The palace was so busy that Louis XIV had mini palaces built on the estate - the Petit (Small) and Grand (Big) Trianons - to escape from the formalities and pressures of the court.
Marie-Antoinette loved spending time at the Trianon, away from the crowds.
She added a theatre, where she performed from friends and family, and which now provides precious insights into the workings of a 17th-century theatre.
She also more controversially built a hamlet of 10 small buildings around an artificial lake, including a farm, a dairy and a fisherman's cottage.
She would dress up as a shepherdess or milkmaid, milking cows and gathering eggs.
While this was fashionable in aristocratic circles at the time, the public was outraged by her pretence of poverty, and felt she was completely out of touch with reality.
This hatred helped fuel the French Revolution.
★ End of walk
That's it for our tour of Versailles. We hope you enjoyed it! Please share it with art lovers you think might be interested and let us know what you think in the comments below. If you're up for another art adventure, how about exploring a History of Paris?
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