil was annexed to Versailles, both
for fiscal reasons and to improve public security by extending the
scope of the police.
The first municipality of Versailles,
created by ordinance of Louis XVI, met for the first time on January
4, 1788. It comprised thirty-two elected officials, under the
direction of the trustee, Marc-Antoine Thierry, baron of
Ville-d'Avray , the king's first valet. Its main mission was to vote
for the city budget. The police remained the prerogative of the
bailiff.
French Revolution
Seat of political power, Versailles
naturally became the cradle of the French Revolution. The States
General met in Versailles on May 5, 1789 at the Hôtel des Menus
Plaisirs and on June 17, 1789, on the proposal of Father Sieyès,
they took the title of "National Assembly". The king having closed
the Hôtel des Menus Plaisirs, the members of the Third Estate
occupied the Jeu de Paume room on June 20, 1789, where they took the
famous oath. After the storming of the Bastille, the first nobles to
emigrate, including the Comte d'Artois, future Charles X, brother of
Louis XVI, left Versailles. The Constituent Assembly abolished
feudalism and all privileges - in particular those of "class" and
"corporation" - on August 4, 1789, and drew up the declaration of
human rights between July 9 and August 26 of the same year. Finally,
on October 5 and 6, 1789, a crowd from Paris invaded the castle and
forced the royal family to return to Paris. Shortly afterwards, the
Constituent Assembly followed the king to Paris and Versailles's
role as capital came to an end.
At the time of the
Revolution, the town had proposed to the Convention to rename
Versailles in "Cradle-of-Liberty", but had to retract in the face of
the reluctance of a large part of the population.
The city
subsequently lost a good part of its inhabitants. From 50,000, the
population dropped to 28,000 in 1824.
On February 8, 1791,
the city elected its first mayor, Jean-François Coste. On September
9, 1792, prisoners of Orleans who were to be taken to Paris were
massacred by rioters from outside the city, despite the courageous
behavior of the new mayor Hyacinthe Richaud.
The castle,
stripped of its furniture and ornaments during the Revolution, was
abandoned. However, it is not destroyed. Under the Directory, a
special museum of the French School was set up there. Napoleon
stayed there briefly, spending only one night, before abandoning it
for good.
nineteenth century
On January 3, 1805, Pope Pius
VII, who came to Paris to crown Napoleon, was invited to Versailles.
He was received by the first bishop of Versailles, Mgr Charrier de
la Roche, at Saint-Louis cathedral and then blessed the crowd
gathered in front of the castle.
On March 31, 1814, the
Prussian army occupied the city.
On July 1, 1815, General
Exelmans' cavalry met at Vélizy a Prussian vanguard made up of two
regiments of hussars which were overthrown. The routed Prussians
fled by Versailles and crossing the city, at a gallop, by the
boulevard du Roi, the rue des Reservoirs, the place d'Armes, the
avenue de Paris, the rue des Chantiers, seeking to reach Saint
-Germain-en-Laye, attacked by the French cavalry assisted by the
local national guards acting as skirmishers at the Saint-Antoine
gate, they fell into an ambush at Rocquencourt. The next day, July
2, Blücher militarily occupied Versailles, ordered the inhabitants
to surrender all their weapons and, when no one was able to defend
themselves or take revenge, he ordered looting. A large number of
houses were destroyed and of the weapons factory only the walls
remained. The villages of Rocquencourt, Chesnay and Vélizy suffered
the same fate.
They remained in Versailles until October 12,
1815, when they were replaced by the English who left definitively
on December 12 of the same year.
On June 10, 1837, the French
King Louis-Philippe, inaugurated in the castle, the Museum of French
History, a museum of paintings and sculptures dedicated to the
"Glories of France".
In 1839 and 1840, the “right bank” and
“left bank (castle)” railways were put into service which connect
the city to Paris, respectively, to the Saint-Lazare station and the
Montparnasse station.
In 1858, a new hydraulic machine,
capable of raising 20,000 m3 per day, due to the engineer Dufrayer,
replaced the Marly machine.
The importance of this large city
will therefore decline, while it is abandoned by the power. This
decline will cease after 1871, following the insurrection of the
Paris Commune, when the government of Thiers moved to Versailles, a
situation which lasted until 1879.
The city was again occupied by Prussian troops from September 19,
1870, while Paris was besieged. The occupation will last 174 days
until March 12, 1871. Versailles had to face heavy requisitions.
Opposing excessive demands, the mayor, Charles-Victor
Chevrey-Rameau, and three of his advisers were imprisoned on
December 31, 1870 and released on January 6 after the merchants had
paid the ransom. King William I of Prussia settled in the Palace of
Versailles and was proclaimed Emperor of Germany on January 18, 1871
in the Hall of Mirrors.
At the start of the Paris Commune,
the government of Thiers fled the Parisian uprising of March 18 and
moved to Versailles, followed by a crowd of Parisians whose number
was estimated at more than 70,000 by the mayor while the city did
not had only 44,000 inhabitants in the 1866 census. From July 1871,
several thousand Communards, taken prisoner by the "Versailles"
troops of Marshal Mac-Mahon, were detained - in extremely summary
conditions [archive] - in various places of Versailles - the
Conciergerie and the Satory camp in particular - where Louise Michel
was imprisoned and where twenty-five Communards were shot, including
Colonel Louis Rossel and the Blanquist activist Théophile Ferré.
Louise Michel declared during her trial:
"What I am asking from
you who give yourselves as my judges is the field of Satory where
our brothers fell ..."
A hemicycle was built in 1875 in the
south wing of the castle to accommodate the Chamber of Deputies
while the Senate sat at the Opera. The two chambers voted on June
19, 1879 to transfer them to Paris.
In the second half of the
nineteenth century, the Jewish community of Versailles lived a great
page with Mahir Charleville, chief rabbi of Versailles, the
development was deeply marked by a certain modernism. In particular,
he inaugurated the temple in rue Albert Joly, donated by Cécile
Furtado-Heine and the Versailles community at the dawn of the new
century.
In 1897, Alfred Le Chatelier opened a stoneware and
porcelain ceramic factory in Glatigny, a still isolated district of
the city; this workshop produced remarkable pieces until 1902.
At the end of the century, Versailles was evolving like a
provincial town with all the pomp of an important tourist town.
Twentieth century
It was not until 1901 that Versailles
regained its population level of 1790, with 54,982 inhabitants in
the 1901 census.
In 1919, at the end of the First World War,
Versailles was once again in the spotlight when the various treaties
ending the war were negotiated and signed in the castle itself or at
the Grand Trianon; in particular, on June 28, 1919, the signing of
the Treaty of Versailles took place in the Hall of Mirrors of the
castle.
In the years 1923-1932, an American industrialist,
John D. Rockefeller, made donations totaling 23 million dollars
which greatly contributed to the restoration of the castle and the
park, in particular the repair of the roofs.
In 1932, took
place the inauguration of the Chantiers station by Raoul Dautry.
During the Second World War, Versailles was occupied by German
troops from June 14, 1940 to August 24, 1944, the date of entry of
the first armored vehicles of the 2nd Armored Division under General
Leclerc. It was subjected, in particular in February and June 1944,
to major bombardments targeting the Chantiers station and the Satory
camp, which claimed more than 300 victims.
Two facts marked
the Resistance in Versailles. On August 27, 1941, during a ceremony
in the Borgnis-Desbordes barracks (in which the Legion of French
Volunteers against Bolshevism was located), young Paul Collette
attempted to kill Pierre Laval and Marcel Déat by firing five
revolver bullets . This event had no political consequences. On May
13, 1944, young Versaillais set fire to the census file in the STO
services, place Hoche. Afterwards arrested on denunciation, they
died in deportation.
On March 3, 1957, the Versailles
Tramways network was closed and replaced by buses. The same year was
completed after six years of work the restoration of the Royal
Opera, which also serves as the assembly of the Senate.
On
February 25, 1965, a decree fixed Versailles as the capital of the
new Yvelines department, officially created on January 1, 1968 in
application of Law No. 64-707 of July 10, 1964 on the reorganization
of the Paris region.
In 1966, the restoration and new furnishings of the Grand Trianon
castle, at the instigation of André Malraux, Minister of Culture,
was completed. The Grand Trianon is both museum and residence of the
official hosts of France.
From June 4 to 6, 1982, the 8th
meeting of the G7 known as the Versailles Summit was held at the
château.
On February 17 and 19, 1986, the first summit of the
Francophonie was held in Versailles, in the castle, under the
presidency of François Mitterrand. Besides France, it brought
together representatives from 42 countries, including sixteen heads
of state and ten heads of government.
The great storm of
December 26, 1999 devastated the plantations of the park and
allowed, in return, the establishment of a major program of
replanting of the original species in their alignments of the time.
21st century
Today, with the growth of the suburb of Paris,
Versailles, is included in the Parisian agglomeration. The role of
Versailles as an administrative and judicial center was reinforced
in the 1960s and 1970s; the city remains one of the notable poles of
the western suburbs of Paris, with a sluggish demography and
economy.
On June 25, 2007, the Hall of Mirrors, restored
after four years of work, is reopened for visitors.