Recollects Convent (Versailles) (an annual theater event organized by the city of Versailles). During the period 1672-1673, as part of the design for his new Court of France, at what was then a royal hunting lodge at Versailles, Louis XIV decided to demolish Saint-Julien, the only church in Versailles at that time, and construct a convent for the Recollects, (an order so favored by the king he chose army chaplains from them) in the new town to be situated on the opposite side of the Palace, in today’s Notre-Dame area. In 1682, the Court of Louis XIV was installed at Versailles, and Jules
Palace of Versailles when the enemies of the King's chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, aided by the King's mother, Marie de' Medici, tried to take over the government. The King defeated the plot and sent his mother into exile. After this event, Louis XIII decided to make his hunting lodge at Versailles into a château. The King purchased the surrounding territory from the Gondi family, and in 1631–1634 had the architect Philibert Le Roy replace the hunting lodge with a château of brick and stone with classical pilasters in the doric style and high slate-covered roofs, surrounding the courtyard of the original hunting lodge.