At the beginning of the year 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte established at Versailles a branch of the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, and wounded veterans of the Revolution to the number of 2,000 were installed for two years in the vast apartments of Louis XV and in rooms overlooking the garden and the Court of Ministers.  During this period several of the salons were opened to the people for exhibitions and assemblies, and the public were free to enjoy the park, the Orangery and the fragrant bosques of Trianon.  Fetes of the Republic frequently took place about a national altar raised near the Lake of the Swiss Guards, and a Tree of Liberty was planted with great solemnity in the court of the chateau, where the equestrian statue of Louis XIV now stands.  In illuminating contrast to the regal celebrations it succeeded was this latter ceremony, which was inaugurated by a meeting in the historic Tennis Court, where loyal republicans took a new oath of hatred for all things royal, and swore devotion to the constitution.  Into the dwelling of former sovereigns the people then crowded to witness the ceremony of breaking a scepter and crown into a thousand pieces.  Next, they gathered around the Liberty Oak to consecrate it; they hung it with ribbons of the tricolor of France, a band played “a republican air,” and an orator delivered a speech in commemoration of the glorious anniversary of the day on which “the last tyrant of the French” had been guillotined.  Fortunately for the peace of mind of the Sixteenth Louis, he had no gift of prevision!

With the beginning of Napoleon’s reign, Versailles and the Trianon became once more part of the Crown lands.  The Emperor ordered necessary repairs to be made.  In the theater the royal troupe of comedians was sometimes heard.  The canal, which had nearly dried up during the neglectful rule of the Republic, was again filled with water.  The park and the facades of the palace were restored, and in the Gallery and State Apartments artists renewed the colors of the mural decorations.  Many of the repairs and changes made by Dufour, Napoleon’s architect, have remained to the present time.  Certain parts of the palace giving on the courts were in ruins, Louis XV and his heir having had no money to spare for their restoration.  In 1811, after the Peace of Vienna, Napoleon, then in residence at the Grand Trianon, took under advisement the complete reconstruction of the palace.  In consternation he surveyed the tumbling walls and the general confusion that confronted him during one of his promenades in the park and Orangery.  “Why,” cried he, “did the Revolution, which destroyed everything else, spare the chateau of Versailles!  Then I would not have had on my hands this embarrassing legacy from Louis XIV—­an old chateau poorly built—­one much favored without just cause.”