COURT OF VERSAILLES

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 308, 29 December 1937, Page 6

COURT OF VERSAILLES

The huge galleries of Versailles are of

modern setting, for, apart from the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles in the days of Louis XIV., that is in its early glory, contained few big halls and was a beehive of small apartments. At the time of Louis XIV. the roval apartments consisted of 152 rooms, and 288 small apartments housed the great number of courtiers who were allowed to live at Versailles under the King's roof. In all there were 1800 rooms for these favoured subjects. The courtiers were poorly lodged in tiny rooms considerably overcrowded, but they preferred the discomfort which allowed them to be near the King to the spacious rooms of their country chateaux. In winter King and courtiers shivered in the cold in the huge palace, and when fires were lit the chimneys were so small in the eourtieiV apartments that smoke soon spread from room to room. The Hall of Mirrors presented a strange sight every morning, and when to-day the visitor looks at its painted ceiling and gilded doors and columns it is hard to believe that at one end it looked something like a market in the days of Louis XIV., for here local tradesmen were allowed to come as far as a barrier where they could sell things to the courtiers. A sho'rt distance from these strange scenes, in tlie King's apartments every morning, the awakening of the royal master was observed with strange ceremony. In the presence of the princes of the blood, his doctors and surgeon*!, the King washed his face and hands sitting up in bed. Then the King dressed, a prince having the privilege of handing the Kin ? his shirt? and other dignitaries in tur-v each handing His Majesty a garment. This lasted half an hour and was governed by the strictest rules of precedence.