What is Hameau de la Reine (Versailles)?
[[File:MA-Lebrun.jpg|thumb|[[Marie Antoinette]] in a straw hat and simple dress in 1783, the year [[construction]] started on the [[hamlet]]]] The '''Hameau de la Reine''' ({{IPA-fr|amo də la ʁɛn}}, ''The Queen's [[Hamlet (place)|Hamlet]]'') is a group of houses and farm structures in the park of the [[Château de Versailles|Palace of Versailles in France]]. The [[hamlet]] was designed in 1783 by Richard Mique and Hubert Robert as a play space for Queen [[Marie Antoinette]]. It was here that she played the simple country girl in a straw hat and plain dress with her friends. About twelve structures form the hamlet. Some were working farm structures and some were structures for the Queen's amusement and use such as the mill. The hamlet fell into neglect after the [[French Revolution]]. [[Building restoration|Restoration]] was undertaken in the 1990s, and the hamlet is now open to the public. == Design and construction == Picturesque hamlets such as Le Hameau de la Reine were not unknown in 18th century France. The Prince de Condé had one at Chantilly and there was a village at Méréveille. The creation of these villages was influenced by the natural philosophy extolled by Rousseau and the country life genre paintings of painters Greuze, Le Nain, and Chardin. Le Hameau was designed for Queen [[Marie Antoinette]] by her favorite [[architect]] [[Richard Mique]] and the painter [[Hubert Robert]]. The painters Tolède and Dardignac painted thousands of little cracks and false half-timbering in the structures to suggest picturesque humbleness, poverty, and age. All the structures in the hamlet were more or less modelled upon similar structures in [[Normandy]] and [[Flanders]]. [[Construction]] on the hamlet started in 1783 and was completed in four or five years. == Structures at the hamlet == The purpose of the hamlet was to give the Queen a place to play at the simple life, far from the busy French court. The hamlet is set among [[meadow]]s at the edge of a lake created by waters channeled from Marly. The structures a