Menus plaisirs louis xiv biography wikipedia

National constituent assembly

The numerous large rooms served to store the props and stage sets for the theatre and opera productions staged at the court in Versailles. A storeroom was added in The steward of the Menus-Plaisirs, who managed Palace performances, also lived and worked there. Initially based in Paris, the establishment moved to Versailles with the court in The remit of the Menus-Plaisirs was wide.

It was in charge of the royal staff musicians, doctors, gentlemen of the court, etc. It required a spacious building with large reception rooms to house the 1, members of the three Estates Nobility, Clergy and Commoners , as well as the royal family, princes and princesses of royal blood, parliamentarians, members of the Government and the public in , a makeshift room was used to house the Assembly of Notables, prior to the Parliamentary Assembly.

On the first floor of the old storeroom, the assembly hall measured 50 x 25 x 10 metres, large enough for all the Estates to gather round the royal podium. The Nobility and Clergy could meet separately in adjacent rooms. Other buildings were also modified, the storerooms being converted into offices and meeting rooms. The old assembly hall was given an oval shape as a tribute to Antiquity and Greek democratic fervour.

It no longer housed a theatre and entered a long period of decline and neglect.