Versailles

2 posts tagged with this keyword.

Portrait of Marie Antoinette, 1775

The Marriage That Wasn't

May 16, 2026 By Andy Barca

On 16 May 1770, Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste married at Versailles. She was 14, he was 15, and they would fail to consummate the marriage for the next seven years. The consequences were not nothing.

Anton von Werner's painting of the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles on 18 January 1871.

Forty-Eight Years in the Hall of Mirrors

Jan 18, 2026 By Andy Barca

On 18 January 1871, the German Empire was proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. On 18 January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference opened in the same city. Between those two dates lived the full arc of German power — born in a defeated enemy's palace, ended in the same city by men determined to make sure it never happened again.