From the earliest times, when he gazed into a pool of water, man has sought to know himself through his image. The mirror makers of Murano perfected the art, their secret closely guarded by the Venetian republic. By the mid-17th century Venice dominated the market.

Until the time of Louis XIV. . . To the Sun King, image was all, and he needed mirrors to reflect his glory. In an early case of industrial espionage, the King's minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, enticed a group of Murano mirror makers to Paris, to break Venice's monopoly. La Serenissima, in turn, played a dirty tricks campaign, using bribes, false letters, and eventually poison, but too late. So the Hall of Mirrors came to be created, the piece de resistance of Versailles.

Only a man with the self-belief of Louis would have persisted in building the world's greatest palace on such an unpromising site. He surmounted obstacles like the absence of water to propel the fountains. In one year alone 3 million hornbeam saplings were planted to create the hedges, and 2 million plants were kept in pots to vary the design of the gardens. Louis bent Nature to his way. And while work was going on at Versailles, he conducted military campaigns against neighbouring countries.

Louis was the Sun around which France revolved. Courtiers from the most influential families waited upon him at table. The best artists, architects and garden designers were scooped up by his insatiable need to build. The greatest writers and musicians provided the court's entertainment. Lives were made and unmade by him.

I began to think about what it would have been like to have been subject to an absolute monarch. What it would have been like for the privileged few, like his mistress, Athenais de Montespan, who in her volatile moods, jealousy and reliance on the alternative medicine of the day, bears a passing resemblance to Princess Diana. What it would have been like for the artists and workers catering to Louis's whims, such as the fountain maker who has to find water for the hundreds of jets that are required for the gardens. Or the mirror maker risking his health to provide a perfect image for the King. Or the maid, aware of more primitive currents underlying the baroque gilding as she strips the linen from the bed. . . .

Clare Colvin