Axel von Fersen the Younger the grounds of the Palace of Versailles. In contrast to Versailles, the dress and manners at the Petit Trianon were simple and down-to-earth; her guests were personally invited and treated equally, as friends. However, the private festivities often caused jealousy among those who were excluded from them. In the 1770s, the American Revolutionary War began with the passage of the Intolerable acts, and the battles of Lexington and Concord, and Bunker Hill. von Fersen told Beaumont that in France "it is the fashion to rhapsodize over the Americans' rebelliousness against England". France had officially declared war against her "natural enemy"
Palace of Versailles to the royal apartments. Louis XVI gave Marie Antoinette the Petit Trianon in 1774. The Queen made extensive changes to the interior, and added a theater, the Théâtre de la Reine. She also totally transformed the arboretum planted during the reign of Louis XV into what became known as the Hameau de la Reine. This was a picturesque collection of buildings modeled after a rural French hamlet, where the Queen and her courtiers could play at being peasants. The Queen was at the Petit Trianon in 1789 when she first learned of the beginning of the French Revolution in July