Versailles, a city of France, capital of the dept. of Seine-et-Oise, stands on a plain 11 miles SW. of Paris by rail. A city more of pleasure than of industry, long accustomed to find its sustenance in the expenditure of a luxurious court, and subsequently a place of residence for many foreigners, attracted hither by the salubrity of the climate, the fine promenades, and the economy of living, as compared with that in Paris, it has few manufactures and little trade. The town covers a large area in proportion to its population, and is of remarkably regular construction, consisting of long and straight streets, crossing at right angles. It is the see of a bishop, and contains a public library of 50,000 volumes, many palatial edifices, public fountains, spacious squares, and elm-planted avenues. The great attraction of Versailles is its palace, and the history of this structure may be said to be the history of the town. Louis XIII. built a hunting-lodge here, afterwards extended into a château. The site occupied by the palace is known to have been that of the ancient priory of St Julien. Louis XIV. devoted enormous sums to its embellishment, or rather reconstruction, under the care of Mansard (see RENAISSANCE, Vol. VIII. p. 642); and Louis XV. altered the arrangement of the interior. Here was signed in 1783 the peace of Versailles between England and the United States. Under Louis XVI. Versailles continued to be one of the usual residences of the court down to the period of the Revolution, which great event had its beginning here in the meeting of the States-general in May 1789. At this date the population was 100,000; the palace and its park, the perfection of formal landscape gardening, have been the model of many capitals. Louis-Philippe transformed the palace of Louis XIV. into a museum, to contain trophies of the victories of France. The approach to the palace is by the Place d'Armes and the Cour d'Honneur, in the latter of which are a large equestrian figure of Louis XIV. and other statues. The entire length of the palace is nearly 1400 feet. The collections embrace pictures of events in French history, portraits of French heroes, &c. The most interesting are the pictures by David which illustrate the career of Napoleon, those by Horace Vernet, and some by Ary Scheffer and Delacroix. The gardens, with their broad terraces and long alleys, are imposing, but formal; the fountains are on the grandest scale. From the middle of September 1870 till the conclusion of peace in 1871 Versailles was the centre of all the operations of the Germans. On September 20 King William and the Crown-prince entered the town; and there, on January 18, 1871, the former was proclaimed Emperor of Germany. On January 28 the capitulation of Paris was signed in Versailles; after the peace it was the seat of the National Assembly and government till 1879, and headquarters of the army during the Commune. Pop. (1876) 49,522; (1881) 48,324; (1891) 51,679.
See works by Laborde (1840), Gavard (19 vols. 1837-49), Dussieux (2d ed. 1887), Bosg (1887), and Laurent-Hanin (1885 et seq.).