The storied Staircase of the Ambassadors, by which ceremonious visitors
were admitted to the presence of the Sun King, was leveled by the whim
of Louis XV. Little mattered it to him that this superb entrance
filled an essential role in the life of the royal residence. Forgetful
of the scenes that had been enacted on the triumphal stair, the
great-grandson of the builder of Versailles commanded the destruction
of one of the noblest architectural works of the time. Its
bas-reliefs, its incomparable marbles, its paintings on which Lebrun
had exercised all the resources of his decorative genius--all
disappeared at the nod of the ambitious Madame de Pompadour, who
desired a theater to be erected on this site. In later years the
theater disappeared to make room for the apartments of the King's fair
daughter, Madame Adelaide.
The project to build another flight of steps ending in the Salon of
Hercules was never carried out. Future guests were therefore admitted
to the reception rooms by a dark, narrow entrance, or they made a long
roundabout tour by way of the Queen's staircase across the Marble
Court. The demolition of the stairway of honor was an irreparable
loss. No other piece of wantonness equaled it in the tumultuous
history of Versailles.
However, there remain in the chateau a number of memorials to the
judgment and good taste of the third master of the chateau, among them,
the exquisitely decorated rooms of the King, re-made on the site of
those dedicated to Louis XIV; the seven rooms of Madame Adelaide, and
the suites set apart for the mistresses that succeeded one another in
the favor of Louis the Fifteenth.
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