Marie-Antoinette’s ‘farm’ house open

Entirely restored over three years, the ‘rustic house’ where Marie-Antoinette played farm life in a rural hamlet so as to escape the royal court has been opened to the public in the grounds of the Château de Versailles.

The house and Hameau de la Reine are not as she created them, as they were remodelled for Napoleon’s second wife, but they kept her spiral tower and vegetable garden.

Up to seven million visitors a year are expected to see where she taught her children about nature.