Origin of Versailles

The city of Versailles, very poor in the beginning, settled in the center of the forests and swamps of the Val de Galie. The castle of Versailles lies to the north, behind an expanse of oaks formerly used for the offerings of the Druids. Further back from the Chesnay cottages, another castle, much of the chatelain of Rocquencourt is placed on the slope of a wooded hill next to the plain and the hamlets surrounding the churches. If one leaves from the east from the edge a large pond, At Clagny, a large, very robust tower rises with its four stories. At Glatigny, there is a manor which completed the defence of the borough of Montreuil. There was also a hospital for lepers built next to the same large pond near Montbauron, the latter belonging to Celestine monks. Still another castle in the south adorned with small towers and surrounded by large ditches. It was built by the sommelier of King John II of France, Étienne Porcher. It contained farms and barns. And finally to the west, the Mont de Versailles with at its summit a windmill. The village of Versailles, with its Saint-Julien church, stood on the southern part of this mountain. Between the church and the mill, one finds the rest of a castle that was once a castle. If one still pushes towards the west, a large expanse of forest full of game. The village of Choisy-aux-Bœufs was on the right and the village of Trianon on the left which has its own church. The town of Versailles was situated within a quadrilateral between the present streets of Saint-Julien, Satory, the Orangery and the American Independence, forming the outskirts of the city of Versailles. The Mont de Versailles welcomed the seigneurial castle to the north of the city, and at the present location of the Grand Commun was the church of Saint-Julien. In place of the little seminary and the Hotel d'Orleans in the Rue du Vieux-Versailles, it was the cemetery. Versailles, derived from the Latin word versus (verse) and -alia (place) in the eleventh century referred to "ploughed land". If one refers to the old French, the definition of this word is: land cleared, similar for essart, hence the name of one of its communes, Les Essarts-le-Roi near Rambouillet. The "Verses Saillantes" – origin of the name "Versailles" But it is above all a plain abandoned to the "projecting verses" and / or "salient waters", King Louis XIII of France often hunted there. Due to the dirtiness of the surrounding ponds, during the construction of the castle, more than 3,000 people died as a result of malaria. Same etymology as Aquarius, sign of water: downpour or weir. The town of the Versailles of Dombes (Ain) whose collective source confirms the territorial hydrological aspect.