Versailles, Marie Antoinette’s secret apartment – SiViaggia reopens

there Versailles Palace Celebrate his longevity 400 years old And he does it elegantly. For the occasion, in fact, visitors will be able to cross the gatesMarie Antoinette’s private apartmentand finally reopened to the public. It is one of the most secret and subtle rooms in the ancient royal residence, hidden behind a door in the bedroom of the last Queen of France.

Marie Antoinette’s secret chambers at Versailles

“A wonderful space for those interested in the last glory days of the French monarchy”. This is how Laurent Salomé, director of the National Museum of Versailles and Trianon, identifies the apartment where Marie Antoinette took refuge from the court and to spend time with her children and a few friends, away from prying eyes, but also the place where the queen retreated when the crowds attacked The palace before her arrest during the French Revolution in 1789.

Few people in the world can claim to have set foot in this pristine area of ​​the former royal residence. The apartment has been returned to the public 10 years later Of research, restoration, and collectibles, it’s a hidden world revealing bedrooms, a veranda, a library, and even a billiards room spread over two floors and overlooking an inner courtyard.

You can admire all the furniture in the rooms, but you can also enjoy the carving, gilding, fancy embroidery, precious paintings, and Joy’s eclectic paintings with floral or exotic motifs, such as pineapple Which adorn the boudoir wall coverings. The reason why this fruit is the hero in the royal chambers can be attributed to the fact that it was brought from the New World to Europe by Christopher Columbus in 1493, which, due to its rarity, became a symbol of wealth and power. . During recent renovations, archivists have also found evidence of the fabrics and materials chosen by the Queen for the curtains and tapestries.

Journey through history

Beyond the details and heritage preserved in these rooms brought back to life, what is offered to visitors is a real dive into history. Austrian by birth, Marie Antoinette was fourteen when she arrived in France to marry the future Louis XVI. The Queen took great care of her apartments, and, until 1788, was continually transforming, extending, arranging, and embellishing them. there Decoration was his real passion. He furnished these rooms with the most modern furnishings, testifying to the harmony and perfection of the French decorative arts at the end of the Ancien Régime.

His requests for alterations to the rooms and his impatience to get the job done were also said to have enraged the king’s chief engineer, Ange-Jacques Gabriel. Spread over two floors, this world is hidden yet “It will offer a new understanding of history, with this contrast between public and private life, etiquette and intimacy, and an extraordinary history condensed into a few square metres.”Catherine Bigard, president of the Palace of Versailles since 2011, told AFP.

So small that it can only be visited by groups of up to 10 people, these rooms are a concentration of precious details that offer visitors New insight into the life of Marie Antoinette, after the reopening of the other apartments and the Queen’s farm, raising a thousand questions about the King’s intimacy, was considered the embodiment of elation and the unbridled passion of ephemerality. Although the reconstruction was complicated by the lack of historical documents, the curators did their best to give the illusion of entering the place. “The Queen has just left.”.