Lions, tigers, bears, Oh My! (asyndeton).

09.08.2007

In the past 9 days I’ve been inside 6 châteaux (castles) and seen countless others from the outside. None of them have been within 10 miles of Paris. Pretty much all were royal at one point or another.

Personally, I am a fan of castles and palaces—and why not? Sheer richness, magnitude, art, furnishings, secret passageways…all hearkening to a time far (or not so far away). Before the narrative, I’ll give the interesting particularities of the French castles I saw as a whole:

• All have little letters carved into the ceiling/decorations signifying in one way or another who built them. For example, a salamander and a big ‘F’ for François I; a porcupine and an ‘H’ for Henri II; a big ‘N’ for Napoleon III.
• Fontainebleau was the first palace/castle that I have ever seen a royal bathroom in. This particular one was lived in as late as 1870 I think, by Nappy III who was a big builder and modernizer, but the bathroom dates from the time of Louis XIV. The bathtub was regal and the color was cool, though I couldn’t come close enough (glass/cordon) to see the WC, though I assume it exists.
• This point deserves special consideration—I’ve been to an awful lot of Palaces in Russia and elsewhere, and none had bathrooms open to the public.
• My opinion—Louis XIV ‘the sun king’ was a pretty damn smart guy and he liked the luxuries of life == the royal bath and adjoining crapper.

o Dancing in every château (at least 1 spin) was obligatory.

o I learned that I am not a big fan of tapestries as an art form, save perhaps the Bayeux tapestry and the tapestry of Martin the Warrior from the Redwall series I adored in childhood (Yeah Brian Jacques!).