Versailles, France, 1667. Louis XIV is 28 years old. He will soon be recognised as the greatest of kings.
A brilliant political strategist, Louis is haunted by the trauma of The Fronde, a bitter civil war in which the nobility rebelled against the crown. Determined to bring his rich courtiers to heel and establish his absolute power, he devises an elaborate Machiavellian plan. He intends to transform his father’s hunting lodge into the most magnificent château in Europe, The Palace of Versailles.
As well as protecting him and providing a lavish setting for romance, it will keep the nobility away from Paris. They will realise too late it is a gilded prison and they are under the control of a master manipulator. Historical and fictional characters - flamboyant nobles, beautiful courtesans and humble servants - guide us through this intoxicating world of secrets, betrayals, love and war. This is Versailles in all its brutal glory.
King Louis XIV played by George Blagden
At 28 years old, King Louis XIV of France is in sole command of his kingdom, following the death of his mother, Anne of Austria. Louis is a spirited and seductive man, an extraordinary strategist and an utterly ruthless statesman. He is haunted by childhood memories of a bitter coup, ‘the Fronde’, when the nobles attempted to overthrow his father, Louis XIII. Louis has a dream, an obsession: to build the most beautiful palace in all of Europe – Versailles. Symbolising all the splendor and glory of France, it is a place where he will be safe at last. The nobles crave entry to this lavish château, but its purpose is to imprison and control them. Versailles sees Louis XIV grow from a young King into an all-powerful absolute monarch.
Philippe, Louis' brother played by Alexander Vlahos
Louis’ younger brother Philippe, known as Monsieur, is a free spirit, an effeminate dandy and a ferocious warrior. To prevent him from overshadowing his brother, their mother raised Philippe as a girl and worked to curtail his natural leadership talents. A lover of art and beauty, Philippe walks the gardens of Versailles dressed as a woman and willingly submits to the sexual whims of his lover, Chevalier de Lorraine. On the battlefield, he is a formidable soldier, able to win the support of entire regiments. This does not fail to arouse immense jealousy in his brother. To further complicate matters, Philippe’s neglected wife, Henriette, finds herself in Louis’ arms.
A brilliant political strategist, Louis is haunted by the trauma of The Fronde, a bitter civil war in which the nobility rebelled against the crown. Determined to bring his rich courtiers to heel and establish his absolute power, he devises an elaborate Machiavellian plan. He intends to transform his father’s hunting lodge into the most magnificent château in Europe, The Palace of Versailles.
As well as protecting him and providing a lavish setting for romance, it will keep the nobility away from Paris. They will realise too late it is a gilded prison and they are under the control of a master manipulator. Historical and fictional characters - flamboyant nobles, beautiful courtesans and humble servants - guide us through this intoxicating world of secrets, betrayals, love and war. This is Versailles in all its brutal glory.
King Louis XIV played by George Blagden
At 28 years old, King Louis XIV of France is in sole command of his kingdom, following the death of his mother, Anne of Austria. Louis is a spirited and seductive man, an extraordinary strategist and an utterly ruthless statesman. He is haunted by childhood memories of a bitter coup, ‘the Fronde’, when the nobles attempted to overthrow his father, Louis XIII. Louis has a dream, an obsession: to build the most beautiful palace in all of Europe – Versailles. Symbolising all the splendor and glory of France, it is a place where he will be safe at last. The nobles crave entry to this lavish château, but its purpose is to imprison and control them. Versailles sees Louis XIV grow from a young King into an all-powerful absolute monarch.
Philippe, Louis' brother played by Alexander Vlahos
Louis’ younger brother Philippe, known as Monsieur, is a free spirit, an effeminate dandy and a ferocious warrior. To prevent him from overshadowing his brother, their mother raised Philippe as a girl and worked to curtail his natural leadership talents. A lover of art and beauty, Philippe walks the gardens of Versailles dressed as a woman and willingly submits to the sexual whims of his lover, Chevalier de Lorraine. On the battlefield, he is a formidable soldier, able to win the support of entire regiments. This does not fail to arouse immense jealousy in his brother. To further complicate matters, Philippe’s neglected wife, Henriette, finds herself in Louis’ arms.
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Introduction by the creators
What are two UK writers doing writing a show in English about a French king? The answer is very simple: Apple. The world knows what Steve Jobs did by building Apple into a force around the globe, but few know that without Louis XIV and Versailles, none of what we are witnessing today would be possible.
Versailles was the Apple of its day, the world’s first truly global brand. Great stories are a global language and there are few greater or more all-encompassing than the story of Versailles.
The Chateau de Versailles and the court of Louis XIV are part of the unshakeable bedrock of French history. For a moment, we admit, we were more than a little nervous of committing to the project, since we knew all too well what the French might think of seeing their historical legacy outlined in Anglo-Saxon idioms.
But then we did something that is very useful in most circumstances. We stepped back, gained a little context, and remembered that Louis’ grandmother was a Medici, that his queen, Marie-Therese, was Spanish, that his sister-in-law, Henriette, was an English princess. That’s when it hit us: The story of Versailles isn’t just a French story or even a European story, it is universal.
For many of us, the first stories we were ever told featured a king in a castle in the middle of a forest. For us, Versailles, while rooted deeply in French patrimonie, is a universal tale of the need for power and the need for control.
When we approached the story of a young monarch centralising his power, we knew it was also the story of a young man attempting to conquer his demons and grasp some form of control over his life. We felt it would be intoxicating to see him battle these forces and succeed. We are, all of us, trying to build something, after all.
Reading the history books it is easy to assume that Louis’ absolute power was wielded the moment he became King, that this was his birth right, ordained by the chronicles. In our opinion, this is far from the truth. His central transformation from a figurehead into a CEO is a fascinating study in what psychologists might call 'ruthless dominance', a project of sheer force of will that was forever poised on the brink of failure.
Louis is still at this stage, one year after the death of his beloved but controlling mother, a man plagued by insecurity and flux in stormy and unsettled times. There was no telling which way his destiny would go. It was entirely up to him to seize his destiny from the ministers who had controlled him throughout his regency. In doing this, in many ways, he was moving from childhood to adulthood.
Our first season sees his coming of age of a monarch. As writers we have had many years of experience working on shows that have featured criminal psychopathology and other disorders of the brain. Thus we always saw the architecture of this show as inextricably linked to the architecture of Louis’ young mind - ambitious, traumatised, paranoid, borderline sociopathic and even psychopathic at times.
The palace of Versailles is, in many ways, a map of the mind of a monarch. The establishment of Versailles as a centre of power away from the past, in Paris, was a masterstroke of realpolitik, as innovative, intelligent, modern and provocative as Louis XIV himself. What Louis created was not just a palace. It was a great cornerstone of culture, fashion, cuisine, as well as the secret police.
But it wasn’t just Louis who held our attention. His brother Monsieur, Philippe Duc d’Orléans, seemed to us an extraordinary and uniquely modern character hiding in plain sight. He won us over completely. We’d simply never seen a character like him before, an openly gay warrior, a champion of the arts, a huge influencer of taste and fashion, in thrall to his lover (the manipulative Chevalier de Lorraine); a man who was forever in the shadow of his older brother.
Louis’ enmity with his brother remains front and centre to our drama. Monsieur is a vast contradiction of willing passivity, bottled rage and, like his brother, sexual appetite. Between them sits Henriette d’Angleterre, the sister of an English king, one of the beauties of the age, Monsieur’s wife and, we postulate, Louis’ lover. This was a triangle we wanted to explore for 100 episodes! Enraged by his brother’s affair with his wife, he nevertheless continues his own homosexual affair with the Chevalier de Lorraine, and attempts to maintain control over Henriette through multiple pregnancies and psychosexual abuse.
History is told by the winners and the majority of the stories that remain have been controlled in some way. What pressures lie behind them? In whose interest were they written? What we know of history is merely the tip of the iceberg. We wanted to write a redacted history of Versailles, the iceberg under the water… and the intrigues have only just begun.
Interview with George Blagden
How did you prepare for the role of King Louis XIV?
Quickly and in a panicked way! (laughs) I was cast about four weeks before we started filming and I was shooting a different television series in Ireland at the time. I actually finished filming on that series on the Friday, came over to Paris on the Saturday for costume, hair, makeup and rehearsals on the Sunday, and then started filming Versailles on the Monday. So the joke is I had a weekend to prepare for the most powerful monarch in European history! Though I did as much research as I could have done in those four weeks and I very much trusted in David and Simon’s writing. Knowing their vision for the show, I felt in very safe hands.
Can you describe King Louis XIV’s relationship with his brother?
Complex. I think it’s a real pillar for what drives the narrative of the show. I think that basically Philippe’s character is a very, very interesting one which effects Louis greatly - and vice versa. I really enjoy watching scenes between them and seeing what happens behind closed doors with them. It’s very powerful, this brotherly relationship. You have lots of elements of love and hatred and anger and betrayal and Alex does an amazing job with Philippe. When I’m doing scenes with Philippe there’s this great chemistry that’s kind of accidental and I don’t think anyone foresaw. It allows for lots of unspoken understanding between us of how we’re going to portray these brothers. In short I think he makes me look very good, and I’d like to hope to think that the reverse is the same - and that when we’re on set together the relationship is very powerful.
How about his relationship with his wife?
It’s a very interesting relationship because it was an arranged marriage and they married when they were teenagers I think. Of course it was a very political marriage to enable relations between France and Spain to go smoothly, and that as a starting point for a relationship can be quite difficult. I think that of all of the women in Louis XIV’s life he has a great deal of respect for Marie-Therese and at no point does their relationship become jeopardised by this knowledge that they’re union was initially for political reasons. They have become fond of one another as a result.
What can BBC Two viewers expect from Versailles?
They can expect lots! It’s very much an attempt from all of us to try and put a different light on this period of history and show it in a way that really relates to a modern audience. I think the way that we’ve been able to play with the historical facts and put pieces in between those facts that are very dramatic and very human really means that the audience will be able to identify with this world and these people. And everyone will have a different favourite character – there’s not one favourite character that everyone will come away from the show liking. It’s a real ensemble cast that delivers, in my opinion, a very powerful story.
What were your highlights of shooting series 1?
I don’t think I have an hour and a half to tell you! There were so many. There was one moment at the start of series one - on our first day of shooting at the real Palace of Versailles, on a Monday when it’s closed to the public. We had ten minutes at the end of the day and we really wanted to film this monologue of Louis talking to camera in The Hall of Mirrors. Almost a ‘Frank Underwood from House of Cards’ vibe, but in a dream sequence envisaging what Versailles would one day become. We decided to have a go at recording it with ten minutes left of the day. I quickly went and changed into this different outfit and came back out into the hall of mirrors with five or six minutes to shoot this monologue.
At that exact moment the sun dropped down underneath the clouds and this beautiful bright orange light flooded in through all of the windows into the hall, bounced off all the mirrors and the room was just literally golden. It was on the 400th anniversary of Louis XIV’s death and it felt as if everyone in the room had this spine-tingling feeling of, wow - we’re doing something quite special here. I delivered the monologue - I had two goes at it - and it’s there for viewers to see in the final cut of episode 1. It doesn’t get much better than that as an actor. I’m just blessed to have been given an opportunity like this show.
Interview with Alexander Vlahos
Tell us about Philippe as a character.
Philippe is the younger brother of Louis XIV, the King of France. He is a 26 year-old effeminate dandy, but he’s also described as a warrior so he has a sort of duality in his personality. Although he’s homosexual, he has a wife, Henriette - the sister to Charles II of England. She’s also the King’s mistress, so they really were one of the first dysfunctional families! It’s very confusing, at least on paper, but an absolute joy to play!
He wears women’s clothes, and he was brought up wearing women’s clothes from the age of three months old so he wouldn’t be a ‘threat’ to Louis and the crown. But in doing so it’s actually made him more powerful, more extraordinary I guess. He’s a gift of a character to play. When I first got the part they described him as a 17th Century David Bowie. When I read that I thought, I can do that! I can give that a go!
That description really sums him up.
Funnily enough, the first director, for in certain scenes, would give me notes along the lines of “do you think you could do this a bit more like Iggy Pop? Do you think you could do it a bit more like The Stooges?” And I think he got exactly how I work as an actor and how my brain works. Rather than a note for delivery of specific lines, he focussed on the general quality of the person I could bring to Philippe. Extraordinary, a little bit ‘out there’, a little bit otherworldly.
How strong is his relationship with his brother?
I think the relationship between Louis and Philippe is the strongest in the show. They have a sort of undying brotherly love between each other, but it’s also contested. They have friction as any brothers do - as any younger brother does. It is the heartbeat of the show, for Versailles, in terms of where they are with each other and how much respect they have for each other. Like many a younger brother, he’s always looking and vying for his big brother’s confirmation, his brother’s attention and his brother’s approval. And when he gets it he plays with that. Their relationship is I think the most important thing in Versailles.
How do the two brothers differ from one another?
Louis is very conscientious, but also very closed. He doesn’t show his emotion because he’s a King and it’s seen as a sign of weakness. With Philippe he doesn’t have that overbearing sense of consequence, so he gets to say what he thinks without any concern. He has no responsibility which is actually a very good thing for a younger brother. In terms of responsibility it’s a little bit like with William and Harry - the younger brother gets to have all the fun! And I have all the fun playing him.
Philippe is over-the-top sometimes but he’s also very passionate, he’s very caring, he says what he thinks and that makes him open for criticism from the French court. He’s a thorn in his brother’s side, but also he is his only brother so he’s everything to him and nothing at the same time. It’s difficult, it’s tricky - it’s a complicated relationship!
What can BBC Two viewers expect from Versailles?
Grandeur, incredible acting, incredible sets, beautiful costumes… I have never been more proud of something I’ve worked on than I am Versailles, and I think it’s going to blow UK viewers’ socks off. It’s rock n’ roll and I’m super happy that it’s on the BBC.
