Versailles: A Biography of a Palace
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.69 (857 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0312603460 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 320 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-11-19 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Interesting History of a work-in-progress Steven Ferré A well-written history of the building and various remodeling efforts undertaken at Versailles, this book managed on a several occasions to prove interesting. However, I found the amount of detail on the actual construction of the palace to be, on the whole, rather meager; greater emphasis was devoted to the ridiculous court etiquette. As noted in the book, there were a a few occasions where court etiquette necessitated a quirky floor plan or structural modificati. An Inside Story of Versailles Thomas Randleman If you wished to know how the Palace of Versailles came to be built and the manner in which the occupants lived there, this is the book for you. If you want a book written by an excellent writer whose "charm" infuses the writing, this is the book for you. The conventional historical details are given in the order of events.Beyond this, there are snapshots of the actual lives lived within the Palace in each era and phase of its construction. The author has created . I've Been Waiting For This Book This is not a "coffee table" picturebook of Versailles. There are plenty of those to be had. What's been missing from the literature on this subject has been a book that explains the workings of the palace, its social and political context and the routines and rhythms of day-to-day life in what was, essentially, an enormous gilded cage for the French nobility. This book begins to fill that niche. My only complaint would be that the author could have included a few
All rights reserved. This well-researched and highly engrossing account conjures a bygone era with all its opulence, deference and perilous insularity. (Oct.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. 8 pages of color photos. Chamber pots on the palace's the upper stories were frequently emptied into the interior courts below; Marie-Antoinette was hit—intentionally, she believed—as she passed under the windows of Madame du Barry, her father-in-law the king's mistress. A handsome aristocratic page to Marie-Antoinette, Alexandre de Tilly, recounted his sexual intrigues at age 16 with a 36-year-old widowed countess, conducted in various palace locations. The clothes-conscious Louis XIV, for instance, created a new office, grand master of the wardrobe, and appointed a duke whom the memoirist Saint-Simon likened to a slave. At Versailles the royals ate publicly, a display that was supposed to humanize them as spectators raced arou
The palace itself has been radically altered since 1789. He probes the conventional picture of this "perpetual house party" and gives full weight to the darker side: not just the mounting discomfort of the aging palace but also the intrigue and status anxiety of its aristocrats, as well as the changing place of Versailles in France's national identity since 1789.Many books have told the stories of the royals and artists living in Versailles, but this is the first to turn its focus on the palace itselffrom architecture to politics to scandal to restoration.. Called "fast-paced" (Kirkus Reviews) and "highly engrossing" (Publishers Weekly), this is the behind-the-scenes story of the world's most famous palace.The story of Versailles is one of high historical drama mixed with the high camp and glamour of the European courts, all in an iconic home for the French arts. Versailles sets out to rediscover what is now a vanished world: a great center of power and, for thousands, a home both grand and squalid.Using the latest historical research, Spawforth offers the first full account of Versailles in English in over thirty years