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Y313: The Ascendancy of France 1610–1715

Depth study: Versailles and image-making — cultural impact and political significance of Versailles

  • 2 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on the cultural impact including entertainment and the political significance of Versailles.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Explain how Versailles was used to control the nobility.

Key term

Name the leading designers of Versailles and their roles.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    How did Versailles grow from a hunting lodge into the seat of government?

    Model answer

    Louis XIII's small brick and stone lodge was enveloped from 1668 in a vast new envelope of building, extended by further wings in the 1670s and 1680s, and in 1682 the king moved the court and government there permanently.

  2. 2

    Name the leading designers of Versailles and their roles.

    Model answer

    Louis Le Vau and then Jules Hardouin-Mansart as architects, Charles Le Brun directing the painting and interior decoration, and André Le Nôtre laying out the gardens.

  3. 3

    How did the gardens express royal power?

    Model answer

    Le Nôtre imposed rigid geometry on nature along a single axis running west from the king's bedchamber, with clipped avenues, terraces, the Grand Canal and hundreds of fountains, and with Apollo rising from the water on the central axis.

  4. 4

    Why was the Hall of Mirrors an act of propaganda as well as decoration?

    Model answer

    Its hundreds of mirrors were made in France rather than bought from Venice, demonstrating Colbert's industrial policy, while Le Brun's ceiling narrated the king's own victories in the Dutch War with Louis XIV shown governing alone.

  5. 5

    Explain the origin of the image of the Sun King.

    Model answer

    Louis XIV danced as the rising sun in a court ballet in 1653 and took the sun as his personal device, so that as le Roi Soleil he was identified with Apollo, patron of light, order and the arts, whose imagery runs through the palace and gardens.

  6. 6

    How was the court entertained?

    Model answer

    With ballets, opera and comedy by Lully, Molière and Racine, with hunts, gambling and firework spectaculars, and with great multi-day festivals in the gardens such as the Pleasures of the Enchanted Island.

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