Then followed a fall in values at Versailles
and a great flutter of uncertainty among those that had followed the King
there. This feeling of doubt lasted for seven years. The faces of the
court favorites were turned back toward Paris, and individual fortunes
were speculatively weighed in the balance with the possibilities of the
new King's whims and fancies. But when the twelve-year-old Louis XIV
came to hunt in the vicinity of Versailles for the first time, he found
the suburban dwelling of his father attractive from the start. The
Gazette noted this visit, in 1651, and described the supper that the
royal boy shared with the officials of the chateau. Two months later the
King supped again at Versailles, and was so delighted with the estate and
the hunting to be had thereabouts that, thereafter, he made it a yearly
custom to visit Versailles once or twice in the hunting season, sometimes
with his brother, sometimes with his prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin.
Returning in 1652 from an interview at Corbeil with Charles II of
England, then seeking refuge in France, Louis XIV dined at Versailles
with his mother, Anne of Austria. In October, 1660, four months after
his marriage to Maria Theresa of Spain, he brought his young queen there.
The future of Versailles was assured. The King had decided to set his
star and make his palace home where his father had established a hunting
lodge.
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