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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 November 2024
Abstract
Chapter 1 offers a new interpretation of Marie-Antoinette's design of the Jardin de la Reine and the Hameau at the Petit Trianon from 1775 to 1789. The queen transformed her garden into a gamescape transposing the thrill of high stakes gambling sessions to performances of surprise when strolling in her gardens. The queen's gamescapes emphasized her agency and suggested how others could experience self-hood in her gardens. Aligning surprise with embodiment enhances our understanding of the queen's role in the dissemination of the picturesque prior to the French Revolution.
Keywords: Petit Trianon, surprise, picturesque, Versailles, Hameau de la Reine, Marie-Antoinette
In June 1774, less than one month after the death of her father-in-law, King Louis XV, Marie-Antoinette sought exclusive rights to the villa and gardens of the Petit Trianon at Versailles. For over one hundred years, two generations of skilled gardeners cultivated a colorful palette of blooms, perfumed scents, and botanical curiosities distinguishing the gardens from the straight allées, clipped topiary, and wooded bosquets of the Petit Park. The queen had contemplated the seductive landscape since her arrival in France four years earlier, recognizing that the Trianon gardens were veritable realms within a realm. The Trianon gardens constituted a liminal zone where distinctions between public and private spheres were blurred, places that signaled royal favor and exclusivity where retreating from court ceremonial duties paradoxically enhanced both Louis XIV and Louis XV's eminence. Collective memory of the site implied that the gardens were dedicated to the king's pleasure, vindicating Louis XV's ensconcing his official mistresses, first Madame de Pompadour (1748–1764) then Madame Du Barry (1770–1774) at the Trianons. The dauphine certainly recognized how Louis XV's former mistresses enjoyed a certain liberty that enhanced their prestige, but Marie-Thérèse's youngest daughter intuited that she could launch her own identity politics, dedicated to her queenship, from the site.
When Louis XVI granted Marie-Antoinette's request to exercise control over access to the Petit Trianon and the surrounding gardens, his largesse was considered a royal gift, hailed as a sign of the king's devotion to his wife. After four years of marriage, Marie-Antoinette had yet to conceive an heir; the king's gesture thus enhanced her prestige.
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