Versailles
Little Hamlet of the Queen

Sofia Coppola could make twenty thousands movies about her, nevertheless in France, we wouldn’t like her more. Blame it on French school textbooks, but she will remain for many generations the heartless one who said: “The people have no bread? Let them eat cake” She never said that? Well, our republican minds don’t give a shit. To say the truth, Marie-Antoinette has never been very popular. Her contemporaries deeply resented her. “The Austrian” was disliked as much by the courtiers of Versailles as by the French people. At the royal Court, many reproached her to favour only her very exclusive circle of friends. In the rest of the country, Mrs. Deficit was hated because she whimsically spent tons of money on clothes, gambling, and diamonds. Might as well say that all the gossip about her met with success… Anal sex with her lovers, masturbation, bestiality, lesbianism… she was spared nothing. No surprise that Marie-Antoinette decided to take refuge most of the time in the rustic atmosphere of her Hamlet. There, she reigned supreme.
The construction of the Hamlet had begun in 1783, in the park of the Trianon. The architect, Richard Mique, was inspired by the villages of Normandy. Eleven houses, each one having its own function (barn, mill, dairy…) were scattered among vegetable gardens, orchards, groves and streams. Cows, sheep, goats, lambs came from Switzerland. Particularly docile, hand-picked cows would be washed and cleaned. They cows would be milked by the ladies, with porcelain milk churns painted to imitate wood specially made by the royal manufactory at Sèvres. These churns and pails featured the Queen's monogram. For the sake of picturesque, the houses looked timeworn. Inside however their equipment was as refined and luxurious as that of Versailles. The queen liked to dress as a modest chatelaine. She did not understand that the Hamlet was damaging even further her reputation. After all, she was not the first one to have this kind of countryside fantasy. Model farms were fashionable in the French aristocracy of that time. Such comparison was irrelevant for the people who rather saw her as a clueless spendthrift who liked to play at being a shepherdess or a milkmaid, whilst some of the real peasants lived in very hard conditions. Maybe could Marie-Antoinette forget the whole world when she enjoyed the Hamlet… The French however did not forget about her.
The Hamlet did not bring her luck. That’s where she was when the sans-culotte came to arrest her.