Everyone knows Marie Antoinette’s famous response to the French peasants’ plea for bread
“Let them eat cake”

But how many of you are aware of a lesser known quote by Marie Therese, wife of the Sun King, Louis XIV. When the peasants complained they did not have enough money to buy candles, she reportedly replied “Let them have chandeliers”
Or was it that when Louis was busy transforming Versailles from a 17th century hunting lodge into a sumptuous palace for his wife and 6 children, MT said ” You know darling you can never have too much gold or too many chandeliers” I can never remember!

Of course neither quotes may be true, but the truth is that the Palace if Versailles is decorated with enough gold and chandeliers to appease the most opulent and decadent of tastes, from the outside of the palace to the mirror room. It was here that the Treaty of Versailles was signed to mark the end of WWI

I can’t believe I didn’t take one photo of a painting of men in curly wigs riding horses to show you, but I loved the richly decorated boudoirs, the one below being Marie Theres’s bedroom where she gave birth in full public view.

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A cold and rainy day at the end of winter is not the time to appreciate the splendor of Versailles, the pools were mostly empty, the fountains still, and the stone urns still snug in their winter blankets. Even the statues looked decidedly chilly.

One day, one warm spring or summer day, I will return to the Palace of Versailles to relive the life and times of Louis the Sun king and his court.