1.2.1. KINGS, AT THE HEART OF FRENCH CIVILIZATION

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

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

* History from Fresh Perspectives explains this.

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The court brought...

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

    Louis XIV octroie [grants] la Croix de Saint Louis à Versailles le 9 mai, 1693 by François Marot, 1709, zoom

 

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

         The King of Sweden dines at Versailles, end of the 18th century / Internet, no further information and now gone. 

Etiquette: Only the royals are seated.

Lasting effects:

• An hors d'oeuvre* ("outside the main work") anticipates the main course. It is an expression of hierarchy.

• Air France serves an apéritif and a correct wine in a glass bottle with the meal. 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 

Adaptations: Amsterdam (the van Loon gardens) and Rome (the Villa Farnese)

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

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

Nos pontas

  For more, please click.

 Le Roi-Soleil danse 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, the Church,

rebels, artists, expatriates and immigrants.

Later we come to monuments 

that are no longer understood

and to an urban design 

that has been adopted world-wide. 

 

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Next,

1.2.2.

Women of the court who bequeathed their refinement