Ancient records of France indicate that in 1065 the priory of St. Julien was established on the estates of the house of Versaliis—­a grant under royal protection.  A poor farm community grew up about the ecclesiastical retreat.  Here, also, on the estates of the barony of Versailles, was a repair of lepers, destroyed in the sixteenth century.

The origin of the name is said by some to be derived from the fact that the plains thereabouts were exposed to such high winds that the grain in the poor land was frequently overturned (verses).  The lord of these acres first named in history is Hugues (Hugo) de Versaliis, who lived early in the eleventh century and was a contemporary of the first kings of the Capet dynasty.  A long line of nobles of this family succeeded him.  In 1561 Martial de Leomenie, Secretary of Finance under Charles IX, became master of Versailles.  The farming village being on the route between Paris and Brittany, he obtained from the king permission to establish here four annual fairs and a weekly market on Thursdays.  Martial perished in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572.  Henry IV, as a prince, when hunting the stag with Martial often swept across the low plains of Versailles.  The rights to the lands of the barony were acquired by Marechal de Retz from the children of Martial de Leomenie, and inherited from the noble duke by his son, Jean-Francois de Gondi, first archbishop of France.  It was this prelate that sold to Louis XIII in 1632, for 66,000 pounds (about $27,400), the land and barony of Versailles, consisting, in the phrase of the original deed, “of an old house in ruins and a farm with several buildings.”

In 1624, Louis XIII, who had hunted in the vicinity of Versailles since childhood and in later life had sought relief there from ennui and melancholy, often slept in a low inn or in the hill-top windmill after long hunts in the forest of St. Leger.  It occurred to him that it would be convenient for him to have a pavilion or hunting-lodge in this unattractive place, and accordingly he ordered one erected at Versailles, on the road that led to the forest of St. Leger.  In 1627, concluding that in no other domain of its limited acreage could he find so great variety of land over which to hunt on foot and horse-back, he bought a small piece of property at Versailles.  Immediately afterwards he caused to be erected what Saint-Simon called “a little house of cards” on the isolated hill that rolled up in the heart of the valley, where the windmill had stood.

Louis’ architect was Philbert Le Roy, and the new villa was about two hundred feet from the lodge first constructed.  Its form was a complete square, each corner being terminated by a tower.  The building was of brick, ornamented with columns and gilded balustrades; it was surrounded by a park adorned with statues sculptured after designs by the artist Poussin.  Ambitious addition!  A villa on the old mill site, decorated by the favorite court artist of the day, Nicolas Poussin!  The court resented the enterprise, the nobility despised it.  It was the King’s fancy; nothing else excused it.  A noble of the court, Bassompierre, exclaimed that “it was a wretched chateau in the construction of which no private gentleman could be vain.”