‘Nothing in the World is Finer’: Diplomatic Correspondence as a Record of Versailles, 1670–1715

Abstract

Letters and diplomatic reports have always been at the heart of diplomacy. However, in terms of travel literature, ministerial papers are not necessarily related to the genre. Diplomats normally made themselves the focus of attention in their reports, describing their interactions at court and rarely providing detailed narratives on the cities and palaces that they visited. In official correspondence, they might not comment at length on architecture and the manners of the people whose country they were visiting but in letters to friends and family they may reveal more. English diplomats could remark on festivities, construction and other visiting embassies. This paper traces the presence of Versailles, its court and visitors within the correspondence of ministers representing the kings of England, afterwards Great Britain. It aims to account for and describe the presence of the palace within diplomatic correspondence and hopes to trace both similarities and differences in ministerial perspectives.