„Après nous, le déluge” – Louis XV never said anything like that but these words have for long been considered the best synthesis of his reign. King, good-for-nothing, spendthrift and sybarite, he didn’t meet the challenge of his age. He had absolute power, of which he made little use. And, after all, he introduce radical reforms, prevent the revolution, exploit the potential of Europe’s most populous country better than Napoleon and make Paris the capital of the civilized world. Louis’ countrymen are used to assessing him this way but recently the judgment has begun to be toned down. Under the pretext of celebrating the 300th anniversary of the return of the court to Versailles, this palace being a monument to the French hosted an exhibition dedicated to the monarch who was unwilling to listen to the advice of philosophers.

From love to hatred

Historical memory plays tricks and great men’s favours are uncertain. Contemporary French have put Voltaire out to pasture while celebrating the republican holidays out of habit rather than conviction. Subsequent residents of the Elysée strike royal poses. Revolution is more associated with burning cars and smashed shop windows than with human rights. The hated Marie Antoinette, personification of the ancien régime, in the 21st century became an icon of glamor fashion for some, and a martyr for others, able to maintain dignity in the face of undeserved punishment. Three years ago, in the Conciergerie, a former prison known as the “waiting room for the guillotine”, an exhibition was organized to do justice to the Austrian. Now something similar is happening with her father-in-law.

SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE When he ascended the throne as a child, he was called “Bien-Aimé” – a beloved one. Nobody felt sorry for the dying old lust. Guilty Louis XVI paid for the sins of others. In fact, the rebellious French wanted to cut off his grandfather's head. The hour of revenge struck on October 16, 1793, when the enraged mob invaded the Basilica of Saint-Denis. Sarcophagi were smashed and the remains of "tyrants" were profaned, with Louis XV being the most tormented. It takes luck, on the same day Marie Antoinette was driven through the streets of Paris to the scaffold. A month and a half later, Madame Du Barry, the king's last mistress, followed in her footsteps.

Polish secret of the Bourbon

Bien-Aimé remains the only French monarch who was born and died in Versailles. He was shy by nature and prone to melancholy. He was tired of court etiquette and representational duties. He hid himself from the crowd of courtiers in a narrow circle of people whom he trusted. In a place created for the glory of le Roi Soleil he must have felt uneasy. Unlike his megalomaniac predecessor, he liked rooms tailored to human dimensions. If his spirit circulates in Versailles, it is not in the Gallery of Mirrors and the Grand Apartments, but one floor above, in the boudoir of the Marquise de Pompadour or the intimate Petit Trianon, which he had built in the new “Greek” style, in a secluded part of the park.

The exhibition is subtitled “King’s passions”. Politics was none of them. Louis was first assisted in governing by his uncles, then by his former tutor, Cardinal Fleury, and finally by thrusters, recommended by his current mistresses. The outcoe of the long rule, lasting over half a century, looked bad. France succeeded in annexing Lorraine and Corsica, but apart from that she suffered a series of painful defeats. England – the eternal enemy – cleaned her out of valuable colonial spoils, defeating the fleet sailing under the flag with fleurs-de-lis. The land army, considered invincible, yielded to the Prussians.

Towards the end of his life, Louis watched helplessly as the first partition of Poland took place. And yet the fate of the Republic was close to his heart, if only for family reasons: his wife Maria was daughter of Stanisław Leszczyński. The ruler of France tried to help his father-in-law regain the crown, but in the end he gave up and married his son to a Saxon princess, whose father August III sat on the Polish-Lithuanian throne for 30 years. This did not prevent Ludwik from practicing secret diplomacy. Behind the ministers’ backs, he hatched a plan to install his cousin, prince of Conti, in Warsaw (or at least in Mitau). The disclosure of the “royal secret” in the 19th century confused historians, who were convinced that Bien-Aimé had no good head to deal with matters of state importance.

Friends from the second floor

The entrance ticket to the former Bourbon residence also entitles you to visit the exhibition. For the crowd of tourists besieging Versailles, it’s just several extra rooms to go through, tick off and photograph with a mobile phone. For those interested in the subject – an experience comparable to the impressions of a courtier who wants to see His Majesty from the closest possible distance. After intensive conservation work, the apartments of the aforementioned Madame du Barry (modest 350 square meters) were made available to the public. She had lived here four years and hadn’t had much time to pack. On his deathbed, the royal lover fulfilled the family’s wish, ordering the source of scandal to be removed from the palace.

The exhibition consists of four hundred exhibits. Some of them had not been presented to the public before, and almost all of them were removed from Versailles after the fall of the monarchy. The painting of Louis with his nurse and the richly decorated chest of drawers from the royal bedroom had to be imported from London, and the bust of five-year-old Bien-Aimé from New York. From the National Archives, among others, Bourbon’s school notebooks, a list of candidates for his wife and items related to the trial of the would-be regicide Damiens.

On January 5, 1757, this frustrated butler stabbed the ruler in the ribs as he was getting into the carriage. Despite the hemorrhage, Louis recovered and wanted to pardon the assassin, but the Parisian judges decided otherwise. Damiens was tortured and publicly executed with “medieval” cruelty, lamented by the Enlightenment men. The fate of the ruler, deaf to the postulates of philosophers postulating the dismantling of absolutism, was indifferent to them at best. Louis, despite his libertine tendencies, treated the title of Arch-Christian King seriously. He did not regard religion as “superstition”. He also realized that the Church is the pillar of the monarchy. Could such a man count on the sympathy of salons?

Having fathered ten children with his Polish wife, Bien-Aimé began to look for younger women. Some surpassed the crowned lover in smartness and even intelligence, exerting considerable influence on state affairs. The curators of the exhibition treated Louis’ mistresses rather perfunctorily. At their expense, the images of the king’s daughters, who withered in old maidenhood, were exposed, because the king was unable to find them worthy spouses. The most famous of the favourites, Marquise Pompadour, lent her face to a marble sculpture entitled “Friendship”. The smarter ones will notice in the corner of the room a portrait of Dawn, that is Marie-Anne, the youngest of the Mailly-Nesle sisters (all three stayed in the king’s bedroom), as well as Duke Richelieu, who in Bourbon’s harem held the not very honorable function of a tout.

Of course, there is no shortage of portraits of the main character in Versailles. The most impressive is the work of Hyacinthe Rigaud, who earned the title of court painter in the era of Louis XIV. There is also a crown. It is decorated with 282 diamonds, 230 pearls, 16 rubies and the same number of emeralds, sapphires and topazes. You will not find a better proof of the shameful extravagance of the ancien régime at Versailles.

The sad end of the hippo

But let’s get back to the passion mentioned in the tile. Bien-Aimé had a strong interest in geography, physics and astronomy. It is no coincidence that the first exhibit of the jubilee exhibition is the Passemanta astronomical clock with moving spheres. According to the Copernican theory, the planets revolve around the sun and the moon revolves around the Earth. In addition to solar time, the clock shows the phases of the moon and air temperature. The monarch also had a telescope, microscope, electrostatic machine, collection of globes, and an extensive scientific library. He financed sea expeditions, founded the world’s largest botanical garden in Versailles. Under his auspices, the first detailed map of France was created.

Like all Bourbons, Louis was a keen hunter. If he was well, he went hunting three times a week. Nine paintings depicting hunting exotic animals were imported from Amiens. Once upon a time these great canvases adorned the royal dining room. Visitors react differently. Some are amused, others are disgusted. The fight of an African lion and a Polish bear with big dogs can still be endured somehow. It’s worse when the victims of brave hunters are an ostrich or a hippopotamus.

Truth to tell, painting occupied the monarch less than architecture and the decoration of palace interiors. Versailles owed him an opera, Paris – the Church of Saint Genevieve, which became the Pantheon during the (First) Republic. In one of the exhibition halls, models of Louis’ monuments were collected, which were erected in the largest French cities during his lifetime. The equestrian statute of the king in Paris disappeared first. It was replaced by a guillotine. Today, the square that saw the execution of hundreds of real and imaginary enemies of the revolution is called Place de la Concorde.

Dance under the volcano

The Versailles exhibition rehabilitates not only the king, but also the Rococo, referred to by the French as the “Louis XV style”. Władysław Tomkiewicz claimed that the Baroque was a child of the theatre, while the Rococo drew inspiration from dance. The curators of the exhibition go even further: in their opinion, this style “freed from all the limitations of symmetry and formal rules, revolutionized the artistic creation of the 18th century”. The proof, apart from the products of the manufactory in Sevres, are beautiful vases made of Meissen porcelain, which the ruler of France received as a gift from our August III. The exhibition ends quite unexpectedly with the contemporary installation “Après nous, le deluge”, referring to the luxurious design of the Rococo era.

In fact, there is no reason why the Tricolors should have bad memories of the times when the political, cultural and artistic model prevailing on the Seine dominated the world. The hedonist-king is ideally suited for a patron saint of the contemporary French, striving after bliss, not willing to overwork but convinced of their supremacy over other nations, especially English-speaking ones. Besides, reconciling with one’s own history is worth the effort. Even if we don’t like it very much.

– Wiesław Chełminiak
– Translated by Dominik Szczęsny-Kostanecki

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists

The exhibition “Louis XV. Passions d’un Roi” at the palace of Versailles is open till February 19.