THE COST OF VERSAILLES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1938, Page 7

THE COST OF VERSAILLES

Versailles,' where the British royal party visited, must be very nearly the most expensive estate iri history,; says the "Manchester, Guardian." Its beginnings' were modest enough.. Louis XIII, a mighty hunter, bought the seiguenrie from Archbishop Gondy, built a modest hunting-box, and made a small garden, which included the first of -many. fountains. . Half-way-through the seventeenth century VersaiUes was a little village in the middle of a wood; less than forty years iater it was the most famous palace in the, world. It was not the-creation of a-single architect or of a settled defeign, but it grew rapidly as Louis XTV began to take an increasing interest in it- French authorities have admitter that the.final effect is "a little cold perhaps," in spite of its grandeur and majesty.

It; has often been said v that Louis XIV destroyed all the accounts in order that the vast expenditure might nit be known, but that story is a fabie. Colbert kept' the most c&reful accounts, and M..; Gavin (in. his ''Versailles") gives the expenditure ' between 1664 and 1688 at about £17,000,----000 sterling of our riioriey. For a long time; Louis was: busy with the park and the gardens, above all with the famous fountains; it was not till 1682 that he made Versailles his chief residence, an dnpt till 1669 had he found his father's hunting-box too smaU. ':'

. Perhaps it is curious that .the two' best-bknown- anecdotes of the place, are in the Vein of what is now-called "debunking." The Doge of Genoa . was asked whether the-rare things of the place did not impress him. . "The rarest thing ...I- find here is. myself," said .he. • Arid Prior, in Versailles with Portland's Embassy, was shown the" great paintings N- of bLuis's victories and asked whether his master could show anything, comparable. "In many places," said Prior, "but not iii his own house" %