Although it may be the most famous castle in the world, Versailles still hides a few secrets that Mac Lesggy and his teams will try to unlock through science. Hall of Mirrors, the hygiene and daily life of kings and queens but also courtiers of the time… this issue of “E = M6” does not just admire this architectural gem and its masterpieces work, it reveals another facet of the palace. We tell you behind the scenes of this amazing shoot that lasted four days last month.
From the chapel to the Hall of Mirrors
“They haven’t quite finished filming yet, do you fancy a little visit in the meantime? You can never refuse a visit to Versailles, especially with the château’s press attaché as your guide. Our small group then heads towards the royal chapel. Completed in 1710 after only three years of work, “it is considered the last hand of Louis XIV” we are told.
The particularity of this chapel is its unpainted windows, whereas we are used to colorful and heavy stained glass windows. These large tiles that let in the light, Louis XIV ordered them from the Saint-Gobain factory, the same one that also took care of the famous mirrors of the Hall of Mirrors.
A little dance along the way
And it is precisely towards this mythical part of the castle that we are taken. After a passage on the gallery of the chapel where the king attended the mass under the Holy Spirit, we enter the salon of Hercules, the largest in the castle and therefore quite naturally reserved for balls.
The opportunity is all found for one of our comrades to give us a little demonstration of a dance of the time. If we are mostly accompanied by colleagues from the specialized TV press, Olivier Coquart, professor of the Higher Chair at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris is also part of the editorial board of the magazine Historia. The visit is therefore carried out with two guides: the historian finishing the explanations of the press officer and vice versa.
We then go to a series of rooms in honor of Roman deities. “This is the route the king took to go to mass and come back,” we are told.
“The unusual story of Versailles”
After this succession of pieces, we arrive in the Salon de la Guerre, at the end of the Hall of Mirrors where we find Mac Lesggy who has just finished filming one of the sequences broadcast this evening.
“In the show, I’m over there, behind the ceiling”, shows us the host. With this number of “E = M6”, Mac Lesggy actually reveals behind the scenes of the most legendary room of the castle, built on an old terrace. “A bit like a veranda,” he summarizes.
Obviously impossible to talk about the Hall of Mirrors without mentioning its 357 mirrors. A real feat for the 17th century, the process was carefully guarded by Venetian craftsmen. Louis XIV then founded the royal ice cream factory installed in a small village in the northeast of the kingdom, Saint-Gobain, which gave it its name. She is developing a revolutionary manufacturing process that the program reveals to us: table casting.
“This castle is very advanced in certain aspects and very late in others, in particular the sanitation. It was an extremely uncomfortable home: it was cold, it stank all the time…” emphasizes Mac Lesggy.
Moving away from the splendor of the residence of the kings of France, the program was thus interested in the conception of hygiene that reigned there. Were there bathrooms? How did the king and queen, but also the 4,000 courtiers who lived in the castle, go to the toilet? “There are 34 cesspools under the castle, connected in a very imperfect way to a pond”, explains Mac Lesggy. “This afternoon, we’re going down to one of them to shoot. It’s an exclusive! “, he rejoices. “It is in a way the unusual story of Versailles. “If you want to know it, go this Sunday from 8:25 p.m., on M6.
“E=M6”, special program Château de Versailles, presented by Mac Lesggy, this Sunday January 16 from 8:25 p.m. on M6.