The Grand Appartement du Roi is the suite of seven state rooms that Louis XIV used for formal occasions in the first decades of the palace. Each room is dedicated to a planet and its corresponding Roman deity — Venus, Diana, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, and finally Apollo, the Sun God with whom Louis most closely identified himself. The ceilings were painted by Charles Le Brun and his workshop with scenes from classical mythology illustrating the virtues of the king.
These rooms were the setting for Louis XIV's evening entertainments — music, gambling, and promenading — held three times a week when court was in session. Every senior courtier was expected to attend, creating an elaborate social obligation that kept the nobility occupied and dependent on royal favour.
The King's Bedroom at the heart of the palace was the site of the lever and coucher, the ritualised ceremonies of the king's rising and retiring, at which dozens of courtiers competed for the honour of handing the king his shirt. The bedroom faces directly onto the main garden axis, so that from his bed Louis XIV could see the sun rise and set along the line Le Nôtre had drawn through the landscape.