Second edition, revised and updated.

Traditionally associated with the secular festival of the court, Versailles was also the setting for a veritable "royal religion", the public devotion of the sovereign and the staging of a sacred conception of the monarchy. In a physical framework defined by five successive chapels, the two bodies in charge of divine service at court, that of the ecclesiastical officers of the King’s Household and, assigned to the permanent service of the place, the Lazarists, celebrated a large number of services every day, the most striking of which remains the messe en musique (mass with music) of the king. The panorama of daily life at the Royal Chapel of Versailles thus provides a useful key that helps to understand better the intricacies of court society and depicts more precisely the religious portrait of Louis XIV, his artistic and musical sensitivity.

Based on a doctoral thesis defended in July 1997 at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, published for the first time in 2002, this book aims to give an overall vision of the royal chapel, all the aspects of which – as diverse as they are with regard to the history of art, musicology, the history of institutions or cultural history – ultimately come down to only one reality. The second edition proposed here, revised and updated, coincides with the tercentenary of the completion of the definitive chapel of the Palace of Versailles in 1710.

Archivist-paleographer, graduate of the École du Louvre, doctor of letters, former resident of the Académie de France in Rome, Alexandre Maral is now curator at the National Museum of the Palaces of Versailles and Trianon, where he is responsible for the sculpture collections.

The book contains 32 illustrations, 15 of which are in colour.