The Gallery of Battles

Stretching 120 meters, this gallery is the largest space in the Palace of Versailles. Every painting that fills it depicts a war; those on the left side largely show swords and spears, while those on the right show guns and cannons, tracing the progression of time. The paintings run chronologically clockwise from the far left, each one labeled below with its year and title.

The Gallery of Battles was the project Louis Philippe poured the most effort into when converting Versailles into a museum of French history. What had once been the royal family's living quarters was filled with 33 paintings depicting historic French military battles spanning the 5th through the 19th centuries. The busts placed between the paintings honor more than eighty generals who died in battle. After the Revolution, with absolute power gone, France was deeply fractured — divided among those who longed for the monarchy, those who wanted a republic, and those who still clung to Napoleon's glory. Amid this crisis, Louis Philippe, chosen as king, opted not to favor any one faction but to embrace them all: he declared that the monarchy, the Revolution, and Napoleon were each part of France's great history. As part of that strategy, he boldly converted this space — once accessible only to royalty and a handful of nobles — into a museum and threw it open to ordinary citizens. The move is read as an attempt by Louis Philippe to unite the nation around pride in its great history. Walking through the gallery today, visitors encounter not only Louis XIV and Napoleon, seen earlier on the tour, but also Louis Philippe himself, the man who built this very room.