Versailles survived the French Revolution and was briefly used as a residence by Napoleon, but it would find a new role in the military and political worlds of the 19th and 20th centuries. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the German army occupied the palace and it was in the Hall of Mirrors that the German Empire was officially proclaimed. It was also there that the peace treaty, following months of negotiations in Paris, was signed to end the First World War.

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