Admiration to Intimacy: Versailles and the English, from Louis XIV to Louis XVI

Abstract

More than any other foreigners, the English were fascinated by Versailles. Fifty per cent of foreign books on Versailles before 1789 were in English. Martin Lister, who visited it in 1698, described Versailles as the most magnificent palace ‘in all Europe’. In 1701, John Northleigh called Versailles ‘the most beautiful palace in Europe’; the garden, ‘for statues, canals, groves, grotto’s, fountains, waterworks or what else may be thought delightful, far surpasses anything to be seen of this kind in Italy’. Versailles was one of the models (although not the only one) for Greenwich, Hampton Court, Boughton and many other English houses. English houses also contained the best collections of Gobelins tapestries and Sèvres porcelain outside France. The true English Versailles, however, is Versailles itself. Lord Chesterfield wrote in 1751 that an hour at Versailles was worth more than three hours in a closet with the best books. Francophilia is as English as Francophobia.