Military historian here!

After the royal family was removed to Paris, the citizens of the nearby town of Versailles took stewardship of the estate. Louis XVI tried to have all the palace’s furniture removed, but the locals convinced them not to follow through with the order. Many of the town’s residents were employed at the palace, which continued to function even after the royals left. The mayor of Versailles eventually met with Louis and told him if the furniture were removed, the hundreds of people employed cleaning and caring for the furniture would be laid off and thus ruin the local economy. The king took pity on them and ordered the furniture remain.

[Side note, we often forget that towns and villages near great estates were totally dependent on royals and aristocrats for jobs. One reason it was nearly impossible to reform royal households to run more efficiently is because doing so would destroy dozens (or hundreds) of jobs. Prince Albert (Queen Victoria’s husband) ruffles many feathers when he first tried to reform the management of Buckingham Palace. When he ordered the staff to stop preparing meals in an unused dining room the decision eliminated a dozen well-paying jobs.]

After Louis XVI’s arrest in 1791, the National Assembly ordered the estate to be sealed. In 1793, the furniture was auctioned off while the estate’s more culturally significant pieces were preserved in a museum. Versailles soon became a museum displaying art seized from other French estates and churches by the Revolution. Librarians were also dispatched to the estate to organize and catalogue its giant library.

Versailles continued operating as a museum throughout the 1790s. Occasionally the cash-strapped National government would sell furniture or mirrors for funds. The 1804 Constitution declared Versailles part of Napoléon’s imperial estate, but he never lived there. He gave it to his second wife, Marie-Louise, and parts of the palace was used to house disabled soldiers.