Museum of the History of France

The Museum of the History of France (Musée de l'Histoire de France) fills whole wings of the Palace of Versailles. King Louis-Philippe created it in 1837, turning former royal and courtiers' apartments into galleries dedicated, in the words carved above the entrance, to all the glories of France. It is one of the earliest museums devoted to a nation's history.

Its centrepiece is the Gallery of Battles in the south wing, a vast skylit hall lined with enormous canvases of French military victories, from the Battle of Tolbiac in 496 to Napoleon's triumph at Wagram in 1809. Among them is Eugène Delacroix's Battle of Taillebourg. Elsewhere, the Crusades Rooms are decorated with the coats of arms of French crusaders, and further galleries hold portraits, busts and history paintings of rulers, generals and notable figures.

The museum suits visitors interested in nineteenth-century history painting and in how France chose to tell its own story.