Petit Trianon

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The Petit Trianon, view of the facade of the main courtyard

The Petit Trianon (French; German  Small Trianon ) is a pleasure palace located northwest of the Palace of Versailles in the Park of Versailles, there in the Petit Parc called part , which was commissioned by Louis XV. was built by Ange-Jacques Gabriel for the royal mistress Madame de Pompadour and later came into the possession of Marie Antoinette . It belongs to the City of Versailles in the French department of Yvelines in the region Ile de France .

History of the Petit Trianon

Near the Palace of Versailles, on the north arm of the Great Canal, Louis XIV built the Grand Trianon in the 17th century, a small palace that the king and his family used as a retreat from the hustle and bustle and political representation at court served. To the northeast of it, his successor Louis XV. commissioned the Petit Trianon for Madame de Pompadour († 1764), who died shortly after construction began, so that the castle was occasionally used by the new favorite Madame Dubarry . When Louis XVI. inherited from his grandfather, he gave it to his wife Marie Antoinette, who had the building prepared for her. In the 19th century, after the end of the Ancien Régime , the Empress Eugénie , the wife of Napoleon III. , a collection of objects belonging to Marie-Antoinette. Today the palace belongs to the Museum of Versailles and is open to visitors.

Marie Antoinette and her children in the park of the Petit Trianon, painting by Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller

The Petit Trianon and Marie Antoinette

The small Trianonschlösschen is inextricably linked with Marie Antoinette . Marie-Antoinette, who was still a young girl and was married to the French Dauphin for political reasons, came from the Habsburg imperial family . As the youngest daughter of Maria Theresa , she received an upbringing in Vienna that prepared her for the role of a future ruler, but for a long time she felt a stranger at the French court, manners and customs were unknown to her and the strict etiquette of the Bourbons did the rest to unsettle the young heir to the throne and future queen. Louis XVI Shortly after the beginning of his reign he finally gave her the Little Trianon, which was to serve her as a place of rest and relaxation away from the court . Ludwig allegedly handed her the keys with the words "since you love flowers so much, I have a bouquet for you - take the Petit Trianon" . From this point on, Ludwig was only a guest and no longer visiting the palace as a king.

Marie Antoinette liked to flee here from court etiquette. It is said that she issued a decree that no one in the Petit Trianon had to rise if she entered one of the rooms - a downright scandalous instruction for the time - and she was not too bad for herself in the Trianon theater itself To stand on stage. Here she surrounded herself only with friends and confidants and inwardly withdrew from the strict life in the Palace of Versailles.

The queen had the little castle prepared to her taste and equipped the salons and cabinets with high-quality furniture, paintings and other works of art. Since she herself repeatedly influenced the objects made for her and had a decisive influence on their appearance and decoration, she soon became the symbol of a queen of the Rococo . The fashions she designed and the outfits with which she decorated the Trianon were soon copied and imitated by the entire court. The expenses for the castle and the festivities celebrated here also earned her a bad reputation, it was considered wasteful and, after all, had turned against not only the common people, but also that part of the court nobility to whom she refused access to her castle . Marie-Antoinette surrounded herself here only with favorites and friends like Princess Lamballe and Duchess Polignac , to whom she gave pensions, titles and expensive gifts, while deliberately avoiding unpleasant people. The so snubbed members of the court circulated a host of malicious rumors about the Queen and her extravagance. Marie-Antoinette was able to meet here undisturbed with Axel von Fersen , who, according to some tradition, was probably a lover of the Queen. This ultimately led to the negative reports and gossip about Marie Antoinette being seen as one of the reasons for the French Revolution .

Buildings

The Petit Trianon, the facade of the French Garden
The dining room

The lock

The architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel was commissioned with the construction of the Petit Trianon , the work lasted from 1764 to 1768. Although the external shape is in the tradition of the classicist French Baroque , which has always relied on calm and strict forms, the building is also valid as a trailblazer for the classicism style and a prime example of the Louis-Seize style in architecture. The elegant sandstone facade decoration resembles the Trianon sous Bois wing of the neighboring Grand Trianon and is designed slightly differently on each of the four sides. Sometimes the center of the building is emphasized with columns , sometimes with pilasters , and the castle is integrated into the garden in such a way that it appears two-story on two sides and three-story on two other sides. The top floor is adorned by a surrounding balustrade .

Despite its modest size, the Little Trianon houses a large number of rooms. The ground floor serves almost entirely as a utility area, including the kitchen, the garden chamber and the room for the silverware . There is also a billiard room here. The first floor, which can be entered at ground level from two sides due to the construction of the palace, houses various salons and cabinets as well as the queen's apartment. Various guest rooms and a suite of rooms for the king are set up on the upper floor.

The park of the Petit Trianon

The French pavilion
The Belvedere in the park of the Petit Trianon

The Petit Trianon is surrounded by its own palace park , which is divided into several individual areas that merge into one another. The area between the large and the small Trianon is known as the French Garden, it is formally designed with lawns and hedges and includes some of the outbuildings, such as the so-called French pavilion , the pavilion frais and the theater.

Behind the Petit Trianon is the English Garden commissioned by Marie-Antoinette. This area of ​​the park is characterized by a landscape that appears to have grown. Individual groups of trees, a small stream and exposed buildings, such as the music salon called “Belvedere” and the Temple of Amort adorn the garden. The highlight of this “natural” landscape is the Hameau de la Reine , the Queen's village. These are several farmhouses arranged around a lake, which are modeled on the houses of the Pays de Caux , but whose interiors were worthy of a queen. This little village was supposed to satisfy Marie-Antoinette's longing for a rural idyll and, of course, had no resemblance to real country life in the 18th century.

literature

  • Pierre-André Lablaude: The Gardens of Versailles. Werner, Worms 1995, ISBN 3-88462-117-3 .
  • Jean-Marie Pérouse de Montclos, Robert Polidori: Versailles. Könemann, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-89508-424-7 .
  • Les Jardins de Versailles et de Trianon d'André Le Nôtre à Richard Mique. Réunion des musées nationaux, Diffusion Seuil, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-7718-2574-1 (exhibition catalog).
  • Stefan Zweig: Marie-Antoinette - Portrait of a middle character. Insel, Leipzig 1932 (numerous new editions).

Web links

Commons : Petit Trianon  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 48 ′ 56.5 "  N , 2 ° 6 ′ 35"  E