The grounds of Versailles: Organization for display
purposes only.
If civilization is measured by the
state of the sciences and the arts then the age of enlightenment represented a
great leap forwards. I was reminded of this during a recent visit to the Palace
of Versailles. It was hot, crowded and my feet ached but I heard the optimistic
strains of Kenneth Clarke’s series “Civilization” in my head as I walked from
room to room.
In the seventeenth century, after
1600 years, the pinnacle of European culture had shifted from the lands of the
Roman and Byzantine empires to France. The greater part of Versailles was
developed during the reign of Louis XIV from 1643-1715, a period that falls
squarely within Isaac Newton’s life time of 1642-1727.
European rulers like the Louis
XIV were the focus of great power and wealth, but although they were the patrons
of the arts and sciences little of their wealth was used to better the lot of
the common people. My reading of history is that this failure to bring the
fruits of civilization to the masses was down to a combination of factors, from
the legacies of a still largely medieval infrastructure, through poor information and control, to an unwillingness of monarchs to distribute
government, particularly amongst the business community.
There may have been many new
ideas abroad in society, but at that time there was no more chance of using
those ideas to better society as a whole than using the new Newtonian mechanics
to get to the moon. Many more elements needed to be put in place before that
could happen. Instead the European monarchs embarked on military campaigns and
huge building projects like Versailles. Versailles was a statement of Louis XIV’s
absolute power and evidence that indulgence in civilization was the privilege of relatively few.
Like the other great houses and
halls I have posted on in this blog Versailles was chiefly about ostentation
and show, its intention being to glorify the occupant of the palace. But
Versailles does it on a scale that is unknown in the British Isles, a place
where wealth and power was never as concentrated as it was in the France of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Some relevant links
My Facebook album on my visit to Versailles and Paris:
Versailles in 3D:
