Le Petit Trianon Marie-Antoinette's Glory and Ruin
Visited April 2019
There are two royal villas towards the back of Versailles garden. The first one is named as Le Grand Trianon, and the second as Le Petit Trianon. Smaller number of visitors only walk into both Trianon, because most of typical tourists do not hold enough hours for Trianon visiting. They might be either extremely exhausted by long walk with cloudy palace site visit.
If you are mania to “ The Rose of Versailles “ ,one of top popular Japanese-French hybrid style musical show , I highly recommend Le Petit Trianon visiting must be a basic route for its traceability of the musical. Because Le Petit Trianon is considered even in good or bad, as Marie-Antoinette’s symbolic monument. It is up to your feeling whether admiring villa’s elegant scene by making fancy retroactive days or sharing fairly anger of Mr. Oscale of the musical main cast, to Marie-Antoinette and her surroundings without respecting citizens’ difficulties in their life.
Le Petit Trianon is about 2 km away from the main building of the Palace of Versailles, approaching there in about a 20 minute walk. Visitors are lead to enter into the left side of the main building.
Highlights are the elegant interior of the building and the vast English garden extending to the far right. They put a nickname now for Le Petit Trianon as "Domaine de Marie-Antoinette",which means “Territory of Marie-Antoinette “. Originally it was built for an official mistress of Louis XV's Lady Pompadour. Now we imagine simply Le Petit Trianon as Marie-Antoinette’s historical monument, since she died before the completion.
"It's good to be easy to understand"
“Awful Austrian wife’s of Marie-Antoinette territory, Le Petit Trianon was.”
I believe this is one of reason that Le Petit Trianon was not so popular visiting site until people were changing its historical evaluation for Marie-Antoinette from a bad women to just a queen of Bourbon dynasty in late 18th. Century.
I entered the main building first, then went upstairs to see the residence. The ground floor hold entrance, kitchen and guard waiting rooms. Up the stairs, I found a famous portrait of Marie-Antoinette on the wall in the room to the right. The atmosphere of the easy-going madam itself was often seen. Outside the window, a French sytle garden leading to Le Gran Trianon was exposed to rain.
Continue to the saloon where the room for a private party venue, the interior of the soft feeling stuck to the eyes. Next was the living room and saloon where Marie Antoinette spent her time with her children or savage friends. At the end was a small dining room with light blue colour on white background. If you hide the window with a mirror there, you could not look in from the outside. There was a lot of rumor that Marie-Antoinette had a meal only with her Swedish lover of Earl Felzen, but what was the truth? We often confuse with facts and rumors. I believe it was impossible in any case for Marie Antoinette to secretly have invited her lover to eat "only for two" without servants etc.
The corner room was Marie Antoinette's bedroom. Where did the children sleep? Beds at that time were everywhere packed. She laid her pillow on her back and slept halfway, leaning back, so this size seemed to be enough. Also, I wondered when they talked about love together, did they remained that way?
There was a toilet and a bathroom behind the bedroom. It seemed to bet a post-revolution specification about 30 years after Marie-Antoinette was there, but it was quite a fine structure. There was a bathtub on the wall of the toilet, and servants seemed to pour hot water into the pot when bathing.
As always, sightseeing has the aspect of "giving visitors the way they want to see it", so you have to understand technical book as much as it is true.
I went out and saw the Royal Villa, Lover's pavillion a little far away. I felt that it was a healing space that stood small in green. However, as we knew, She arrived at fatal end when she overlooked the citizens and surroundings without political consideration. There may be some historical unluck, but it certainly isn't.
Let's just walking around in a jerky mood, "Everything is beyond history."
Le Petit Trianon has gained more attention due to the recent Marie-Antoinette boom. Once we walked into the garden for about 10 minutes from the main building, we could see a large pond and several flurry farmhouses over the trees. That was "Hameau" of which means "rural village scenery". It is translated as "Queen's Village" in guidebooks.
"Hameau" is Hamlet in English. I remembered either Shakespeare's famous tragedy "Hamlet". I thought "Hamlet"was the hero's name, but it seemed like a nickname. We may feel it like "The tragedy of the countryside prince", if we translate it into Japanese by meaning. To Shakespeare himself, he may have wanted to convey the nuance of " the sadness of a prince who can't survive, with a little tragedy".
The building at the heart of Hameau, is named as La Maison de la Reine ( The Queen’s House ) with unforgettable visiting point more than the main building.
Everyone, your thoughts will cross your own heart.
"What's the highlight of this rustic country house?"
"Wow, we've finally approached at Marie Antoinette's favorite residence!"
I thought, "Was this the story of Hameau's "La Maison de la Reine " that I heard rumored. I was deeply moved by the easy Queen's relics?"
The interior looks like an elegant and elaborate structure different completely from the exterior.
The official website of the Palace ofVersailles explains the interior of the Queen's house with images as attachedits website address below.
http://en.chateauversailles.fr/long-read/queens-house#the-queens-house
This building is " a public open area where you can't tour freely." However, a guided tour organized by the palace, including an inside tour of the Queen's House, is also released from May 2018. The date and time of the event can be checked on the official website. As of September 2019, the extra cost for guided tours is 10 euro per person same as other guided tours.
I took a quick look at La Maison de la Reine and the surrounding country houses.
The first was behind the spiral staircase of La Maison de la Reine. In the distance, we could see a watermill-like building and also see a so-called kitchen house behind. Alongside La Maison De La Reine, we could have an eye on a fishing hall called "Marlborough Tower". The pond water was not so transparent, but there were fish and ducks, even though no luxury coloured Japanese carp.
When we reached the position to look over the whole pond, we found that the country houses were lined up casually,c entering on " La Maison de la Reine ". It was a ultimate picture scroll, calculated in the countryside.
I wondered which reaction you minded favourable or ridiculous on this scene. The results of history have already come out, so I felt that it would be best for tourists to enjoy the beauty of Hameau's artificial rural landscape. For me, it was a spectacle with an innocence.
I imagined priceless cost for construction and maintenance. Of course, as Marie Antoinette advocates claim,"it was known amount to be about hundreds millions US dollar equivalent amount compared to the huge amount of national debt at that time", but it was definitely an expenditure on the other hand that could be saved.
"But it's comfortable and cozy. I love living like this."
Reported on March 2020 End