Books: Versailles A Biography of a Palace
Rating: 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“When living at Versailles the royal family ate publicly to bring them close to their subjects,” says Versailles author Tony Spawfoth. “But the public horrified a Russian princess in 1768 with their behavior. Either the French royals really were extraordinary individuals, like Louis XIV, or they were ordinary people living in an extraordinary environment, like Marie-Antoinette.”
Spawforth visited the newly-restored grotto of Marie-Antoinette in the Petit Trianon grounds. “Inside this rather dark and dank place there was a woman sitting in a kind of reverie,” says Spawforth. “It seemed obvious to me that she was a Marie-Antoinette-obsessive. I wish I could say that I’d been left alone inside the palace and seen or heard one of the ghosts.”
Versailles A Biography of a Palace by Tony Spawforth traces the building of the famous French royal palace. A leading British historian, Spawforth brings the workings of a growing palace to life. We learn what Louis XIV did to enhance the palace.
Spawforth got the idea for the book while visiting the palace bookshop in 2004. “I was struck by the absence of a history in English which wasn’t a picture book or a book about the gardens and the art,” says Spawforth. “I felt a book was needed which tackled basic questions about the palace’s purpose and workings.”
Spwforth relished the book’s research. “I spent many days and nights in Versailles and got to know my way around the palace, grounds and town pretty well. I went to some marvelous exhibitions. I tracked down royal furniture in modern collections. But you can never do enough. The subject is inexhaustible in all its ramifications. There was so much new research and new thinking not being conveyed to a popular readership in any language.”
“I needed to know my way around the modern scholarship, especially on the palace itself,” says Spawforth. “These are the experts who reconstruct, on paper, the lost rooms. I owe a huge debt to them. I wanted to immerse myself in the published primary sources: memoirs, journals, and correspondence. Much of the reading was done in the British Library or the municipal library at Versailles. At home, I have quite a decent Versailles library of my own.”
Versailles: A Biography of a Palace conjures a lost time. It offers a fantastic picture of Versailles and the people who lived and worked there. It shows the glamour of the huge palace and its excesses. Also includes are eight pages of color photos.
Versailles: A Biography of a Palace by Tony Spawforth. Trade Paperback, 320 pages, Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin (March 16, 2010). Language: English # ISBN: 9780312603465
