Versailles in Its Former Glory

Those who visit a castle today are supposed to get the impression of experiencing the time-honoured place exactly as it looked “back then”. Of course, things aren’t that simple. It starts with the fact that there is no such thing as one specific “back then”. Most castles had an eventful past. Rooms were repeatedly refurbished, rebuilt, modernised and some castles were used as munitions depots, prisons, schools or hospitals for some time. Wars and revolutions left even clearer marks. In order to give today’s visitors a somewhat realistic impression of what palace rooms looked like in the days of a particular resident, a great deal of research and restoration work is required. Regarding the great French residence of Versailles, this restoration process is forever linked to the name of the conservator Pierre de Nolhac (1859-1936). What he decided more than 100 years ago is still the basis of today’s conservation efforts. He also made a name for himself with his books on the castle. In our library, we have one of his works on Versailles at the time of its glorious builder, Sun King Louis XIV. When you read the book and think of Versailles as we know it today, you’ll inevitably wonder: how did Nolhac shape Versailles?

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Nolhac, the Conservator

When 28-year-old Pierre de Nolhac came to Versailles as a museum employee in 1886, the palace was in a desolate state. Most of the former pieces of furniture had already been lost during the French Revolution. And thereafter, Versailles was hardly used as a residence anymore. There was so much to be done, that no king and certainly no president of France had any ambition to make the huge residence of the Bourbon kings habitable again. Instead, renovation efforts focused on a few representative rooms such as the Hall of Mirrors, which could be presented to state guests. In the 1830s, the Citizen King Louis Philippe had a national museum on the history of France setup in one part of the palace. For this purpose, the historic layout had to giveway to extensive reconstruction work. After that, however, the palace fell into disrepair. The final nail in the coffin was the Franco-Prussian war in 1870/71, when the palace was used by the Germans as a military hospital and army headquarters – and this was also the place where William I of Prussia was proclaimed German emperor.

So, restoring Versailles to its former glory required a tremendous effort – and even Nolhac’s supervisor was unwilling to embark on this journey. In 1892, the young man was appointed conservator of the palace himself and spent the next 20 years tirelessly restoring the palace to its pre-revolutionary state.

The mere act of refurbishing Versailles was an enormous project. In addition, parts of the remodelling work that had been carried out for the museum in the 1830s was to be undone in order to recreate the original layout of the royal apartments. But the state of repair wasn’t the only problem. The original furnishings were a matter close to Nolhac’s heart – and most of them had been destroyed or circulated on the art market, where original pieces of furniture from Versailles were already fetching high prices at the time. Nolhac worked persistently to purchase the original furnishings and to find out where they once stood.

Of course, the state budget wasn’t enough to cover these costs. Therefore, Nolhac relied on donors from home and abroadwho shared his vision of a resurrected Versailles. In this context, the greatest success was probably that a few years after Nolhac left Versailles, John D Rockefeller Jr provided a total of 60 million francs for the restorationof the palace – a sum that would equal about 30 million dollars today. Nevertheless, the work was a slow process, and basically continues to this day. Whatever Nolhac could not implement himself, he made plans for. He set up a genera lplan for the restoration of the entire palace. When Nolhac retired in 1920 after 30 years of service in and for Versailles, he could look back with satisfaction. For the palace had gained in popularity during that time. Instead of a symbol of popular oppression, it was now perceived as a major cultura lasset of France – a piece of history worth preserving.

Nolhac, the Author

During his time at Versailles, and especially in the years that followed, Nolhac wrote numerous books. He researched the Italian Renaissance, and his works on Petrarch received much attention. But his favourite topic was still Versailles and the palace’s history – and he must have been the most knowledgeable expert on this subject at the time. We have one of these books in our library. He published it in 1925. Three years earlier, he was elected a member of the prestigious Académie française – an honour that is immediately mentioned on the title page. The work is one of 10 related books about Versailles as the residence of the French royal court. Ourv olume is about the time of Sun King Louis XIV, the builder of Versailles.

Nolhac drew from all that he had gathered over the course of his life, describing the palace and court life at the centreof power, a microcosm with a strict ceremonial, where the rank of a person was defined by their proximity to the sun – the king. He described the purpose of the rooms and how they were furnished, an account for which he had done extensive research over many years. In the book, he wrote down his legacy.

And the work is also beautiful to look at. It isn’t a densely printed heavy tome but a generously set volume that is easy to read. Beautiful engravings fill the rooms of Versailles with life, show furnishings and the lives of the palace’s inhabitants.

Those who don’t regularly handle old books might be in for a surprise when trying to read our copy: some pages stick together and cannot be opened! This does not result from the fact that a reader had sticky fingers. The paper of the individual pages was simply not separated, and this was quite common for new books at the time, especially in France. Experts refer to this phenomenon as uncut pages. It is the bookbinder or the reader who cuts the pages that are not opened yet. The fact that nobody did this to our book means that it has never been read completely in the hundred years of its existence. Of course, this is kind of sad – but a great opportunity for us to show you an aspect of book history that is more and more forgotten today.

Other Things You Might Be Interested In

There doesn’t seem to be an electronic version available of this book so far.

The YouTube channel of Versailles has a short clip about Nolhac and his work at the castle.

This article deals with the Baroque court ceremonial.

And here you can find out about the real reason why the Sun King and his contemporaries wore wigs.