3. * Versailles was at start only a village and royal hunting place. The king Louis XIV then decided that the royal court should leave the Louvre in Paris and ordered a palace to be built there. * At its peak, the city had a population of more than 50000 and was the capital of the kingdom of France, which it stayed until the French revolution. * The palace evolved under Napoleon, but was then nearly abandoned before being made a national monument in the 19th century. Its extensive gardens designed by the omnipresent Le Notre and its numerous buildings scattered in a very large estate make it one of the major attractions of Ile de France.