x.iv. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ANOMALIES AND DETAILS

THEY CAN REVEAL UNFAMILIAR MENTALITIES OR UNSTATED AGENDAS 

Louis XVI tries to flee revolutionary Paris. Secrecy is essential but postillons' bright yellow liveries resemble those of the hated lord of the lands through which he passes...

 

• A métro station's face lift: The spectacular renovation at forgotten Château Rouge.

• A parade route changes course: What did changing the route imply? 

• The successive statues of place des Vosges: A royal statue is held up by a tree trunk.

• A royal statue for a bridge: Why is the king's statue on a bridge instead of in the center of a royal square?

• Napoleon's tomb was built for Louis XIV. The architecture and decor that trumpets that reality is overlooked.

• The discipline of the February and June 1848 insurrections terrified the privileged. Why not say so? 

• Emblematic site, odd marker: An impossible shooting.

• Masking the Opéra's purpose: Why is the salon at the heart of the edifice decorated by an orgy? 

• King, queens, their children, their siblings, their cousins, all of their wives and children have households of hundreds of heirarchically-organized subordinates: Why?

• Louis XVI stops seizing legacies of British manufacturers: the writer skips over it.

• A commander joins a battle from an armchair

• A subordinate uses alms in grain to announce defiance.

• A strange form of violence

• Louis XIV builds Versailles on a swamp without water and forbids Protestantism

• A historian mentions the end of the monarchy's taking the legacies of foreign entrepreneurs only in passing. 

A modern detail: no cigarette butts in flower pots. 

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Next,

x.v.

Priorities that urban designs reveal