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Opulent and immense, Versailles stands testament to the greatness of the Bourbon kings. Little room for the utterly feminine Marie Antoinette, but then her ghost must still be walking these grounds, I thought to myself as I toured Versailles' lavishly appointed interiors, ooohing and aaahing my way through the four-room Queen's Suite alongside equally smitten visitors lost in decadent splendor.

It was late summer and I had come to search out poor Marie Antoinette for a reporting assignment principally concerned with her newly restored country retreat, tucked away in the northwest corner of the Versailles grounds. Reopened in July after four years of extensive renovation, Marie Antoinette's Estate is where the queen sought to escape the rigors of formal court life. Here, too, is where several scenes in director Sofia Coppola's new film, "Marie Antoinette" capture the young Austrian-born beauty blossoming into her own amid glamorous evening parties and a simple country life.

A palace not her own

But here I was now, in the grand chateau with its 1,250 rooms, my feet aching, with the crowds gazing at crystal chandeliers, marble statuary and sumptuous ceiling frescos. Versailles' sheer overwhelming size impressed upon me a sense of msculine power that surely must have challenged the young Dauphine's spirited individualism.

Still, might there be a manifestation of the queen's persona somewhere in the palace, I asked my guide, as the tour group arrived in Marie Antoinette's bedchamber. The room was dominated by a throne-like canopied bed that seemed hardly conducive to sleep.

"There," answered the guide, her hand pointing toward two hidden doors on each side of the enormous bed.

Holding a warden-size ring bursting with metal keys, she led us through a side door and up a labyrinth of stairs, unlocking a series of small rooms that are known collectively as the Petits Apartments. Formerly used as service quarters under Louis XIV and XV, Marie Antoinette had these rooms constructed so the royal family might have a measure of privacy.

Entering these apartments was like stepping through Alice's looking glass. Unlike the rest of the palace, substantially altered in the 1830s when King Louis-Philippe saved Versailles from demolition by transforming it into a museum, these rooms remain largely intact.

Here, the romanticized queen seemed approachable, more human. Perhaps it was the quiet, unadorned space or the simply framed painting of a sensitive adolescent without heavy rouge and opulent headdress. Amid delicate furniture and personal effects, endearing portraits of the queen, husband Louis XVI and their four children stare across the pastel-colored rooms at near eye level.

The tour was charmingly personal, yet there was another side to Marie Antoinette - that of a dangerously irreverent young woman prone to obscenely extravagant behavior.

Revisionist historians now downplay these foibles, commonly portraying her as an unknowing pawn in a larger game of politics for which she was ill prepared. She was only 13 when married to the 16-year-old Dauphin.

"A scapegoat for the monarchy's failure" is how Antonia Fraser characterizes the queen in her 2001 biography, "Marie Antoinette," while Coppola's movie depicts a fun-loving teenager prone to whimsy.

I, too, am inclined to empathize with Marie Antoinette, but then I also wanted to peer beyond the tragic fairy-tale legend.

I had more time to consider the queen's fate, for the Petits Apartments are only the beginning of a little-known tour available to those who want to gain a greater sense of the young queen.

Visiting the queen's estate

Since July, the Estate of Marie Antoinette can be accessed either via mini-train or on foot, the walk taking approximately half an hour from the Versailles Palace. Guided tours are available, as is a new MP3 recorded tour, which is accompanied by commentary, videos and music.

In 1775, Louis XVI granted his queen an 86-acre property with English-style gardens and a formal three-story neoclassical chateau. This small palace, the Petit Trianon, was a private retreat where she could entertain confidants and satisfy her romantic notions of country life.

Lending the estate a make-believe quality is the lakeside hamlet the queen had constructed on the far end of the property. An entire village of thatched-roof cottages framed by picket fences and overgrown trellises, here the queen attempted to replicate simplified rural life, insisting on stocking the grounds with animals to show her children - cows named Brunette and Blanchette, ducks, goats, sheep, and a billy goat from Switzerland.

Most of the buildings - the mill, a barn, the queen's house, a gardener's residence, a tower, a dairy, a dovecote and a henhouse - are still closed because of ongoing renovations.

Still, it's easy to imagine Marie Antoinette attired in a classic white muslin gown, her wig topped by a straw hat, stepping out to watch strawberries and cherries being picked, to see corn being ground, laundry washed and cows milked.

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Le Domaine de Marie Antoinette (Christian Milet)

Marie Antoinette's Versailles

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