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
History of the Palace of Versailles but was never finished due to the king's death. Significant among Louis XV's contributions to Versailles were the "petit appartement du roi"; the "appartements de Mesdames", the "appartement du dauphin", the "appartement de la dauphine" on the ground floor; and the two private apartments of Louis XV – "petit appartement du roi au deuxième étage" (later transformed into the "appartement de Madame du Barry") and the "petit appartement du roi au troisième étage" – on the second and third floors of the palace. The crowning achievements of Louis XV's reign were the construction of the Opéra and the Petit Trianon.