Episode 4 Inside Versailles

Bonjour!

Welcome to Inside Versailles, where we're going to go straight in

to an exciting discussion about one of my favourite subjects - power.

And we are joined by Dr Joanne Paul.

And the first thing, really, we should talk about here

is Louis XIV - most powerful man in Europe,

-perhaps, or certainly that's how he wants to be seen.

-Absolutely.

-And absolutely is the word.

-Yes!

-He's an absolutist monarch.

-This is the phrase we use.

-Yes.

-What does that mean?

It means that he has absolute power, as you said.

He's the centre of all the power in France or, at least,

as you say, wants to be seen that way - he wants to be

the centre of it all, really.

Versailles is the biggest possible symbol of power, isn't it?

Not just because it's so expensive, but also because all these nobles,

who are used to living on their private country estates,

now have to come and live under the eyes of his spies.

Yeah, he really takes them away from their own centres of power

and brings them to his centre of power.

And bringing them all together and doing things like having

these court masques, which are very expensive.

Yeah, here we have a portrait that's commemorating a court masque,

and you can see the entire family of Louis dressed as these sort of

Greek and Roman gods and goddesses.

All the portraits we've seen have got Louis in the centre but,

-here, he's just slightly to the side.

-Yeah.

What's the point of this? Is it power?

-Well, it certainly is about power, but not necessarily Louis's.

-Ah.

This was commissioned by Philippe.

Louis is dressed as Apollo, as he usually is, the Sun King.

But Philippe has given himself the role of the Morning Star who,

of course, heralds the sun and comes in before the sun does.

So it is about these hierarchies of power,

-but this one is all about Philippe.

-How does Louis make decisions?

Does he listen to advice or is it simply that, what he says,

they have to put into power?

Louis is very, very clear about the separation of counsel and command.

So, at 22, when he comes in and decides he's going to rule himself,

he very clearly tells his counsellors that I will

consult you, I will listen to you,

but I get to make the final decision, I'm the one who commands.

And then you have this debate going on between the absolutists,

who think that Parlement is really just there to register

the King's edicts in the sense of sort of proclaiming them,

and then you have the constitutionalists, who think that

you're giving your consent, your stamp of approval, to these edicts.

Now, of course, Louis sides with the absolutists.

And so, what Louis attempts to do is to chip away, really,

at the power of the Parliament to resist his edicts.

So they have this right of remonstrance - the right to say,

no, we don't like what you're saying,

we're not going to put our stamp of approval on it.

And he starts to take away some of that power to the point that

they're not even allowed to delay when they register an edict -

-they have to do it right away.

-Right.

And he also takes away their power to call the King down and

voice their concerns about the edicts.

He says, I don't really want to go down there any more.

And so, by chipping away at this power,

he's really sort of saying, well, no, I have the power.

Power cannot be divided. It has to be from one source.

There's a great line in the episode where Philippe says,

"You've taken your clothes off, you've shown us your frailty."

And that seems to me to be the crux of it - if you show your frailty,

it could undermine this whole house of cards.

Precisely, and he's getting that a lot from Renaissance texts

that emphasised reputation - that the reputation of

a monarch was really everything.

And so, you could be as full of vice and frailty as you like, sort of

on the inside, but you had to give this great show of glory,

this performance, this sort of court masque attitude towards things.

And Louis is, in fact,

the one who sort of invites in that close scrutiny

by making his home really this performance.

It means that he has to keep up that act.

And how much does this interest in divine power set him against

the religious aspects of court, because, essentially, if you're

saying, God speaks through me, isn't that the role of the priest?

Louis thinks that, within France, the kings have a right to decide

about the Catholic Church and the Pope doesn't actually have

any power to do that.

So it is a little bit contrary to the Church, in some ways,

that he claims this direct divine right.

Which means, what, the King has been appointed by God?

And that the people have no right to resist him.

And so, if you get a bad king,

it's actually God's punishment and you have to endure it -

-you can't try to overthrow the King or anything like that.

-Harsh!

And the greatest symbol of all of Louis's power was Versailles,

so perhaps we should go and talk a bit more about it.

Absolutely.

When you look at Versailles, it looks so beautiful -

this incredible place, beautifully laid out,

yet, to so many of the nobles in there, it was a pure prison.

Versailles is one of his greatest tools of power as well as

expressions of power.

You can see in the gardens, for instance,

this great sign of man's power over nature and the sort of rationalism.

-As you tame it.

-Absolutely.

And even the sort of untamed bits were designed to control

people's emotions, in certain ways.

And so, there was a sort of rational irrationalism going on,

or maybe irrational rationalism, but, either way,

it was all controlled and all designed in a specific way.

At this point,

he doesn't care about the ordinary people of Paris or wherever.

Not really, no.

They make up France and he is France but, beyond that,

he's certainly not interested in the vox populi -

the voice of the people.

It's not important to him.

So, to Louis, the working classes aren't really anything more than

just someone for him to make money out of.

You also see that a bit with the aristocracy -

that, basically, they're just there for him to make cash out of.

I mean, every episode, they are gambling for these huge stakes.

Yeah, they were gambling about three times a week within Versailles,

and gambling was one of another ways in which Louis controls his nobles.

By getting them to gamble,

he's essentially taxing them without actually taxing them,

cos you can't tax the nobles in France, and raising taxes in general

is a sure-fire way, if you're a monarch, to lose your head.

-Bit unpopular.

-It doesn't really work.

And he has lots of examples

from recent history to remind him of that.

So, instead, he gets them to sort of tax themselves

while also appeasing them,

keeping them fairly happy and keeping them in Versailles.

Versailles really is the seat of Louis's power.

Joanne, that's been fascinating.

Thank you so much for joining us,

and thank you too for joining us this evening on Inside Versailles.

-See you next week. Bonsoir.

-Bonsoir.