The Palace at Versailles

Even in the Winter, Versailles is worth seeing. I've read about it, but no amount of description does justice to just how vast the place is. Despite saying this, I am going to tell you that it was built by 30,000 workers, to house the 6,000 courtiers that Louis XIV was keeping on their toes by having them drag their huge retinues between Paris and Versailles.

Apparently, Louis XIV didn't like Paris, and he didn't overly trust the nobility - who would? Versailles was largely built as a monument to the glory of France and as a bit of a tribute to himself, the Sun King. Modest, wasn't he? The most useful aspect of the building was that it meant the nobles had no time to plot and form factions; because they were too busy keeping up appearances and travelling to and from Versailles which, at the time, was quite a trek.

He also built a little lodge on the estate at Versailles, to which he could escape from the people he had dragged with him.

However, the part that the BF and I were really interested in was the hameau (hamlet) of Marie-Antoinette. She had already been given her own houses on the land by her husband Louis XVI, on the occasion of their wedding, but at some point she decided she wanted to be a milk maid... so they built her a village.



Complete with livestock.



The farm struck me as 1700s France's version of 'ye olde' plastic 'authentic' villages and pubs that we build today. However, Marie-Antoinette used to live here on occasion.



It was a model village. The produce of this village actually came from villages outside Versailles.



Marie-Antoinette gets a terrible Press, and I'm not sure how much of it is well-deserved. She was criticised for actually raising her own children. The trend at the time was to dump your offspring, certainly if you were the Queen, on the court, but she was actually spent time with hers, actively participating in their education.



She's also portrayed as brow-beating and dictating policy to her weak husband Louis XVI. Could it be that the court just didn't like strong women?

I don't know a great deal about Marie-Antoinette so, for all I know, I'm spouting a load of codswallop. However, I did find myself wandering around and wondering whether she was utterly hat-stand in wanting this place built; or if she was just completely and totally bored out her mind, and sought an escape from an openly hostile court.



The last house in the hameau is this one - Louis XVI's house, nextdoor to that of his missus. The kitchen garden is still flowering.