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(VERSALIENSIS).
Diocese; includes the Department of Seine-et-Oise,France. Created in 1790 by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, thisdiocese was maintained by the Concordat of 1802; it included also the Department of Eure-et-Loir, detached from it in 1822 by the restoration of theDiocese of Chartres. It was made up of considerable parts of the ancient Dioceses ofParis,Chartres,Rouen,Sens, and some cantons belonging formerly to the Dioceses ofBeauvais, Senlis, andEvreux. At the beginning of the seventeenth century Versailles was a mere village, whoseseigneur was Antoinede Loménie. Louis XIII bought it in 1632, and had a small château built there. The present château was begun underLouis XIV byMansart (1661), the gardens were designed by Lenôtre; the interior decorations were entrusted toLebrun.Louis XIV lived there in 1672 and constantly from 1682. The residence was finished in 1684, and a town soon grew up. The French monarchs resided at Versailles for more than century; here was signed (3 Sept., 1783) the treaty betweenFrance andEngland, acknowledging the independence of theUnited States; here took place (1 May, 1789) the opening of the States-General, and it was here too, in the hall of the Jeu de Paume, that the delegates of the Third Estate, and some members of the other two estates (nobility andclergy), constituted themselves a national assembly. It was from Versailles that the Parisian populace took Louis XVI and hisfamily (6 Oct., 1789), and brought them back toParis. The Grand Trianon was built underLouis XIV byMansart; the Petit Trianon was given by Louis XVI toMarie Antoinette. Thechapel of the château was built 1699-1710; theTheophilantropists worshipped there during 1794-95. "This chapel", Pératé says, "is, in the whole and its details, one of the most perfect monuments thatLouis XIV ever built."
Saint-Cyr, near Versailles, is famous for theeducational institute thatMadame de Maintenon founded there for young girls. The city of St-Cloud, whose château dates fromLouis XIV, owes its origin to the Monastery of Novigentum, founded by St. Clodald or Cloud, son of King Clodomir (d. About 560). At St-Cloud, Jacques Clément attempted the life of Henry III. There alsoBonaparte executed against the "Assembly of the Five Hundred" thecoup d'état of 18 Brumaire. Nearby is Meudon, once theparish of Rabelais. The town of St-Germain-en-Laye, whose present château dates fromLouis XIV, owes its origin to aconvent founded during the eleventh century by King Robert; Louis XIII died there.Louis XIV was born there, and James II ofEngland died there. TheBenedictine Abbey of Morigny, near Etampes, was founded about 1102 by a nobleman called Ansaeu. He established in itmonks from St-Gerner de Flaix, amonastery in theDiocese of Beauvais. At the beginning of the eleventh century theabbey and revenues of St-Martin d'Etampes, said to have been founded byClovis, were given to themonks of Morigny by Philip I. On 3 Oct., 1120,Calixtus IIconsecrated the church of Morigny. In Jan., 1131,Innocent IIconsecrated an altar toSt. Lawrence there;Abelard andSt. Bernard were present at thisceremony. The Abbey of Morigny was united in 1629 to the Congregation of St-Maur, and has ceased to exist since theFrench Revolution. In 1092, 1099, 1130 councils took place at Etampes (in the latter of which, on the advice of St. Bernard, thebishops sided withInnocent II, against theantipope Anacletus); also in 1147. At Poissy, St. Louis wasbaptized. TheDominicanpriory, founded at Poissy in 1304, was celebrated.
The "Colloquy of Poissy" took place (1561) betweenCatholictheologians under theCardinal of Lorraine, and Montluc,Bishop ofValence, andCalvinisttheologians under Theodore Beza. It opened on 9 Sept., in the refectory of theabbey, before Charles IX and Catharine de'Medici. A second sitting took place 16 Sept., and was followed by two conferences between thetheologians on both sides. The colloquy had no result. The town of Isle-Adam, in the Diocese of Versailles, belonged, since the twelfth century, to thefamily of the Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, whose most famous member was Philipe de l'Isle-Adam (1464-1534), Grand Master of theOrder of Jerusalem, who in 1522 held Rhodes for six months against 200,000Turks. Themonastery ofPort-Royal was situated in the commune of St-Lambert, at the hamlet of Vaumurier. Among the natives of the present territory of the Diocese of Versailles may be mentioned: Duplessis-Mornay (1549-1623), surnamed the "pope of the Huguenots", author of a treatise on "The Institution of the Eucharist", and who was defeated by theCatholictheologians at the Conference of Fontainebleau (1600); Pierre du Moulin (1568-1658), aCalvinisttheologian, who composed for James I ofEngland several apologetic writings, and taughttheology at Sedan; Abbé de l'Epée (1712-89), inventor of a method for teaching the deaf and dumb; Abbé Guénée (1717-1803), born at Etampes, author (1769) of the well-known "Lettres de plusieurs Juifs Portugais etc., à M. De Voltaire"; Marquise de La Rochejacquelein (1772-1857), author of memoirs concerning the War of La Vendée.
The chiefpilgrimages of thediocese are: Notre-Dame de Bonne Garde, at Longpoint (ninth century); St. Bernard,Philip the Fair, andSt. Jeanne de Valois visited this sanctuary; Notre-Dame de Pontoise (1226) to which St. Louis, Charles V, andLouis XIV were very generous; Notre-Dame des Anges, at Clichy l'Aunois (1212); thepilgrimage of the Holy Tunic of Christ thatCharlemagne, who had received it from the Empress Irene gave (August, 800) to his daughter Theodrade,Abbess of Argenteuil, and that was transferred (1804) from thepriory, destroyed during theRevolution, to theparish church of Argenteuil. There were in the Diocese of Versailles before the Law of Associations (1901):Assumptionists;Capuchins;Cistercians of the Immaculate Conception;Jesuits; Missionaries of Notre-Dame of Africa; Resurrectionists;Salesians of Don Bosco; and several orders of teaching brothers. Several orders ofwomen arose in thisdiocese: the Hospitaller Augustine. of Etampes, founded in 1515; the Maid-Servants of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (hospitals and teaching), founded in 1866 with mother house at Versailles; the Sisters of the Holy Childhood, with mother house at Versailles. Religious congregations conducted in the diocese at the end of the nineteenth century: 7infant asylums; 121 infantschools; 5 special homes for sick children; 2 mixedorphan asylums; 12orphan asylums for boys; 54orphan asylums for girls; 3 apprenticeship houses; 3 refuges and asylums for imperilled girls; a work-house for beggars; 29 houses ofnuns for taking care of sickpersons at home; 44hospitals; 1hospital for incurables. The Diocese of Versailles had (1905) 707,325 inhabitants, 64 first classparishes, 520 second classparishes, 38 curacies, recognized by the Concordat.
BAUNARD, L'Episcopal Francais depuis le Concordat jusqu'a la Separation (Paris, 1907); PERATE, Versailles (Paris, 1904); DE NOLHAC, Histoire du château de Versailles (Paris, 1900); BRADBY, The Great Days of Versailles: Studies from Court life in the later years of Louis XIV (London, 1906); FARMER, Versailles and the Court under Louis XIV (London, 1906); GRIMOT, Histoire de la Ville de l'Isle- Adam, et notice biographique de ses seigneurs (Pontoise, 1885); MONT-ROND, Essais historiques sur la ville d'Etampes (2 vols., Etampes, 1836-37).
APA citation.Goyau, G.(1912).Versailles. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15366a.htm
MLA citation.Goyau, Georges."Versailles."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 15.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1912.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15366a.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Michael T. Barrett.Dedicated to the Catholics of the Diocese of Versailles.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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