KINGS, AT THE HEART OF FRANCE'S CIVILIZATION

THE OLDEST AND MOST POWERFUL MONARCHY IN EUROPE IS THE BACKDROP TO FRENCH CULTURE

Its might came first from controlling a major trade-route junction and then from dominating nascent entrepreneurs.*

*History from Fresh Perspectives explains this. 

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Due to the court... 

• A code of respect whose origin is rank, like saying "Bonjour, Monsieur or Madame" rather than just "hello." 

Louis XIV Grants the Cross of Saint Louis in Versailles on May 9, 1693 by François Marot, 1709, zoom

• Appreciation for refined cuisine and wines: the meal is a royal event that standing courtiers attend.

     The King of Sweden Dines at Versailles, end of the 18th century / Internet, no further information

Rank: An hors d'oeuvre* anticipates the main course — one doesn't rip into the meal.

* "Outside the main work"

Effect: Air France serves an apéritif and with the meal, a correct wine in a glass bottle. Its American partner Delta offers no apéritif, and serves a horrible wine in a plastic glass.  

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• Landscaping  that brings order over unruly nature evokes the power of Sa Majesté over his realm, and fits coded behavior:

Court Life at Versailles by Étienne Allegrain, toward 1688 / zoom 

Among the foreign adaptations: Amsterdam (the van Loon gardens) and Rome (the Villa Farnese)

The parc de Choisy, in Paris's 13th district *

*From now on I will say simply "13th," or whatever the district number, as Parisians do.

• Ballet, a court dance: Aristocratic dancers governed their bodies as they did their emotions, which makes them fit masters of subordinates and forming them to be members of a court from which spontaneity was banished.

Nos pontas

  For more, please click.

 The Sun King dances by Maurice Leloir, 1931 

Dancing the role of Apollo when he was 15 gave Louis XIV the name "Sun King."

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The next pages say more 

about monarchy and the French identity

 though women of the court and the Church,

and later by monuments and urban design.

 

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Next,

Women who bequeathed their refinement