Identifier: versaillescourtu00farm (find matches)
Title: Versailles and the court under Louis XIV
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Farmer, James Eugene, 1867-1915
Subjects: Versailles (France) -- Description France -- Court and courtiers
Publisher: New York, The Century co.
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Wellesley College Library

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Text Appearing Before Image:
Versailles and the Court under Louis XIV
—————————————————
riage in the royal court. The marble court was used more
than once as an open-air theater, and a print by Lepautre
exists, representing a performance of Molière's " Alceste "
as given here before the king and the courtiers. On that oc-
casion no scenery was used; the balconies and roofs of the
château were brilliantly illuminated, and on either side of the
court they placed a row of orange-trees in silver tubs, but
nothing further seems to have been done to deck a stage al-
ready highly adorned.
The final touch of brilliancy was given to the courtyards by
the nobility as they came and went. " The king," says Saint-
Simon, " liked splendor, magnificence, and profusion in every-
thing : you pleased him if you shone through the brilliancy of
your houses, your clothes, your table, your equipages.¹ Such
being the case, there were many who pleased, and the court-
yards of Versailles were filled with glittering liveries, with
splendid horses, with gilded carriages—in short, with a
blaze of color and pomp that changed continually and whirled
to and from Paris and St. Cloud.

¹ Saint-Simon, II, p. 369.

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Text Appearing After Image:
The reception of the great Condé by Louis XIV at Versailles.

III
THE AMBASSADORS' STAIRCASE

BEGUN in 1671 and finished in 1680, this staircase
was sometimes called the grand staircase, but more
frequently the ambassadors' staircase because it
was specially intended for the ambassadors of
foreign courts when they came in state to receive their audi-
ences from the king. The three arches to the right of the
royal court led to the vestibule; they contain now very sim-
ple doors of wood and glass, but in Loui's day they held
splendid gates of gilded iron, forged by Delobel.¹ The vesti-
bule was paved with the finest marbles, and the vaulting en-
riched with trophies in gilded bronze. The ambassador who
entered passed under one of three other arches and found
himself in a gorgeous hall that rose to the roof of the palace.
There before him, gleaming with colored marbles, mounting
majestically to right and to left, was the chef-d'œuvre of Dor-
bay and of Levau, the staircase of the Grand Monarch.
Twelve marble steps in the center led to the first landing,
where in a niche there was a fountain, ornamented with a
group in gilded bronze.

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