Imagine, if you will, a palace.

Sweep through the graceful envelope to the grand chateau, designed and supervised by master architect Louis Le Vau. The interior is baroque; note the stucco, the gilding, the trompe-l’oeil. See how the flow of the rooms is broken up by courtyards, dappled with sun through the leaves of the climbing ivy.

Once this was a mere hunting lodge. Now it is the seat of untrammelled and uncontested power in the Realm. It is not a building. It is propaganda.

The king’s chamber is in the precise centre of the building. The palace as a whole is designed to give the illusion of perfect symmetry, to give the impression that the Realm is secure and the King is solidly situated at its centre. As you enter through Arms Square the arms of the building reach around you in a constricting embrace. It is vaster, much more expansive than you.

The gardens, designed by the legendary André Le Nôtre, are an unfurling wonderland, one miracle after another - fountains, statues, canals, geometric orchards and concealed grottos. Its purpose was to inspire but also to disorient, to bewilder, to stultify. A man could spend a lifetime in the gardens of Versailles and never leave.

The entertainments are ceaseless - torchlit feasts on boats on the waterways, quiet interludes between lovers in secluded glades, and feasts that never cease.

Louis XIV, the Sun King, has mandated that all of the nobles of France spend their every waking hour and their every last coin at Versailles. This is because Versailles is his prison. While the nobles are at Versailles then they are not at their homes, in their castles, where their armies and their cannons are. When they are at Versailles, he can find them, and he can find their wives, and he can read their letters, and he can make sure that their wives find their mistresses.

Ultima Ratio Regum.

Repeal all dynastic rules, ensuring that Cleanup [Para] is observed before it is deleted. Throughout the ruleset, change ‘Scientist’ to ‘Nobleman’, ‘Scientists’ to ‘Noblemen’, and ‘Liaison’ to ‘Louis XIV’. Set the Special Case rules Imperial Deferentials, Dynastic Distance and The Traitor to Inactive.