Marie Antoinette’s Hameau de la Reine Article

I have always been fascinated by France and Americas' special relationship (I discuss it frequently in my high school history classes), and thus have contributed to the online and print editions of French Quarter Magazine, a renown periodical that publishes articles on French/American history, culture, and food. My good friend and the magazine's talented editor Isabelle Karamooz has been very supportive in my early writing career, and I enthusiastically leap at the chance to share my research with FQM readers whenever she has an article idea for me. The fifth print edition of French Quarter Magazine (prints are published annually) was recently released in May 2022. I was fortunate to have contributed to this fantastic volume. My article (found on pages 28-30 of the print edition) closely analyzed French Queen Marie Antoinette's rustic and whimsical retreat at the Palace of Versailles, the Hameau de la Reine. I have previously written a FQM article on the troubled and often (sexually) lackluster marriage of Antoinette and King Louis XVI, so it was a wonderful experience retracing my steps and diving deeper into the lavish, yet fiscally-careless world of France's most infamous monarchs. The article is found below - happy reading!!

My article in the fifth print edition of French Quarter Magazine in May 2022. (Author's Collections)

Marie Antoinette’s Hameau de la Reine

By Joshua V. Chanin (published in FQM print edition, May 2022)

Let’s take a walk in Marie Antoinette’s Hameau de la Reine…

Upon entering the English Gardens, the first section of the Hamlet, one would find Antoinette’s favorite classical arrangement, the Love Monument. Crafted by Richard Mique, an architect whose chiseled jaw and sultry gaze caught the attention of the queen, the Love Monument comprises of twelve Corinthian columns atop a circular platform. The centerpiece features a breathtaking copy of Edme Bouchardon’s Cupid fashioning his bow from Hercules’ Club, and perches on an embellished floor that incorporates veined white, Languedoc red and Flanders marble. Antoinette usually commenced her tour of the gardens at the Love Monument when the sun kissed its columns and glistened on the surface of the lake. The structure’s romantic ambience has invited couples to share an intimate smooch on its steps since 1778.

Another structure included in the English Gardens, requested by the queen, was the Belvedere. Also designed by Mr. Mique, this folly is an enclosed octagonal pavilion that is adorned with marvelous mural paintings by Sébastien-François Le Riche, a renowned artist and admirer of the queen, as well as low-relief sculptures depicting the four seasons. Four patio doors were installed prior to its 1781 completion to allow the playful monarch to frolic among the white silk curtains when a strong breeze descended on the gardens. The open-air lounge played host to many light-hearted gatherings in the 1780s, which included Antoinette’s closest girlfriends and rumored lovers. Among platters of sandwiches and biscuits, the queen entertained her guests by gently pulling the strings of her harp, creating a beautiful sound that softly reverberated off the living room’s walls. Today, the Belvedere is a beautiful reminder of the queen’s gaiety. 

Besides the frequently-used English Gardens, Marie Antoinette also amused her royal court in an ornamental village, a collection of quaint farm buildings—including a dairy, mill (although no mechanism was installed in the structure), dovecote, and layered farmhouse. Trimmed shrubs, colorful flower arrangements and blooming orchards dot the landscape where the queen used to caper. Despite rustic exteriors and thatched roofs, the interiors are of a different world, where French aristocrats felt at ease, playfully enjoying the fruits of life in very elegant rooms. The queen’s imagination ran wild in the dummy village—after gracefully strolling through the farm, Antoinette and her friends would milk the sheep and cows (laborers were hired to mind the farm’s animals, as well as produce fresh fruits and vegetables that would later be served at the royal table. According to a nineteenth-century historian, the host took her role seriously, “where, at a table set out under a bower of honeysuckle, she would pour out their coffee with her own hands, boasting of the thickness of her cream, the freshness of her eggs, and the ruddiness and flavor of her strawberries…”

Beyond the towering walls of the queen’s creative, whimsical paradise sat thousands of French serfs, starving and angry at the palace’s thriftless spending. Antoinette’s world, once a rather frivolous, extravagant retreat, collapsed during the bloody French Revolution as several of the garden buildings were burned and the queen’s head was severed on a guillotine. Antoinette’s Hamlet reminds us that the thrills, beauty and riches of the French palace mirrored a poorer, dismal reality for the masses.  

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Bibliography

The Private Life of Marie Antoinette by Jeanne Louise Henriette Campan (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2009).

Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France by Evelyne Lever (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000). 

Portrait of Marie Antoinette, 1775. Antoinette, originally from Austria, married the heir to the French throne at the young age of 14; she became Queen of France at age 18. She clearly was unconcerned about the poor, hopeless situation of millions of hungry French citizens outside the palace walls during her reign, and engaged in reckless spending. Like her husband, she was executed by guillotine in 1793 during the French Revolution. (History Channel)