We pause for a lecture on the grounds, the castle and their history. Louis XIV was only six years old when his father Louis XIII died (just one year after his minister, Cardinal Richelieu). The child king was in a precarious situation, and the nobles, many of them protestant like Louis's grandfather, Henri IV, jumped at the occasion to regain the power that Richelieu had taken from them in his attempt to unify a divided kingdom. Some of the acts were outright rebellion and the Louvre, the principal royal residence, was attacked more than once. As soon as Louis had grown up he began construction of Versailles -- a royal residence far removed from the turmoils of Paris.
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Date: 6/4/09 6:35 AM
WVU-V 2009!
