Fezzik In Paris

Saturday’s excursion to Versailles felt like a bit of a revival for us; while my mood was certainly buoyed due my consumption of one of the two boxes of (eight small) macarrons that I would consume between Friday and Sunday, the exhibit that we went out to see, Le roi est mort, felt like the first one in a while that had been genuinely engaging, that we had really enjoyed, that was worth the effort. This isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy L’art dans le jeux vidéo or, for that matter, Athens or the opera or Le musée de la chasse or everything else that we’ve done since we went to Rome.

Perhaps it was simply interesting and definitively French, which led to the feeling of being firmly in the here and now, as opposed to being overshadowed by both larger (13 November) and smaller (the no-longer-full hourglass that contains the remainder of our time here) forces.

While I am saddened by the fact that we didn’t get to see Juan the donkey (the biting wind and hiking distance made this decision easy), we did (due to the placement of the exhibit in the château) spend a bit of time wandering around, and we were able to see the rehabilitated form of one of the larger fountains which on our last visit had been reduced to a muddy pit and a pile of rocks.

On to the visuals.

A fisheye view of the front of the palace.

This reconstruction of the display of Louis XIV’s casket as he sat in repose in St-Denis made up the impressive first (and last) room of Le roi est mort, which covers the death, autopsy, funeral, and ultimate disposition (recall the St-Denis post of February) of the Sun King.

The somber funeral march (is that redundant? aren’t all funeral marches somber?), composed specifically for Louis’ death, was playing as well.

The lovely purple-silk-lined rooms were essentially a brief history of Louis XIV’s reign, as told through various pieces of fine art.

This fountain looks much better than it did when we encountered it last December.

A protest out of nowhere that sprung up sometime between when we entered and when we left. (Said protestors object to the proposed construction of the NDDL airport).