Grand Trianon
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The Grand Trianon was built in the northwestern part of the Domain of Versailles at the request of Louis XIV, as a retreat for the King and his maîtresse en titre of the time, the marquise de Montespan, and as a place where the King and invited guests could take light meals (collations) away from the strict étiquette of the Court.
In 1670, Louis XIV purchased Trianon, a hamlet on the outskirts of Versailles, and commissioned the architect Louis Le Vau to design a porcelain pavilion (pavillon de porcelaine) to be built there. The façade was made of white and blue Delft-style "porcelain" (ceramic) tiles from the French manufactures of Rouen, Lisieux, Nevers and Saint-Cloud. Construction began in 1670 and was finished in 1672.
By 1687, the fragile ceramic tiles had deteriorated to such a point that Louis XIV ordered the demolition of the pavilion and its replacement with one made of stronger material. Commission of the work was entrusted to the architect Jules Hardouin Mansart. Hardouin-Mansart's new structure was twice the size of the porcelain pavilion, and the material used was pink marble of Languedoc. Begun in June 1687, the new construction (the same marble palace that we see today) was finished in January 1688 and inaugurated by Louis XIV and his secret wife, the marquise de Maintenon, during the summer of 1688.
At the time of the French Revolution of 1789, the Grand Trianon (named so by opposition to the much smaller Petit Trianon built between 1762 and 1768 during the reign of Louis XV) was left to neglect. At the time of the First French Empire, Napoleon made it one of his residences, and furnished it in the Empire Style. It is now used by Presidents of the French Republic to entertain foreign officials, and is also a popular site for tourists visiting Versailles, .
In 1920, the Grand Trianon hosted the negotiations and signing of the Treaty of Trianon, which left Hungary with less than one-third of its pre-World War I land size. To the Hungarians, the word "Trianon" remains to this day the symbol of one of their worst national disasters.
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