This vestibule led to the first apartment, which Louis XIV occupied for just three years, from 1688 to 1691. The paintings, Corinthian columns and marble pavement date from that period. A wooden drum on the right-hand side of the fireplace conceals the staircase musicians climbed to reach the gallery in the next room, where the souper du roi took place.
This is Louis XIV’s former antechamber, where the souper du Roi took place. The panelling is among the oldest in the palace. The shutters of the galleries where musicians sat and played during the king’s supper can be seen above the doors.
Napoleon had it turned into an officers’ room, which Louis-Philippe converted into a billiard room. The chairs covered in Beauvais upholstery were made for this space; the beautiful pedestal table and tea fountain did not enter the Trianon until the Second Empire. The paintings of Mars and Pallas come from the Game Room antechamber and the bed chamber.
Louis-Philippe had this large space created by combining two existing rooms. In the evening the king and his family, who enjoyed staying at the Trianon, gathered here. It was furnished in the spirit of the times with game and embroidery tables, padded chairs and sofas upholstered in blue-patterned yellow purl.
Napoleon put the malachite presents Czar Alexander I gave him when he visited in this room, giving it its name.
This is called the Cool Room because it faces north. Napoleon used it as his council chamber and Charles X took leave of his ministers here on 31 July 1830.
The magnificent panelling carved with cassolettes and garlands of flowers dates from Louis XIV, as do the pictures: over the mantelpiece, Flora and Zephyr by Jean Jouvenet, who also painted the scenes above the door depicting Spring and Winter; between the windows, Vertumnus and Pomona by Nicolas Bertin; and on the side walls, four Views of Versailles by Jean-Baptiste Martin.
The furniture dates from the First Empire. The serre-papiers (paper cabinet) was delivered by Jacob-Desmalter, the regulator clock by Lepaute and the barometer-thermometer by Bailly. The chairs are covered in Beauvais upholstery.
This gallery, which was cleverly built to shelter the Trianon’s flowerbeds from the rigours of winter, has 11 French doors on the south side and just five on the north. It features 24 paintings (including 21 by Jean Cotelle) depicting the copses at Versailles and the Trianon as they appeared when they were created in 1687. These works are a precious record of what the gardens looked like in the seventeenth century. Sofas originally stood in the niches but Louis-Philippe had them replaced by two Languedoc marble wine coolers from a Louis XV sideboard. This is where the Allies on one side and Hungary on the other signed the Trianon Treaty, the last peace treaty concluded to end to the First World War, on 4 June 1920.
At the end of the Cotelle Gallery is the Garden Room, which opens into the Chestnut Room and looks out onto the cross-arm of the Grand Canal beyond the upper flowerbed. Under Louis XIV a portico game table, later replaced by a billiard table, stood in the centre.