In the Shadow of the Queen: On UNESCO’S Universal History, the Women of the Petit Trianon, and Tourist Meaning-Making

Abstract

Upon the designation of Versailles as a World Heritage Site, UNESCO renamed the Petit Trianon the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette (Estate of Marie-Antoinette). Subsequent tourist materials, such as travel guides and website directories, reiterated this redesignation and retell the site’s historical past through the life of Marie-Antoinette, thereby casting Madame de Pompadour and the Comtesse du Barry to the periphery. This essay analyzes visitor Instagram photos and Tripadvisor reviews to understand how UNESCO’s uniting of the queen’s memory with the Petit Trianon affects tourist interpretation and meaning making. It considers the consequences of the universalization of a single narrative to recount a multi-actor history and highlights the continued erasure of Madame de Pompadour and Comtesse du Barry taking place in visitors’ retelling of the Petit Trianon’s past.