Versailles is a huge, very grand palace just outside Paris, in a town of the same name. King Louis XIV of France turned what had been a small hunting lodge into an enormous royal palace in the 1600s, and moved his whole court there — partly so he could keep the powerful nobles close and watch them. It is famous for its gold-covered rooms, its Hall of Mirrors, and its enormous formal gardens with fountains and straight paths. Today the French state owns it and it is a museum that millions of tourists visit. The name also stands for history that happened inside it. The Treaty of Versailles, signed in the Hall of Mirrors in 1919, formally ended the First World War and forced Germany to accept blame and pay heavily — many historians argue those hard terms helped set up the next war. So when someone says 'Versailles' in a history lesson, you must listen for which one they mean: the building, or the treaty. There is a third use, looser and often unkind: people say a house or a hotel is 'like Versailles' when it is grand to the point of showing off. Say it roughly 'ver-SIGH' — the double l and the final s are silent, because the name is French.