Pdf / English / 1972 Newsweek / 172 pages / 30.2 MB

KING LOUIS XIV WAS IN LOVE—with a woman and with a place. The woman was the sensuous Louise de La Valliere, first of his many mistresses; the place was Versailles, the modest country house his father had built in a sandy clearing in the woodlands outside Paris. In 1661 Louis determined to transform it into a grand chateau that would not only awe his own nobility but would proclaim to all Europe that he, the Sun King, was the world's mightiest monarch.