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."
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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.
- 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.
For more, please click.
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| 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,
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