Small windows on the top floor

On my first day of school here in Montpellier, they took us on a quick tour of the town to get our bearings.  These tours are generally pretty good at giving you some nice little tidbits that you wouldn't ordinarily get just by walking around with a tour book.

One of this tidbit had to do with the lives of the rich and famous, or precisely their staff.  For those of you that have toured France, enjoying the marvellous architecture, did you ever notice the small windows at the top of the buildings?

Servant quarters.

Yes, the owners of those homes enjoyed grand staircases, massive lobbies, high ceilings and brilliant windows and terraces.  However, the staff had to be seen and heard as little as possible.

To accomplish that, much was done to hide them.  In Louis the XIV's case, the staff were had their own hallways that ran between the walls of the rooms to access the entire of Versailles unseen.  Much like the secret interior halls of hotels now.

In the case of the larger mansions in France, the servants were kept up top, just under the roof, in what we now use as an attic.  Enough room to stand, barely, where it was cold in winter and hot in summer.

If you look at my snap below, you can seen the grand windows of each salon and at the very top, the little windows where the staff staid.  I've also included a picture of the grand staircase that the owners of a mansion would enjoy.  The staff had their own, separate, much less grand staircase to get up and down on.