Full name: Versailles: A Biography of a Palace

Author: Tony Spawforth Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Non Fiction, Biographies Culture: France Purchase/reserch links: Barns&Noble Amazon Google Books Goodreads eBooks.com LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780312603465 9780312357856 0312603460 0312357850

The behind-the-scenes story of the world's most famous palace, painting a picture of the way its residents truly lived and examining the palace's legacy, from French history through today The story of Versailles is one of historical drama, under the last three kings of France's old regime, mixed with the high camp and glamour of the European courts, all in an iconic home for the French arts. The palace itself has been radically altered since 1789, and the court was long ago swept away. Versailles sets out to rediscover what is now a vanished world: a great center of power, seat of royal government, and, for thousands, a home both grand and squalid, bound by social codes almost incomprehensible to us today. Using eyewitness testimony as well as the latest historical research, Spawforth offers the first full account of Versailles in English in over thirty years. Blowing away the myths of Versailles, he analyses afresh the politics behind the Sun King's construction of the palace and shows how Versailles worked as the seat of a royal court. He probes the conventional picture of a "perpetual house party" of courtiers and gives full weight to the darker side: not just the mounting discomfort of the aging buildings but also the intrigue and status anxiety of its aristocrats. The book brings out clearly the fateful consequences for the French monarchy of its relocation to Versailles and also examines the changing place of Versailles in France's national identity since 1789. Many books have told the stories of the royals and artists living in Versailles, but this is the first to turn its focus on the palace itself---from architecture and politics to scandal and restoration. Similar books: To the Scaffold by Carolly Erickson Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford Napoleon and Wellington by Andrew Roberts Athenais by Lisa Hilton Becoming Charlemagne by Jeff Sypeck Martyrs and Murderers by Stuart Carroll Madame de Stael by Francine du Plessix Gray Pauline Bonaparte by Flora Fraser The Wright Brothers by David McCullough Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson Mobituaries by Mo Rocca The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre The Life of Elizabeth I by Alison Weir The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester Crazy Horse and Custer by Stephen E. Ambrose Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt