The Crystal Palace

"Who loves the sun, the sun will shine for." This phrase was inscribed on the walls of an Egyptian temple thousands of years before Louis XIV was born, but the French monarch would certainly have agreed with the sentiment. Louis XIV crowned himself the Sun King and made his palace at Versailles the sky in which he shone. Now, an army of craftspeople is returning Versailles to its original luster as part of a 15-year, j390 million restoration project. In Louis XIV's time, architecture and fashion were signals of the court's wealth and splendor; Versailles was a demonstration of the grandest of perfect tastes, what the French still call grand goût. (Bad taste was invented later.) At Versailles, Louis XIV tried to give the idea of infinity a physical shape — strolling through the fabulous Hall of Mirrors is like walking inside a beam of light — just as architects had tried to embody the divine in their cathedrals. Versailles remains a secular temple to the grandeur and artistry of France.

The restoration of the Hall of Mirrors is due for completion in the spring of 2007. And there is a lot to restore: 1,100 sq m of marble, 20 chandeliers, scores of trophies, crowns and sculptures, and the exquisite ceiling paintings by Charles Le Brun. It took Le Brun seven years to fill the gallery with these tributes to the enlightened exploits of Louis XIV, both on the battlefield and as a patron of the arts. The delays were mostly due to the fact that Louis XIV's advisers kept interrupting the artist. They wanted the King to be represented in his own right in the paintings — a first at the time — rather than just portraying gods and mythical heroes (though Louis XIV had already lost his good looks by then, he retained his regal taste). Many of the famous mirrors themselves — manufactured by a now banned process involving mercury that resulted in the deaths of numerous workers in the 17th century — are being replaced by similar artifacts purchased from the storerooms of the French Senate.

Louis XIV was fortunate to have been able to assemble and inspire so many great artists in the same place at the same time. Versailles is in some ways a strange creation, a monument to an absolute ruler in the country that later produced the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Maybe the French feel some vague twinge of guilt for all the gilt in Versailles. But today, everyone can feel at home in this sublime work of genius. As French Bishop and author Jacques Bénigne Bossuet put it at the time, when you approach the palace, "one breathes an ennobling air."

Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld is the creative director of Chanel

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