During the Revolution in America the newspapers made much of Marie Antoinette’s liking for Benjamin Franklin.  Among others, the New Hampshire Gazette printed this story, which went the rounds of the States.  “Franklin being lately in the gardens of Versailles, showing the Queen some electrical experiment, she asked him in a fit of raillery if he did not dread the fate of Prometheus, who was so severely served for stealing fire from Heaven.  ‘Yes, please your Majesty’ (replied old Franklin, with infinite gallantry), ’if I did not behold a pair of eyes pass unpunished which have stolen infinitely more fire from Jove than I ever did, though they do more mischief in a week than I have done in all my experiments.’”

On January 20, 1783, at the office of the Count de Vergennes at Versailles, in the presence of Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams, the representatives of England, France and Spain affixed their signatures to the preliminary documents declaring war at an end between America and England.  A little over seven months later, on September 3, 1783, at the Hotel de York in Paris, the final treaty between Great Britain and the United States was signed.  Later on the same day, the definitive treaty between England and France was concluded at Versailles.  When Franklin was about to take leave of France and return to Philadelphia, Louis XVI presented to him the royal portrait, framed by 408 diamonds, the value of which was estimated at $10,000.

No less than his predecessor had the new Monarch of Versailles and his gay, ease-loving, oft-times imprudent young wife disregarded the traditions and dignity of the Sun King’s palace.  If Louis XV demolished the Staircase of the Ambassadors and mutilated the grands appartements, Marie Antoinette imitated his desecrations in the royal dwelling by commanding any change that pleased her fancy, by reducing rooms of state to mere private chambers, and shutting herself off from the irritating claims of Court life.  Many of the trees in the park died that had been set out at the proud command of Louis XIV.  The gardens became neglected and desolate.  The famous Labyrinth of Aesop’s fountains disappeared.

A grove planted on the place formerly beautified by the Grotto of Thetis (or Tethys) gave sanctuary to the impious scheming of that Madame de Lamotte, whose intrigue and evil ambition brought upon the Queen in 1785 the scandal of the Diamond Necklace, with the subsequent dramatic arrest of Cardinal de Rohan in the fateful Hall of Mirrors, and the humiliating trial of Marie Antoinette.

Bored by incessant publicity, finding no pleasure in the formal promenades of the palace park, the Queen pleaded for “a house of her own,” where she could find recreation after her own tastes, unobserved by the curious and the critical.  Louis XV had built near the Grand Trianon a small villa for Madame de Pompadour.  On the modest estate were several small outbuildings, to which were added a pavilion for open-air pastimes and a “French garden.”  It was Gabriel, architect of the Opera House, that drew the plans for the little chateau, begun in 1762.  But Madame de Pompadour died before the villa of her fancy was completed.  Dubarry succeeded her as chatelaine, and richly embellished the interior of the delectable retreat.