Subsidiary Structures of The Palace of Versailles - The Petit Trianon

The Petit Trianon

Located near the Grand Trianon, the Petit Trianon was built between 1762 and 1768 by Jacques-Anges Gabriel for Louis XV. The area that is now the Petit Trianon came to prominence when Louis XV established his jardins botaniques (botanical gardens) in the area that is now the Hameau de la reine. The Petit Trianon was intended to be used when the king was engaged in his botanical avocation. It would be, however, under Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette that the Petit Trianon would be immortalized.

Shortly after his ascension to the throne, Louis XVI presented the Petit Trianon to Marie-Antoinette. Immediately thereafter, the queen ordered modification—largely under the direction of Richard Mique—to the Petit Trianon and its gardens. The house was remodeled, which necessitated the removal of the dumbwaiter system that Louis XV installed that allowed the dining table to be lowered to the kitchen level of the house, thus eliminating the need for servants in the dining room. At this time, the jardins botaniques were removed to Paris and the Hameau de la reine constructed in their stead.

Regarded by opponents as a folly of Marie-Antoinette, the Hameau was a model bucolic village and farm in which advances in agronomy and animal husbandry were practiced. Owing to the association with Marie-Antoinette's perceived excesses—such as the construction of a theater where she and her friends acted to private audiences—the Petit Trianon and the Hameau were pillaged during the Revolution. Napoléon I presented the Petit Trianon to his mother, Letizia Buonaparte – a purely symbolic gesture as she never lived there. Louis-Philippe, in his turn, presented it to his wife, Marie Amélie, who refurbished the gardens and reappointed the house. In more recent times, the Petit Trianon and the Hameau de la reine have been undergoing an aggressive restoration program that is seeking to return them to their state when Marie-Antoinette left them in October 1789.