VERSAILLES. — City and diocese in the department of Seine-et-Oise in France. It has an area of 5,659 sq. km and a population of 1,500,000 inhabitants, of whom 1,000,000 are Catholics, distributed among 587 parishes, served by 846 diocesan and 130 religious priests; it has a major and a minor seminary, 40 male and 95 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 446).
The diocese was created by Pius VII on 9 March 1802. It comprised the two departments of Seine-et-Oise and Eure-et-Loir; but the latter department was detached from the diocese of V. in 1824 in order to re-establish the ancient diocese of Chartres. It is a suffragan of Paris. Among its bishops are J.-Fr.-Et. Borderies (1827–32); P.-A.-S. Goux (1877–1904); Ch. Giber (1906–31).
The cathedral of St-Louis was built between 1743 and 1754 by J. Hardouin-Mansart in the Louis XV style; relics of King St Louis, formerly venerated in the castle, are preserved there. In front of the Cathedral stands the statue of the abbé De l’Epée, benefactor of the deaf-mute. The church of Notre-Dame is the former parish church of the castle; it too is the work of Mansart, and its foundation stone was laid by Louis XIV on 10 March 1684.
It was the former residence of the Court of France from Louis XIV until the French Revolution and the seat of the French Government from 1871 to 1879. Until the 17th century it had been no more than a simple village, in which Louis XIII built a small hunting lodge in 1624 and acquired the lordship in 1632. Louis XIV entrusted the reconstruction of the old castle to the architect Le Vau, and commissioned Le Nôtre to design the gardens; he subsequently entrusted the extensions to J. Hardouin-Mansart (1645–1708). To him are due the large and small stables and the Grande Galerie, also called the Hall of Mirrors; for the orangery and the chapel he was assisted by the architects R. De Gotte and Le Nôtre; then came the Grand Trianon and the castles of Clagny and Marly. Under Louis XV, the architect Gabriel added further apartments, the opera house and the Petit Trianon. Under Napoleon I it was restored by the architect Fontaine. King William of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors on 18 January 1871. On 28 June 1919, the Treaty of