It was a favourite residence for both kings, and in 1682, Louis XIV moved the seat of his court and government to Versailles, making the palace the de facto capital of France.

[8] The site, near a village named Versailles,[a] was a wooded wetland that Louis XIII's court scorned as being generally unworthy of a king;[12] one of his courtiers, François de Bassompierre, wrote that the lodge "would not inspire vanity in even the simplest gentleman".

She moved the court back to Paris,[20] where Anne and her chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, continued Louis XIII's unpopular monetary practices.

This led to the Fronde, a series of revolts against royal authority from 1648 to 1653 that masked a struggle between Mazarin and the princes of the blood, Louis XIV's extended family, for influence over him.

[22][23] Following Mazarin's death in 1661,[24] Louis XIV reformed his government to exclude his mother and the princes of the blood,[23] moved the court back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye,[25] and ordered the expansion of his father's château at Versailles into a palace.

[27] On 17 August 1661,[28] Louis XIV was a guest at a sumptuous festival hosted by Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances, at his palatial residence, the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte.

[45][46] But in 1668–69,[47][48] as a response to the growth of the gardens,[49] and victory over Spain in the War of Devolution,[47][48] Louis XIV decided to turn Versailles into a full-scale royal residence.

[64][68] Mansart began his tenure with the addition from 1678 to 1681 of the Hall of Mirrors,[69] a renovation of the courtyard façade of Louis XIII's château,[70] and the expansion of d'Orbay's pavilions to create the Ministers' Wings in 1678–79.

Louis XV's modifications began in the 1730s, with the completion of the Salon d'Hercule, a ballroom in the north wing, and the expansion of the king's private apartment,[83][84] which required the demolition of the Ambassadors' Staircase.

In 1784, Louis XVI briefly moved the royal family to the Château de Saint-Cloud ahead of more renovations to the Palace of Versailles, but construction could not begin because of financial difficulty and political crisis.

The 7-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played several works during his stay and later dedicated his first two harpsichord sonatas, published in 1764 in Paris, to Madame Victoria, daughter of Louis XV.

They took weapons from the city armoury, besieged the palace, and compelled the King and royal family and the members of the National Constituent Assembly to return with them to Paris the following day.

[120] The museum project largely came to a halt when Louis Philippe was overthrown in 1848, though the paintings of French heroes and great battles still remain in the south wing.

[123] The end of the 19th and the early 20th century saw the beginning of restoration efforts at the palace, first led by Pierre de Nolhac, poet and scholar and the first conservator, who began his work in 1892.

Among the early projects was the repair of the roof over the Hall of Mirrors; the publicity campaign brought international attention to the plight of post-war Versailles and garnered much foreign money including a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Its earliest portion, the corps de logis, was built for Louis XIII in the style of his reign with brick, marble, and slate,[6] which Le Vau surrounded in the 1660s with Enveloppe, an edifice that was inspired by Renaissance-era Italian villas.

[145] It was entered from the courtyard via a vestibule that, cramped and dark, contrasted greatly with the tall, open space of the staircase – famously lit naturally with a skylight – so as to overawe visitors.

[149] Charles Le Brun painted the walls and ceiling of the room according to a festive theme to celebrate Louis XIV's victory in the Franco-Dutch War.

It was rebuilt beginning in 1712 under the supervision of the First Architect to the King, Robert de Cotte, to showcase two paintings by Paolo Veronese, Eleazar and Rebecca and Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee, which was a gift to Louis XIV from the Republic of Venice in 1664.

[155][156] The Salon of Abundance was the antechamber to the Cabinet of Curios (now the Games Room), which displayed Louis XIV's collection of precious jewels and rare objects.

The ceiling paintings by the Flemish artist Jean Baptiste de Champaigne depict the god Mercury in his chariot, drawn by a rooster, and Alexander the Great and Ptolemy surrounded by scholars and philosophers.

The central painting on the ceiling, by Charles de la Fosse, depicts the Sun Chariot of Apollo, the King's favourite emblem, pulled by four horses and surrounded by the four seasons.

The King's apartment was accessed from the Hall of Mirrors from the Oeil de Boeuf antechamber or from the Guardroom and the Grand Couvert, the ceremonial room where Louis XIV often took his evening meals, seated alone at a table in front of the fireplace.

On 6 October 1789, from the balcony of this room Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, joined by the Marquis de Lafayette, looked down on the hostile crowd in the courtyard, shortly before the King was forced to return to Paris.

[170][172] The ceiling of the chapel is constituted by an unbroken vault, divided into three frescos by Antoine Coypel, Charles de La Fosse, and Jean Jouvenet.

[174] The Royal Opera of Versailles was originally commissioned by Louis XIV in 1682 and was to be built at the end of the North Wing with a design by Hardouin-Mansart and Carlo Vigarani.

[176] Shortly after becoming king in 1830, Louis Philippe I decided to transform the palace into a museum devoted to "All the Glories of France," with paintings and sculpture depicting famous French victories and heroes.

Others were commissioned especially for the museum by prominent artists of the early 19th century, including Eugène Delacroix, who painted Saint Louis at the French victory over the British in the Battle of Taillebourg in 1242.

[205] In late 1679,[206] Louis XIV commissioned Mansart to build the Château de Marly,[99] a retreat at the edge of Versailles's estate, about 8.0 kilometres (5 mi) from the palace.

[213] On becoming king, Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon to Marie Antoinette, who remodeled it, relaid its gardens in the then-current English and Oriental styles,[213][216][217] and formed her own court there.