@ameliathroughtime: The Shocking Reality of Living Inside Versailles | 1700 AD Versailles, 1700 AD. The Hall of Mirrors had 20,000 candles and 357 mirrors. It also had counts and duchesses sleeping on the floor because there was nowhere else to sleep. The most beautiful palace on earth had no toilets for 20,000 people — courtiers relieved themselves in stairwells and behind curtains every single day. French nobles competed for the honor of handing the King his chamber pot. They were forced to live at Versailles away from their own estates deliberately — kept there so they couldn't build independent power. Gambling was actively encouraged to bankrupt them. Outside the gates, children were starving. The palace cost 5% of France's entire national income for 50 years. The most beautiful room ever built also had people sleeping on its floor and the smell of an open sewer. 89 years after it was finished the revolution came and took it all back. I spent a day inside the most beautiful and most grotesque place ever built. #Versailles #FrenchHistory #PalaceOfVersailles #1700AD #ameliathroughtime
