<P> During this period, the village of Versailles centred on a small castle and church, and the area was governed by a local lord . Its location on the road from Paris to Dreux and Normandy brought some prosperity to the village but, following an outbreak of the Plague and the Hundred Years' War, the village was largely destroyed, and its population sharply declined . In 1575, Albert de Gondi, a naturalized Florentine who gained prominence at the court of Henry II, purchased the seigneury of Versailles . </P> <P> In the early seventeenth century, Gondi invited Louis XIII on several hunting trips in the forests surrounding Versailles . Pleased with the location, Louis ordered the construction of a hunting lodge in 1624 . Designed by Philibert Le Roy, the structure, a small château, was constructed of stone and red brick, with a based roof . Eight years later, Louis obtained the seigneury of Versailles from the Gondi family and began to make enlargements to the château . </P> <P> A vignette of Versailles from the 1652 Paris map of Jacques Gomboust (fr) shows a traditional design: an entrance court with a corps de logis on the far western end, flanked by secondary wings on the north and south sides, and closed off by an entrance screen . Adjacent exterior towers were located at the four corners, with the entire structure surrounded by a moat . This was preceded by two service wings, creating a forecourt with a grilled entrance marked by two round towers . The vignette also shows a garden on the western side of the château with a fountain on the central axis and rectangular planted parterres to either side . </P> <P> Louis XIV had played and hunted at the site as a boy . With a few modifications, this structure would become the core of the new palace . </P>

What happened to versailles during the french revolution