It has been said that Louis XIV built Versailles for his court, Trianon for himself, and Marly for his friends.

To that end, Marly consisted of a main house for the King and his immediate family, and 12 guest pavilions.  Each pavilion contained 2 apartments, one on each floor.  If each guest was married, as many as 48 people could be accommodated.  The pavilions faced each other across a water feature in two rows of 6.  As the picture below shows, Marly was surrounded by forested hills, which must have given it a pleasing sense of privacy.

The Domaine de Marly as it appeared in 1724. Credit: fr.wikipedia.org.

Apart from the Queen, and later the King’s second wife, Mme de Maintenon, only his brother, Monsieur, and his son, the Dauphin, had the right to accompany the King to Marly without being invited and had their own permanent rooms there.  Everyone else, even other members of the royal family and the Princes of the Blood (i.e. the King’s cousins), had to apply for an invitation, either to the King’s private secretary, or directly to the King himself.  As the day for a departure to Marly approached, courtiers would murmur, “Sire, Marly?” as the Grand Monarque made his way from his bedroom at Versailles through the Hall of Mirrors to the chapel.  If the King invited a lady to Marly, her husband was automatically included, unlike at Trianon, where he was not.  Naturally, invitations were highly sought after.

While browsing in my local antiquarian and secondhand bookshop, Condor Fine Books, I happened on a nearly 40-year-old volume entitled Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia, by Suzanne Massie.

Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia, by Suzanne Massie.

Leafing through it, I was delighted to find that an entire chapter was devoted to one my favourite Versailles Century (1682-1789) characters: Elizabeth Petrovna, Empress and Autocrat of All the Russias.  An able ruler, she was also a great beauty and a woman of prodigious appetites.

As princesses go, Maria Sofia von Neuburg was a very insignificant one at the time of her birth in 1666.  Her father, Duke Philipp Wilhelm, though a member of the illustrious house of Wittelsbach, was merely the Duke of Neuburg, a very small state on the banks of the Danube in southern Germany.  Other branches of the family ruled the larger, richer states of the Palatinate and Bavaria.  In fact, they were very nearly sovereigns, except that that they nominally owed allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna.  Diminishing Maria Sofia’s prospects even further, she was not even an heiress.  Women could not inherit the duchy, and in any case she was only one of seventeen children.

The ducal palace in Neuburg. Credit: Mendli at German Wikipedia – own work of Mendli, Originally from de.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1728849

Things began to look up for Maria Sofia and her siblings when their relative the Elector Palatine died sonless in 1685 and Duke Philipp Wilhelm succeeded him.  The family duly moved to the Palatine capital at Heidelberg.

It was on this day in 1754 that the future Louis XVI was born.

His parents were Louis, Dauphin of France (1729-1765), and Marie-Josèphe, Dauphine of France, née princess of Saxony-Poland (1731-1767).  The infant prince was immediately named Duc de Berri by his grandfather, Louis XV, and was soon christened Louis-Auguste to distinguish him from his elder brother, Louis-Joseph.

Louis, Dauphin de France (1729-1765). I photographed this bust of him in his sister Victoire’s drawing room at Versailles in March, 2016.

Louis-Auguste was in fact the third child in the family.

It was on this day in 1830 that Louis-Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, took power in the wake of the so-called July Revolution that toppled his cousin, Charles X, who had abdicated in favour of his grandson.  Charles had intended for Louis-Philippe to rule as regent for the little boy, but the latter had other ideas and raised no objection when the National Assembly offered to make him king in his own right.  Departing from tradition, he proclaimed himself Louis-Philippe, King of the French, rather than Louis XIX (or XX, depending on your point of view), King of France.

Louis-Philippe as photographed in 1842. Credit: By Lerebours et Claudet – page, image, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8462011

Here at Versailles Century we take a dim view of this wily monarch, mainly because of his ham-handed interventions at Versailles.  Three years into his reign, Louis-Philippe decided to undertake a partial restoration of the Château de Versailles and also to create a museum of French history in it.  We’ve previously touched on one of his modifications, namely the eponymous staircase in the King’s private apartments.

The Louis-Philippe Staircase in March, 2017.

I actually like this staircase, which brings some much-needed light into this part of the Château.

Our friends at the official Château de Versailles website have published this stunning rooftop view from the centre block (I assume) down the central axis of the gardens to the Tapis Vert and the Grand Canal beyond.

View from the roof of the Château de Versailles towards the Grand Canal. Credit: http://www.chateaudeversailles.com

Looking at this view makes me feel quite kingly.  Why?  Because Louis XV is known to have enjoyed spending time on the roof of the Château.

The staircases of the King’s private apartments (le Petit appartement du roi) have a complicated history.

The original staircase was the famous Ambassador’s Staircase.  It was so grand that Louis XIV used to receive ambassador’s and foreign dignitaries on it.  Later, in the reign of Louis XV, it was also the venue for Mme de Pompadour’s theatre, which was made of wood and could be assembled and dis-assembled on demand.

Engraving of the Ambassadors’ Staircase. Credit: Wikipedia.

In 1754, wishing to create a suite of rooms for his daughter Mme Adélaïde, Louis ordered this grand staircase to be demolished.

This week’s musical monarch, Frederick the Great, was not only a music lover, but a proficient flautist and composer.

Frederick the Great.  Credit: Wikipedia.

Prussia’s future third king developed his musical tastes and talent early.  In the little Crown Prince Frederick’s household was one Rentzel, who was not only Frederick’s drill master but a flautist.  Nancy Mitford, in her biography of Frederick, says of Rentzel that “it was he who started Frederick on music and taught him to play the flute, an accomplishment which was to mean so much to him.”  Frederick’s father, King Frederick William I, was not keen on the flute playing, which he regarded as effeminate, and at times attempted to ban his son from pursuing this past time.  He was not successful.

It’s well known that Louis XIV was an avid and accomplished dancer in his youth.  In 2000, the Belgian filmmaker the Gérard Corbieu memorably depicted the young king’s dance spectacles in the movie Le Roi Danse (The King is Dancing).

It’s also quite well known that the Sun King was surrounded by music from morning till evening.  Indeed, he was rarely out of earshot of one group of musicians or another.  Even while he was hunting there would have been horns, after all.

At HMV Canada’s going-out-of-business sale at its flagship store in Toronto, I purchased this boxed set of music from Louis XIV’s court.

Les Menus Plaisirs de Louis XIV de Paris à Versailles (Harmonia Mundi), a 10-CD boxed set of music from Louis XIV’s court.

Though in modern times he’s acquired a reputation for Spartanism, Frederick the Great (1712-1786) did himself proud at table.

Die Tafelrunde by Adolph von Menzel (1850), once in the National Gallery of Berlin, where it was burned during the bombing that the museum sustained.  Fortunately, numerous copies and prints exist.   Credit: Wiki Commons.