Hameau de la Reine
The Hameau de la Reine (French pronunciation: [amo də la ʁɛn], The Queen's Hamlet) is a rustic retreat in the park of the Château de Versailles built for Marie Antoinette in 1783 near the Petit Trianon in Yvelines, France.
Designed by Richard Mique, the queen's favoured architect, with the help of the painter Hubert Robert, it contained a meadowland with a lake and various buildings in a rustic or vernacular style, inspired by Norman or Flemish design, situated around an irregular pond fed by a stream that turned a mill wheel.
[1] The building scheme included a farmhouse, (the farm was to produce milk and eggs for the queen), a dairy, a dovecote, a boudoir, a barn that burned down during the French Revolution, a mill and a tower in the form of a lighthouse.
One primary purpose of the hameau was to add to the ambiance of the Petit Trianon, giving the illusion that it was deep in the countryside rather than within the confines of Versailles.
Inspired by a wave of naturalism in art, architecture, and garden design, the Hameau de la Reine was constructed from 1783 to 1786.
[3] Richard Mique modified the landscape design to provide vistas of lawn to west and north of the Petit Trianon, encircled by belts of trees.
Beyond the lake to the north, the hameau was sited like a garden stage set, initially inspired in its grouping and vernacular building by Dutch and Flemish genre paintings, philosophically influenced by Rousseau's cult of "nature", and reflecting exactly contemporary picturesque garden principles set forth by Claude-Henri Watelet[4] and by ideas of the philosophes, their "radical notions co-opted into innocent forms of pleasure and ingenious decoration" as William Adams has pointed out.
The hamlet seemed completely rustic and natural from the outside, while the Rococo interior provided the desired comfort and luxury of the queen and her friends.
[8] The Petit Trianon, originally built for Madame de Pompadour under the reign of Louis XV, was a private domain.
[9] The French architect Richard Mique designed and built the Hamlet with the garden in mind, and it is almost an extension of the Jardin Anglais.
His buildings lend themselves to the surrounding landscape in their arrangement around a small lake, giving the illusion of a perfect and functioning village.
The barn, occasionally used as a ballroom, and the Preparation Dairy, were among the most damaged constructions of the hamlet after it was neglected during the French Revolution.
The image of Marie Antoinette dressing up as a shepherdess or peasant at the hamlet is a deeply entrenched and inaccurate myth.
[10] Marie Antoinette and her entourage used the hamlet as a place to take private walks and host small gatherings or suppers.
[11] Marie Antoinette also managed the estate by overseeing various works, correcting or approving plans, and talking with the head farmer and laborers.
In addition to the head farmer Valy Bussard, Marie Antoinette hired a team of gardeners, a rat-catcher, a mole-catcher, two herds-men, and various servants to work on the estate.
During the Revolution, "a misogynistic, nationalistic and class-driven polemic swirled around the hameau, which had seemed a harmless agglomeration of playhouses in which to act out a Boucher pastorale.
Although for Marie Antoinette, the hameau was an escape from the regulated life of the Court at Versailles, in the eyes of French people, the queen seemed to be merely amusing herself.
Marie Antoinette's Hamlet consisted of a variety of different cottages and buildings, all built around a small lake.
The twelve cottages constructed in the hamlet can be divided into two groups: five were reserved for use by the queen; the other seven had a functional purpose and were used effectively for agriculture.
Despite the rustic appearance of facades, the interior finish and furnishings are luxurious and have been created by the carpenter Georges Jacob and the ébéniste Jean-Henri Riesener.
