History of the Palace of Versailles round towers. The vignette also shows a garden on the western side of the château with a fountain on the central axis and rectangular planted "parterres" to either side. Louis XIV had played and hunted at the site as a boy. With a few modifications, this structure would become the core of the new palace. Louis XIII's successor, Louis XIV, had a great interest in Versailles. He settled on the royal hunting lodge at Versailles, and over the following decades had it expanded into one of the largest palaces in the world. Beginning in 1661, the architect Louis Le Vau,
Palace of Versailles achieve, required several hundred kilograms of silver and gold to complete. One of the more costly endeavours for the museum and France's Fifth Republic has been to repurchase as much of the original furnishings as possible. Consequently, because furniture with a royal provenance – and especially furniture that was made for Versailles – is a highly sought after commodity on the international market, the museum has spent considerable funds on retrieving much of the palace's original furnishings. In 2003, a new restoration initiative – the "Grand Versailles" project – was started, which began with the replanting of the gardens, which