Dauphin and Dauphine’s Apartments

Dauphin was the title of the heir to the French throne. These garden-facing apartments took their present form when Louis XV’s son Louis and his wife Maria-Josepha of Saxony occupied them between 1747 and 1765. A bedchamber, great chamber and library gave the heir his own suite within the royal household. The present display includes surviving decoration, restored elements and replacement furnishings. The Dauphin’s original bed was lost. The bed displayed in his chamber was made around 1740 for the Marquise de Créquy, a member of the French aristocracy. Looking through the windows helps locate the rooms below the queen’s first-floor apartment. The Lower Gallery linked ground-floor family apartments. This visit offers a different scale from the long State Apartment circuit above, with rooms made for study, reception and domestic life.