Que je mange de la brioche

Versailles is a concrete example of a part of French history that I sort of assume I know more about than I do. It’s a giant palace that the revolutionaries hated because it rubbed royal decadence in the face of starving street urchins, except the ones adopted by Jean Valjean, and then the revolutionaries crossed the Delaware and killed the monarchs, except Anastasia, until it turned out she was faking it, according to dental records. Heads rolled, cake was eaten.

Right?

At any rate, our guide was helping at shepherding us past swaths of very loud Czech tourists and explaining all the splendor and allusions to classical mythology and whatnot, and I now feel that my grasp on French history is a bit less tenuous. Though I am still at a loss to explain what Takashi Murakami has to do with any of it.

The other problem with my approach to history is that I picture historical figures as the people who played them in movies. So you may hear “Marie-Antoinette, sister of Joseph, emperor of Austria, married Louis XVI,” but I see in my mind “Kristen Dunst, sister of Jeffrey Jones* in Amadeus, married Jason Schwartzmann.” I doubt this will ever change.

Celebrity royalty aside, the palace is a bit overblown for my instincts towards conservative décor. The gardens, however, are lovely. I can understand why Kristen/Marie wanted to build an entire fake peasant village and pretend like she was a street waif from time to time. It’s like your own personal Renaissance faire!

Sadly, none of the snack shops in the gardens had brioche on the menu. What a missed opportunity for irony! The French, I tell you.

*This method falls apart when you realize he was also the principal in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And a pedophile. Womp womp.