Versailles as it was in 1668; though not yet the seat of French governance or at the height of its splendour, it is already coalescing into the battleground on which royal favour is lost and won
REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
Louis XIV looked out at his father’s old hunting lodge and envisioned a stronger, more unified and more magnificent France than the one he had inherited at the age of four. Now in his twenties and ruling on his own as an absolute monarch, he dreamed of building a palace of unparalleled opulence. This would be the spot on which he would do it. It would become, no matter how long it took or how much it cost, the centre not only of his country, but of society, culture, art and influence in all Europe.
Versailles was not an obvious location for a grand palace; it was a hamlet surrounded by forests and marshland, with a single track connecting to Paris, a little over ten miles away, along which cattle were taken to market. Yet Louis enjoyed staying at the lodge as a boy, as it offered a retreat from a capital that he greatly disliked.