The Queen’s bed-chamber, the apartments of Madame de Maintenon and of the daughters of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour were among those that were altered.  In the entrance court of the chateau were placed a group of statues from the Paris bridge de la Concorde, all of them so massive that they were out of proportion to the low surrounding walls.

On the face of the north and south wings Louis Philippe caused to be engraved the dedication of the huge pile and its contents “To all the Glories of France.”  The sum expended under the direction of the architect, Nepveu, for the creation of the National Museum of Versailles, exceeded 20,000,000 francs (about $4,000,000).  The inauguration of the museum in June, 1837, was attended by Louis Philippe and his Queen, by officers of the Army and Government and representatives of French Law, Commerce, Art and Education.  Arriving from Trianon, where they had been in residence, the King and his wife entered the palace by the Marble Stairway, traversed the Grand Hall of the Guards (to-day called the Hall of Napoleon) and the halls leading to the Grand Gallery of Battles, where they saw portrayed on canvas all the important military engagements of French armies, from Tolbiac to Wagram.  In the Chamber of Louis XIV the King and Queen examined the restorations of the furniture, and found them well done.  A royal banquet was laid in the Grand Gallery and in adjacent salons.  At eight o’clock His Majesty, the royal family and 1500 guests assembled in the brilliantly illuminated Opera House, where they witnessed a performance of Moliere’s Misanthrope and extracts from the opera, Robert le Diable, by Meyerbeer.  The spectacle was concluded by a piece written by Eugene Scribe, the famous French librettist, in celebration of the founding of the Museum.  At midnight the King and his family led a procession through the galleries of the palace, lighted by footmen carrying torches.  At two o’clock in the morning the festivities were at an end and the royal party left for Trianon.

Says a French author, writing two years after the opening of the museum.  “When Louis Philippe first cast his eye upon Versailles, he saw at once the impiety of allowing such a monument to sink into utter ruin. . . .  He determined that the palace of Louis XIV, without losing its individuality, should become a palace of the entire people; and that the bygone spirit of absolutism should give shelter to the spirit of modern liberty.  Versailles, therefore, erected as a homage to individual pride, has become, under the Orleans regime, a great national monument—­and certainly the most complete and splendid of its class in all Europe.  The temple of luxury was converted into a temple of the arts, and French valor was recorded in immortal colors upon the walls, by French genius.”