At the Palace of Versailles, city of Versailles, France

 "A king should always place the interest of his country above his personal desires." -- Louis XIV

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(in the capital of the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France région of north-central France) Versailles is a city of history, culture, and nature,famous for its magnificent palace and gardens, where the kings of France lived and ruled for more than a century. Visitors can explore the lavish rooms, admire the artworks, and stroll through the fountains and sculptures of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
+ Louis XIV transformed his father’s hunting lodge into the monumental Château de Versailles (shown here) in the mid-17th century, and it remains France’s most famous and grand palace. Situated in the leafy, bourgeois suburb of Versailles, 22km (~14 mi.) southwest of central Paris, the baroque château was the kingdom’s political capital and the seat of the royal court from 1682 up until the fateful events of 1789 when revolutionaries massacred the palace guard. (Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were ultimately dragged back to Paris, where they were ingloriously guillotined.)

+The city of Versailles developed around the 17th-century Palace of Versailles, The first scenes of the French Revolution were enacted at the palace, whose garden have become part of the national heritage of France and one of the most-visited historical sites in Europe. Although it was a place of entertainment, the grandiose palace was also well equipped as a center of government. Of about 20,000 persons attached to the court, some 1,000 courtiers with 4,000 attendants lived in the palace itself. About 14,000 soldiers and servants were quartered in annexes and in the town, which was founded in 1671 and had 30,000 inhabitants when Louis XIV died in 1715.

+ Dignitaries gathered in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, to sign the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, on 26 June 1919.) Louis XV, throughout his reign, continued the building program begun by his predecessor, and the palace became a symbol of royal extravagance. In 1837 Louis-Philippe restored the palace and turned it into a museum consecrated to “all the glories of France.” The German army besieging Paris in 1870 used Versailles as its headquarters, and in 1871 the German emperor was crowned there. For eight years after the peace with Germany, the palace was the seat of the French Parliament, and the constitution of the Third Republic was proclaimed here in 1875. The presidents of the Third and Fourth republics were elected in Versailles.

+ Versailles is now a local administrative center and residential suburb of Paris. The palace serves as a tourist attraction and as a residence for visiting heads of state. The oldest quarter of the town, Satory, contains the cathedral of Saint-Louis, while the new quarter, Le Chesnay, in the north, is the site of the church of Notre-Dame. Versailles is an important garrison town, with a military hospital and a school of military engineering and artillery.