Queen Marie Antoine's private rooms at Versailles have reopened

[New Sancai Compilation and First Release] If you're planning a trip to France this summer, you might want to add a day at Versailles, Paris, to your itinerary. You could be among the first tourists to visit the private apartments of Queen Marie Antoinette (1755 – 1793), who was guillotined at the age of 37. The apartment reopened in June this year after extensive restoration work in July, to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Palace of Versailles.

When Mary Antoine moved into the State Apartment as queen in 1774, like her predecessors, she was required to follow strict rules and schedules. Although Louis XVI gave Marie Antoine the Petit Trianon as her hermitage - where she was able to build elaborate gardens and an idyll of refuge

Mary Antoine meticulously decorated a series of intimate private rooms that could only be accessed through secret doors in the bedrooms. Within these walls, the queen could temporarily put aside her duties as queen, entertain her closest coterie of confidants, and play with her children.

Each of these reconstructed rooms has its own specific theme. The Méridienne Room, for example, was designed to celebrate the birth of the couple's first son and is covered in replicas of the lavender textiles that the queen laid down. She also built a library with smaller rooms upstairs reserved for maids and servants.

A lover of interior design, Marie Antoine continued to redecorate her beloved secret space until 1788. The rooms would prove to be temporary hiding places a year later when the French Revolutionaries stormed the palace during the Women's March at Versailles.

(Author: Leena Kim)

(Compilation: Bai Ding)

(Editor in charge: Jiang Qiming)

(Source of the article: New Sancai first release)