During this time it was called alternately cabinet des chinois – owing to the number of chinoiserie designs by the queen, which she had framed and hung in this room – or laboratoire – a laboratory where she pursued her hobbies.

The fame of the petit appartement de la reine rests squarely in the hands of the last queen of France during the Ancien Régime.

The restored state of the rooms seen today at Versailles closely replicate the petit appartement de la reine as it appeared during Marie Antoinette's day (Verlet, 1937).

Marie Antoinette ordered her favorite architect, Richard Mique to cover the walls of the petit appartement de la reine with white satin embroidered with floral arabesques, to give a decorative cohesion to the rooms.

In 1781, to commemorate the birth of the first dauphin, Louis XVI commissioned Richard Mique to redecorate the cabinet de la Méridienne (1789 plan #6) (Verlet 1985, p. 586).

The last major modification to the petit appartement de la reine occurred in 1783, when Marie Antoinette ordered a complete redecoration of the grand cabinet intérieur.

The entrance to the so-called secret passage is through a door located on the west side of the north wall of the chambre de la reine.