Originally Posted by
DrMaturin
I consider myself a bit of a history buff. I realize that the isolation and expense of Versailles, not to mention the cost of supporting the American Revolution, helped spark the French Revolution. I also know that it was the location of the declaration of the German Empire, not to mention the site of a rather controversial Treaty in the 20th Century. My point was that my visit to Versailles failed to bring this home to me on a visceral level.
I'll use as a counter-example the Coliseum. I expected to be disappointed and was instead blown away. For whatever reason I really gained a sense of what went on in the Coliseum, something I just didn't get at Versailles.
Louis XIV spent as much as half of his yearly income on building Versailles and the French gov’t spent as much as 25% of their yearly budget supporting the Royals, with Louis XVI and Marie spending prodigiously (in the immortal words of Allan Sherman, “Louis was livin’ like a king and the people were living rotten”.). While the building and maintenance of Versailles didn’t as directly lead to French Revolution as much as the building of St. Peter’s lead to the Protestant Revolution (Reformation), ‘twas likely the final straw. That said, I think that the tour (I’ve been twice) is a remarkable peek into excess and also interesting how a King’s ransom in (Hall of) mirrors can be now be had on the cheap at Aaron Brothers thanks to technology. And not only was Marie Antoinette’s peasant village quaint and fascinating, but what a snapshot of “out of touch with more money than sense”.
btw, I'm pretty sure that I did the audio tour, which, as I recall, added to the experience.