Versailles

Versailles first appears in a document of 1038, and for centuries it was a modest village with a castle and a church on the road from Paris to Normandy. Louis XIII came to hunt in the surrounding forests, built a small hunting lodge of brick and stone in 1624 and bought the whole seigneury in 1632. His son Louis XIV had Le Vau and Le Nôtre transform the lodge and its park, and on 6 May 1682 the court and government moved here permanently. A decree of 1671 had offered building plots free to anyone who would build to the official models, and a symmetrical new town rose on either side of the Avenue de Paris, with the Notre-Dame and Saint-Louis quarters, their churches and markets. By 1789 Versailles had about 60,000 people.

The town was also the cradle of the Revolution: the Estates-General met here in May 1789, the Third Estate swore the Tennis Court Oath that June, and in October a Paris crowd forced the royal family to the capital. The population fell by more than half. Louis Philippe turned the palace into a museum in 1837. In 1871 the German Empire was proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors, and the government fled the Paris Commune to Versailles, staying until 1879. The treaties ending the First World War were signed in the palace and the Grand Trianon in 1919.

Absorbed by the growing Paris suburbs in the 20th century, Versailles became the prefecture of the new Yvelines department in 1968, and in 1975 the seat of a Court of Appeal for the western suburbs of Paris. During the 2024 Olympics the palace grounds hosted the equestrian and modern pentathlon events.

The palace dominates the town's identity and its economy of visitors, but Versailles has its own cultural life. Every June the Mois Molière, a theatre festival founded in 1996, fills the town with performances and is staffed by hundreds of volunteers, and there is an annual jazz festival. The palace's Royal Opera, opened in 1770, is known for the acoustics of its wooden interior.

The town's prosperity has made it part of the Paris artistic scene: the bands Phoenix and Air and the electronic duo Daft Punk all have links to Versailles, as does the film director Michel Gondry, and much of Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette was filmed on location here. Versailles is also a seat of institutions — a Catholic diocese since 1790, a court of appeal, the largest of France's education districts and a long-standing military presence at the Satory camp. The French Parliament still meets in Congress in the palace to amend the Constitution, most recently in March 2024 to enshrine the freedom to have an abortion.

Manners are traditional, and the quarters keep a village-like sense of community around their markets and parishes, despite the crowds from around the world that pass through the palace gates each day.

About 84,000 people lived in Versailles in 2023, down from a peak of about 94,000 in 1975. The town covers about 26 square kilometres — a quarter of the area of Paris — on a plateau 130 to 140 metres above sea level, ringed by the forests of Marly, Fausses-Reposes, Satory and Meudon. The historic centre keeps an affluent residential character, surrounded by middle-class neighbourhoods near the stations and on the outskirts.

The economy is built on services rather than industry: public administration as the prefecture of Yvelines, the courts, tourism, business and events, alongside a university — Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines — and ISIPCA, a postgraduate school of perfume, cosmetics and food flavouring. The Satory base houses army units and training schools and hosts a defence exhibition.

Three rail lines link the town to Paris, one of them by way of La Défense, and life in the town turns on the shopping streets and markets of the Notre-Dame quarter, the schools and the parishes. The palace's crowds concentrate on the Avenue de Paris and the Place d'Armes, and the residential quarters beyond stay calm. The local football club, FC Versailles 78, plays at the Stade de Montbauron.

Versailles has no dishes of its own, but it has eaten well since it fed a royal court. The Potager du roi, created between 1678 and 1683 by Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, grew fresh fruit and vegetables for the table of Louis XIV and is still cultivated, now by the national school of landscape architecture.

The Notre-Dame market is the centre of local food. Louis XIII established a market on the square in 1634, and Louis XIV developed it from 1671 to feed his new town; by the 18th century it was divided into specialised "carrés" for veal and poultry, for butter and fish, and for fruit and vegetables. Today covered halls and an outdoor market around them sell produce, cheese, fish and meat, and the surrounding streets hold bakeries, cafés and restaurants. A second market opened in the Saint-Louis quarter to the south in 1685, and its low pavilions, the Carrés Saint-Louis, were built in 1736–1737.

Eating in Versailles is mostly the everyday food of the Paris region — bakery bread and pastries, bistro cooking and market produce. Picnicking in the palace park is a popular way to spend a fine day, with bread, cheese and fruit bought in the town.