Marie Antionette’s private quarters in Versailles reopened this week after a makeover. This means that everyone, even ‘les peuples’, can take a look at the personal spaces of the last queen of France, who died under the guillotine in 1793.
These are the small apartments above and next to Marie Antoinette’s official quarters where the Queen could retire with her friends. “There is, among other things, a billiard table, her library has been reconstructed and small rooms where she stayed,” says Niek Pas, historian, French expert and senior lecturer at the University of Amsterdam . “Kind of a gem from her personal quarters.”
The small apartments have been restored with great care and money in recent years by the Friends of Versailles Foundation, says Pas. “What I saw on the Versailles site looks very nice.” The spaces have been designed with care and with a great sense of authenticity, according to Pas. According to him, this is not some kind of “Disney reconstruction”. “So, as a visitor, you get to experience how someone of the highest noble class lived in the eighteenth century.”
extravagance and wealth
The fact that these rooms are now made accessible to “ordinary” people is special because Marie Antoinette was hated by most French people when she was alive. “She was considered the Austrian who represented the extravagance and wealth of the French royal family, whereas ordinary French people weren’t so well off,” says Pas.
Even today Marie Antoinette is the symbol of absolutism, the omnipotence of the French royal family. But according to Pas, that image is also flexible. “Because in recent years she has been portrayed in films as a powerful personality, a researcher, but also an emancipated one. And as a feminist who struggled with the strict French court etiquette.’
Official function
Even today, the Palace of Versailles still fulfills a political function. For example, the French Senate and House of Representatives meet there, for example on constitutional issues. The French president sometimes invites foreign heads of state and government if he wants to impress. “He still has that political function, in addition to his historical function,” says Pas. “And the interesting thing is that Marie Antoinette is part of it.”
Source: BNR
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