Louis XIV’s Versailles: A Palace Built by the Sun King’s Vision | FULL DOCUMENTARY

Video Description

Versailles, 1649. A simple hunting lodge on the top of a windswept hill surrounded by forests and stinking marshland… This is the landscape where a child known as the “Rising Sun” used to come hunting with his father, Louis XIII. Half a century later, it has become the most splendid royal palace in Europe, standing in the middle of gardens that provide a foretaste of heaven on earth. And in this gilded prison live the nobility, who are now entirely under Louis XIV’s control. Linking the two is the story of a young and visionary king who combined political willpower with a very discerning taste for the arts and who employed the greatest artists of his time: Le Vau, Le Brun, Le Nôtre and Mansart. Nothing could sway him – neither wars, nor finances, nor dramas in his personal life – from realising a dream in which he is the sole creator of his palace. The three great periods in the history of Versailles correspond to the three women he loves: the palace of the pleasures of youth with Mademoiselle de la Vallière, the palace of politics with Madame de Montespan and, finally, the palace of glory and abnegation with Madame de Maintenon. By depicting this long marriage between architecture, art and power, which will be governed from beginning to end by the whims, intuitions and decisions of an absolute monarch, “Versailles, The Dream of a King” draws a sensitive and endearing portrait of the Sun King. Documentary: The Rise and Fall of Versailles (2008) Directed by: Thierry Binisti Production: Les Films d’Ici #fulldocumentary #documentary #film #versailles #louisXIV #sunking #france #frenchhistory