Versailles Park

(Local Name: Parc de Versailles) The Château and the Park of Versailles form a unity: without the Château the park would lack a focal point and lose its function as an extension of the grand state apartments within the Château, while without the park the Château would seem pent up within itself, with no room to expand into a wider setting. This is borne out by the fact that the plans for the park were completed before the final plans for the Hall of Mirrors and the side wings of the Château had taken shape.

The Park of Versailles, covering an area of more than 800 hectares/2,000 acres, is the finest example of 17th century French landscape gardening. Its creator, André Le Nôtre (1613- 1700), son of a gardener at the Tuileries, had previously worked in the Tuileries Gardens and designed the park at Vaux-le-Vicomte, but Versailles was his masterpiece. The characteristic features of the French gardens of the 17th century, their symmetry and their taming of nature into geometric forms, were in tune with the ideals of the French classical period, which saw in such creations an expression of man's dominance over nature. The relationship between the palace and the park, conceived as a wider area for the display of royal power, is seen here in its fundamental significance: the monumental Château symbolizes the monarch's absolute power over men, while the park reflects his image as the master of nature. This is at its most apparent in the Bassins and the Grand Canal, where artificial means are used to ensure that the water is always still. In the 18th century, during the reign of Louis XVI, the gardens round the Petit Trianon were laid out in the English style. The contrast between the two styles is very marked: the English-style park was an artificial arrangement of "unspoiled" nature, offering the possibility of acting out "real" rural life in the setting of a miniature village.

The Grand and Petit Trianons, miniature palaces set in gardens, were the only places where the French kings could have any privacy. Elsewhere in the park and in the Château they were subject, like everyone else at court, to the rules of etiquette and ceremony.