PETIT TRIANON. VERSAILLES, FRANCE

In 1758, Louis XV decided to build a new palace in the middle of his gardens, which, by then, he had been working on for around ten years. He commissioned Ange-Jacques Gabriel, first architect to the King, to build a pavilion large enough for himself and some of his entourage to live in. With the Petit Trianon, Gabriel produced a blueprint for the neoclassical movement – a perfect example of the ‘Greek style’ that was taking Europe by storm at the time.

During the French Revolution, the Petit Trianon became a hostel for a time, while the gardens narrowly escaped being divided into separate allotments. Napoleon restored the palace and gardens to their former glory, first for his sister Pauline and later for the Empress Marie-Louise, his second wife. Later, the palace was handed over to the Duke of Orleans, eldest son of Louis-Philippe. Then, in 1867, the Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, converted the Petit Trianon into a museum dedicated to the memory of Marie-Antoinette. She even organised the first-ever exhibition there devoted to the former queen.

The palace is laid out in an extremely simple cube shape, with a flat roof surrounded by a balustrade. Gabriel avoided making his design seem too simple by varying the look of each of the façades of the palace. The south façade, overlooking the Honour Courtyard, is simply adorned with four pilasters accentuating the slight projection of the three central bays; the north façade echoes this arrangement but over one less floor, on account of the difference in the level of the garden; the east façade, which once overlooked Louis XV’s vegetable garden, is the most restrained; the west façade, however, which looks out over the French Gardens, is far more detailed and cleverly accentuated by a slight projection framed by four majestic Corinthian columns and by the subtle choreography of steps and terraces leading down to the garden. The proportions of its composition make the Petit Trianon a masterpiece of harmony and elegance.

Inside, the first two floors are laid out around the vast staircase. Since the palace is built on a slope, the first-floor reception rooms open out directly onto the gardens. Marie-Antoinette’s apartment looks out over the English Gardens and the Love Monument.

The ground floor

At the end of a long walkway bordered by Lombardy poplars there is a gate, flanked by two small pavilions, which opens into a vast courtyard lined on all sides by walls that conceal service passageways and the gardens. This highly mineral aspect gives the palace the air of a private mansion.

The sculpted décor of the enormous staircase at the heart of the building is decidedly restrained, complementing the perfect lines of the overall construction, which are accentuated by the abundant natural light streaming in through the three French windows and three casement windows on the upper level. The floor is a made from green and white marble. The banister of forged iron and gilded bronze, made by the metalworker François Brochois, bears the monogram of Marie-Antoinette, which replaced that of Louis XV.

During the reign of Louis XV, this plain, wood-panelled room featured an ornate billiards table, but Marie-Antoinette had this moved to the first floor in 1784 and replaced with an ordinary version for use by the guardsmen, whose room was situated on the other side of the hall. On the mantelpiece is a bust of the queen created by Louis-Simon Boizot. The original is now held in the Louvre. On the wall is one of the portraits of the queen painted by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun.


The warming-up room, which can be accessed from the hall, was used for warming up the food brought from the kitchens before it was served at the royal table. Not long after she arrived at the Petit Trianon, Marie-Antoinette had this room closed, because of the smells permeating her apartments from it. However, you can still see the impressive chimney hood that remains.

The fruit repositories and “flying tables”

Here is where dishes were prepared before being served in the dining rooms located above, on the first floor. Louis XV once wanted to equip the Petit Trianon with “flying” or retractable tables like those already in use at the Château de Choisy. The system, which was to be located below the dining room (the planned position for it can still be seen today), would have employed counterweights to raise fully set and decorated tables straight up to the first floor through openings that had been specially made in the floor and could be closed at will. However, the price demanded by the engineer Loriot to install it was so high that the king changed his mind.



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