Palace of Versailles Colbert's mercantilism, but also to display the finest that France could produce. Estimates of the amount spent to build Versailles are speculative. An estimate in 2000 placed the amount spent during the Ancien Régime as US$2 billion, this figure being, in all probability, an under-evaluation. France's Fifth Republic expenditures alone, directed to restoration and maintenance at Versailles, may have surpassed those of the Sun King. Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles (; ; ) was the principal royal residence of France from 1682, under Louis XIV, until the start of the French Revolution in 1789, under Louis XVI. It
Branicki Palace, Białystok as "Versailles de la Pologne" (Versailles of Poland) and subsequently "Versailles de la Podlachie" (Versailles of Podlasie). The Palace was built for Count Jan Klemens Branicki, Great Crown Hetman and patron of art and science, raised in the French milieu of the Polish aristocracy, who transformed a previous house into the suitably magnificent residence of a great Polish noble, a rival to Wilanów Palace, making a start in 1726. He also laid out the central part of the town of Bialystok, not a large place in the 18th century, with its triangular market. The original wooden manor of the Raczkowicz