Adventures in Paris

[luzula]

I had three whole days with garonne in Paris! On the first day, we went to the Hotel de la Marine, which is a museum of an 18th century house by the Place de la Concorde. This was quite interesting, there was a lot of the interior and furniture left, and the audio guide was good. Why were beds so short? I know people might have been shorter then on average, but not that short, surely? Sadly the museum did not include the servants' quarters and we were informed that those now contained the offices of FIFA and Chanel... After that we had intended to go to a museum with a display on the history of clothing and fashion with many 18th century clothes, but were very disappointed that it was closed (the website had not said so). /o\

The day after, we went to Versailles, which was...an experience. It is huge, including the garden and parks and peripheral buildings. The gardens were interesting to compare with those at Stowe--much more rigid and geometrical, and we had fun trying to find the nook where Keith and Ewen made out in one of hyarrowen's fics. Why the extremely high hedges in some parts of it? I found that oppressive.

In the palace itself there was not much furniture (I suppose it was looted in the revolution?) but tons of paintings, so we could improvise our own history-of-fashion course. We got fairly good at guessing the decade between 1600 and 1830. *g* Extremely high poofy hairstyles for women? 1770's. Still high but with some curls hanging down, and shortening waistcoats for men? 1780's. Women's hair small and close to the head with ringlets and men's stockings no longer folded up over the bottom of their breeches? 1750's. Huge colorful bowties for men? 1710's. Etc. We could even see what working-class people were wearing occasionally. Wow, some of the 17th century high-heeled shoes were pretty cool, one guy had black shoes with high red heels. Paintings of Napoleonic-era men look odd to me, they were often painted with their pants extremely tight with no visible genitals, almost as though they were women in men's clothes. Sort of the opposite of the codpiece. Of course before the coat and waistcoat receded so high in the front, men were able to have breeches that were loose and comfortable instead of those tight ones, because they couldn't be seen...

At Versailles we were also disappointed that we could not see the servants' quarters. Most walls were extremely thick and obviously had passages inside of them, with concealed doors leading in. Why not show those spaces?

We spent our third day writing and beta-reading and brainstorming stories, which was both fun and productive. Some future parts of my current longfic WIP are now much more clear to me! \o/ Today I am spending the whole day on the train to Copenhagen. So relieved that I did not get any covid symptoms during my trip! Though I have developed a very annoying itchy skin rash that has not yet responded to antihistamines and hydrocortisone cream (though I've only treated it for 24 hours). My theory (and that of the pharmacist) is heat rash. Cannot sleep because of the itching. /o\ (No, it does not match symptoms of monkey pox.)

Comments

[mific]

My go to treatment for heat rash is savlon cream. Ot sure what the overseas equiv would be.
https://incidecoder.com/products/savlon-antiseptic-cream

[luzula]

Thanks! If it doesn't go away with the medicine I got I'll probably go to the doctor, in case it's something else...

[selenak]

Re: Servants’ quarters at Versailles, if you watch the movie Farewell My Queen - with Lea Seydoux in the main role - , it was filmed on location in Versailles, and it does show a lot of the servants’ quarters and connecting tiny corridors one usually doesn’t see.

[luzula]

Thanks! Also see garonne's comment below...

[garonne]

After poking around on the internet a bit, I think that the hedges are high (and get higher the further you go from the palace) because that's what looks best when they're viewed from a distance, from above (i.e. from the palace). But it's not so pleasant when you're actually walking inside them!

[luzula]

Ah, okay! That's an aspect I didn't think about.

[osprey_archer]

Clearly the hedges are high to provide more secluded make-out spots. *nods firmly* (Well, probably not really, but it would be fun if the designers were thinking about it.)

A behind the scenes tour of the servants quarters in Versailles sounds fantastic and the people running Versailles really should get on that. I bet people would love it!

[luzula]

Ha ha, well, you don't really need hedges three or four times the height of a person for that! Ewen is not that tall. : ) But I wouldn't be surprised if they took secluded make-out spots into account...you should have seen the small chamber with lots of mirrors in the Hotel de la Marine, clearly meant for having sex in (the audioguide at least hinted at it).

[garonne]

It's just occurred to me why you cannot visit the servants quarters at Versailles... I expect it's because they're still used for exactly that: service. You can privatise many of the rooms we went through (if you can afford it!) and all the cooks, waiters and other staff for those events must still be using part of the corridors, kitchens, etc. Here's one notorious example where a CEO used his company's money to pay for his birthday party at Versailles. I remember hearing about it when the guy was arrested for financial crimes a few years later...

[luzula]

Ha, that's very interesting! Plus ca change, I guess...

[regshoe]

Aww, that all sounds like a lovely time :) Although what a shame about the fashion exhibit being closed!

we had fun trying to find the nook where Keith and Ewen made out in one of hyarrowen's fics.

:D Just what I would have liked to do at Versailles! Did you find a suitable candidate?

And the paintings and the fashion history they illustrate sound absolutely fascinating. I agree that early nineteenth-century tight breeches look a bit odd and uncomfortable—the 17th and 18th centuries are really the best period for men's fashion, I think, although I couldn't do that decade-to-decade pinpointing. :D

How irritating about the rash—I hope you feel better soon!

[luzula]

As to the nook: I suppose there were some possible candidates, but nothing that struck us as quite right. But then the garden is huge, and we didn't see all of it.

There is of course still much to learn about the fashion history, and we did get it wrong sometimes, and also could not always pinpoint to a decade rather than a 20 or 30-year period.

Thanks! Still itchy, I hope it improves soon...

[rushthatspeaks]

Every museum-in-an-old-building I've ever met has used the servant's quarters and corridors for the necessary museum work-- art restoration, storage of items not on display, computer servers, offices of the director and everyone else who needs an office, anything involved with a cafe... this means, of course, that the staff trip over each other all the time, but they don't trip over each other in front of the public. So if Versailles is anything like other museums, then as well as the party services that garonne mentions above, those rooms and corridors are absolutely crammed with vital non-public things which they cannot build or renovate anything new to house. (I suspect the closest you can build anything new near Versailles of being a significant distance away.) And when I say crammed and tripping, I mean it literally; they could probably cheerfully use three times the space they have. I've run into one or two places which carefully keep a few servant's rooms and hallways open for display, but the tradeoff is that they had to close a couple of the principal rooms in exchange, and then if the closed principal rooms are historically important, they need to be preserved very carefully, which makes them difficult to work in.

There was a real issue in a place I volunteered once with staff hitting their heads on the frames of all the grand old portraits that were hanging from the ceilings of the servant's corridors, as though from a drying rack, because there was no other space to hang them and they went with the building and could not legally be removed from it.

[luzula]

Oh, very interesting! Thanks for the input, and making me think not only of the past servants but of the present staff.

The palace buildings at Versailles are enormous, there are entire wings that are not exhibited. At least, judging from the outside of the building and my memory of how long we walked inside of it. I suppose then that those rooms are probably actually in use. And that the maintenance/conservation costs are huge. I actually asked one of the staff whether the ticket income (from the huge number of tourists and the fairly high prices) was enough to pay for staff and upkeep. They said no, the state had to pay some of it.

Still, with all that space, I think it's interesting that they don't at least have a few of those inconspicuous servants' doors open so that visitors can consider more aspects of history.

[seascribble]

Do you think they were all walking around looking like David Bowie in the Napoleonic era, if their pants were so tight and the painters were deliberately smoothing away the genitals?

[luzula]

Well...David Bowie's pants is not actually a mental reference I have, and searching for photos of him mostly only turns up pictures of him chest-up? I know garonne said something about breeches starting to be made out of knitted fabric, because clothes can only get so tight with woven fabric, or they will burst at the seams when you move. Although I guess the butt was still hidden from view, so they could have been looser there? Anyway, I suppose this is about the time when trousers were starting to supplant breeches...

[seascribble]

You've never seen Labyrinth, eh? I shall continue to enjoy my vision of old timey men going around looking like the Goblin King.

[nnozomi]

but tons of paintings, so we could improvise our own history-of-fashion course.
This sounds like so much fun (and possibly a very promising pamphlet all on its own if you wrote it up with illustrative paintings cited!).

Also glad to hear you had a productive writing day, that's such a good idea both for writing/beta-reading progress and for avoiding travel overtiredness. Travel safe and I hope the heat rash responds to treatment, what a nuisance.

[luzula]

It was definitely a lot of fun!

And after two days with lots of Parisian public transport, it was great to just be indoors all day, spending all that time writing and talking about writing. My heat rash is better, thanks!

[dhampyresa]

Hurray for having a good time!

[luzula]

Yes! I had a great time.

[mergatrude]

Sounds like an excellent Parisian stopover!

[luzula]

A most excellent one! \o/