The Crown Jewel of Europe

There are certain ironies in holding the economics summit at Versailles. The most sumptuous chateau in France is a monument to royal extravagance. Twice in this century, Versailles has been rescued from near ruin only by generous infusions of American cash.

Envy was the palace's original inspiration. King Louis XIV, outraged by the opulence of a chateau built by his Finance Minister Nicolas Fouquet, in 1662 hired Fouquet's architect, Louis le Vau, to create a monumental country palace of glass and champagne-hued stone at Versailles, twelve miles southwest of Paris. By 1685, 36,000 men were at work on the palace, then set within 15,000 acres of nurtured gardens, groves and lawns. Embarrassed by the cost of the project ($1.4 billion in today's dollars), Louis ordered the accounts burned.

But the Sun King got his money's worth. The main building, 600 yds. long with its two 150-yd. wings, had 2,000 rooms and could house 1,000 noblemen with their retinues. In 1687, Louis felt the need for a bit of privacy and built the Grand Trianon, a modest 72-room hideaway of pink and green marble, a mile and a half away. That edifice, in turn, inspired the Petit Trianon, a 30-room cottage that Louis XV built for his mistress Madame de Pompadour in 1762. When Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette fell victim to the French Revolution in 1789, so did Versailles: its paintings were carted off, its tapestries ripped apart for the gold thread, and its furniture sold. In 1830, 15 years after the monarchy was restored, French officials were clamoring to raze the palace, but instead King Louis Philippe turned it into a museum.

Versailles suffered other indignities. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the fabled Hall of Mirrors was turned into an infirmary by the invaders; the French avenged the German insult in 1919, when the Allied leaders gathered in the same hall to sign the treaty ending World War I. But by then the palace had been gutted, and the gardens were shabby and overgrown. Visiting the grounds in 1923, John D. Rockefeller Jr. was appalled at the neglect and donated $100,000 for restoration, which included a new roof for the Hall of Mirrors.

The Germans occupied the palace during World War II, and afterward visitors discovered white mushrooms growing on the cold, damp walls and rain dripping from the frescoed ceilings onto the parquet floors. The Rockefeller family again spearheaded a fund-raising drive. Today more than 60 rooms are open to the public, and fully half of the palace has been restored. Total price tag since 1950: about $75 million. Versailles now ranks as France's third biggest tourist attraction; only the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Eiffel Tower are more popular.

At this week's summit, each leader, along with four aides, will stay in the Grand Trianon; Ronald Reagan will sleep in a suite once occupied by Louis Philippe, an eight-room apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the canal and gardens. Some 3,000 guards will patrol the palace this weekend, and at the request of jittery U.S. officials, six antiaircraft missiles will be placed around the park. Frogmen have inspected every pool and canal for bombs and killer rabbits; the schedule allows for a late-afternoon gondola ride, if weather permits.

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