Versailles 18 June 2016

Chateau de Versailles

Up early. Iffy weather, but temporarily smiling. We're on our way by 8:30 a little over a kilometer to the Golden Gates ... by way of a bakery. Here in the north, chocolatines have become pain au chocolat. 

Whatever. We gobble them standing in the security line waiting to have a bag check and walk through the screening device ... then a lo-o-ong line (already, it's barely 9am) waiting to enter the Chateau through Door A. Don't let the picture fool you: by the time we're in, the place is already crowded.

It's going to take me awhile to digest what we saw. The first takeaway is, "no wonder the French people revolted!" The wealth, the opulence, is astonishing, nauseating, gorgeous, over-the-top, tasteless, magnificent. 

The crowd, at least a third Asian, are stunned out of their bodies gawking, exposing billions of innocent electrons at every turn ... one wonders how many of the pictures they're snapping will ever be looked at again. We're swept up in the madness, and take more than 200 pictures between the two of us. Are we so caught up in making pictures we forget to look?

Here's a little sample from the Queen's apartment in the Grand Trianon, a later chateau built at a remove from the Chateau. There are five rooms in a royal apartment: outer waiting room, inner waiting room, reception room, bedroom, private sitting room. Each of these is "done," and I mean DONE, in a different scheme, usually involving ornate plasterwork, elegant fabric wallpaper echoed in the curtains and upholstered furniture, and various brass and fabric fixtures, like these three tassle sets, used to tie the curtains back.

Another example, from the King's public bedroom: a carpet. The motifs are clear: royalty and love. This room was decorated to please Louis XV, a "lady's man" whose wife produced ten children in their first ten years of marriage ... but only one male. Number ten was such a difficult delivery that the royal physician told Mrs. Louis (Marie Leszczyñska, daughter of Stanislaw I, the deposed King of Poland), "the next one will kill you." Whereupon her doors were closed, and Louis famously cavorted with many other ladies.

In addition to the ladies, Louis XV was fascinated by science, and the chateau has all manner of wonderful instruments that were the highest of technology at the time: especially clocks, but also barometers, thermometers, and a famous roll-top desk, the first ever of its kind.

All of which we saw (and photographed) in an all-day orgy of appreciating the ostentation of others. I'm still reeling, trying to decide how to tell how much of the story.

For all the opulence of the Chateau, the gardens of the Versailles Estate are even more extravagant. We came out of the Chateau in time for the turning on of the fountains.

After a fifteen minute walk across the grand park, we arrived in time to line up for the daily noon opening of the Grand Trianon, a much smaller establishment. Due to some kind of technical snafu, the doors opened at 12:20 today. The Trianon is decorated like the Chateau; the tassels in the image above were found in successive rooms here. The carpets, fabric, color schemes, are all overdone, but the building itself is more manageable, and was apparently more comfortable as a retreat for the Kings' wives and mistresses

The two wings of the Grand Trianon are knitted together by this gorgeous peristyle, which has served as a backdrop for the political doings of France since it was built. More practical as a venue than the Chateau, the Trianon was recognized by General, then French President, DeGaulle, as a gem. DeGaulle, with Culture Minister André Malraux, devoted millions to burnishing and updating it to be a stage for hosting foreign dignitaries and events. 

By the time we had made it through the Trianon kitchens, very much still working kitchens in times of need, we were ready for a little lunch, and there really isn't much here. Also, God decided to do some water works of Her own, and so we were happy to take the little train back to the Chateau, and do something indoors for awhile.

Our day was not over, but my blogging day is. I'm going to sleep on how to tell the rest of the story -- I have left a lot out, and there's more to come. We're both surfeited with new sights and experiences, and have promised each other that nothing in Paris is going to be this concentrated or time -consuming. 

On Sunday, June 18th, 2017, (Fathers' Day) we were recalling this day. "We had street food -- shared a baked potato at the Trianon, but where did we have dinner? ... Oh, I remember, the pizza place just up the street from our house. We got there early, but when they finally let us in, they treated us really well, and the pizza was good."

Amazing, how some details are etched indelibly in memory, or reassert with time. Revisiting these pages a year later, I am struck by the sense that emerges about here in the trip: how soon this trip of a lifetime will be over!