Salle des Croisades, Hall of Crusades in the Palace of Versailles, Versailles, France

The Salles des Croisades are five ground-floor rooms in the north wing of the Palace of Versailles, in the former pavillon de Noailles. Their walls and piers are covered with gold-framed heraldic shields on blue, red and white grounds, and the wooden coffered ceiling is divided into panels painted with coats of arms. Large framed paintings of battle and crowd scenes hang along the walls, and three slender pointed arches outlined in gold open onto the room, with a white stone statue of an armored figure holding a sword on a carved pedestal beneath the central arch.

King Louis-Philippe commissioned these halls in 1837 to honor French nobility, with the grand opening taking place in 1843. The project was part of his broader effort to reshape the palace as a monument to French history.

The walls carry the arms and names of the crusade leaders, painted on gold-framed panels set against blue, red and white grounds. Louis-Philippe opened the halls in 1843 to flatter the legitimist nobility, and families came forward with proofs of crusading ancestors; many of these documents were later shown to be forgeries sold by the Courtois workshop.

The five rooms occupy the ground floor of the north wing's main pavilion, also called the Pavillon de Noailles, behind the Galerie des Batailles. They are reached from the vestibule in the section of sculpture gallery no. 16. The rooms have no windows; light comes from the chandelier and from the adjoining spaces.

The doors of the Hospitaller knights' hospital on Rhodes were brought to Versailles and set into the neo-Gothic decor designed by architect Frédéric Nepveu. Louis-Philippe had them installed as part of the five rooms opened in 1843. Look for them among the gold-framed heraldic panels.