page_title: History of the Palace of Versailles
section_title: Fourth building campaign
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Palace of Versailles / Ancien Régime / Louis XIV / Fourth building campaign
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Ansicht des Schlosses Versailles vom Waffenplatz aus gesehen. English: The Palace of Versailles under construction at the time of Louis XIV's death, by P. D. Martin (1722, Versailles Museum). Français&#160;: Vue du château de Versailles prise depuis la Place d'Armes.
context_page_description: The Palace of Versailles is a royal château in Versailles, in the Île-de-France region of France. When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometres southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the centre of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as well as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime.
context_section_description: Soon after the crushing defeat of the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–1697) and owing possibly to the pious influence of Madame de Maintenon, Louis XIV undertook his last building campaign at Versailles. The fourth building campaign (1699–1710) concentrated almost exclusively on construction of the royal chapel designed by Hardouin-Mansart and finished by Robert de Cotte and his team of decorative designers. In 1701 there were further modifications in the appartement du roi, namely the construction of the Salon de l’Œil de Bœuf and the King's Bedchamber. This was achieved by eliminating the wall between the Deuxième Antichambre and the old bedchamber of the King, creating one much larger antechamber in the process, the Chambre de l'Oeil de Boeuf. The neighboring Grand Salon was then converted into the new bedchamber of the king, which now sat squarely at the center of the west façade over the Cour de Marbre. With the completion of the chapel in 1710, virtually all construction at Versailles ceased; building would not be resumed at Versailles until some twenty one years later during the reign of Louis XV.
caption: View from the Place d'Armes, ca. 1722, by Pierre-Denis Martin (1663-1742)
exif: {}