Bücher online kostenlos Kostenlos Online Lesen
Paris: The Novel

Paris: The Novel

Titel: Paris: The Novel Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Edward Rutherfurd
Vom Netzwerk:
by making the monarchy absolute. When Louis XIV came to the throne, he was only five years old, but all through his childhood, Richelieu’s successor, Cardinal Mazarin, followed the same policy. And once Louis XIV took power, with the help of his finance minister, Colbert, he continued to centralize the administration of France. What better way to control the nobles than to have all the powerful ones in one place, where he could keep an eye onthem. Over two generations he became so clever at making them dance to his tune at the court of Versailles that he completely neutered them. He couldn’t have done that in Paris. It’s too spread out.”
    “And hard to control,” Fox added.
    “Impossible. Always full of places for people to hide, and breed dangerous ideas.” Roland smiled ruefully. “Paris gave us the Revolution.”
    Now he turned to Marie. Partly it was politeness. Also a little test. “But what do you think, mademoiselle?” he asked.
    Marie considered for a moment.
    “Everything you say seems correct, monsieur,” she answered carefully, “yet I would add one thing.” She glanced at Hadley. “Monsieur Hadley may know that during the boyhood of the king, perhaps as a reaction to the autocratic policies of Cardinal Mazarin, there were two terrible revolts, known as the Fronde. One night, the Paris mob broke into the Louvre and came into the king’s bedchamber. He was still only a child. He pretended to be asleep while they came around his bed, inspecting him. Imagine the scene. It must have been terrifying. Nobody could have stopped them if they’d wanted to murder him. And I suspect, monsieur, that the memory of that night stayed with the king all his life. His head may have dictated the move to Versailles, but I believe that, in his heart, even as a grown man, Louis XIV never felt safe in the Louvre.”
    Roland looked at her admiringly.
    “I think your woman’s wisdom comes closer to the mark than all my calculations,” he said with respect. And though he did not say it aloud, he added to himself that it would be a lucky man who had her by his side.

    At the entrance, a guardian let them in. After that, they had the place to themselves. No footfalls, no voices but their own disturbed the silence of the huge marble halls, the gilded chambers and endless galleries.
    They went through the King’s Apartment, stately, somber and impressive.
    “Each reception room is named after one of the classical gods,” Roland explained. “The throne room is for Apollo.”
    “It’s curious, isn’t it,” Marc remarked, “how our Christian monarch showed such a taste for comparing himself to pagan gods. He wasn’t called the Sun King for nothing.”
    Here and there, Roland pointed out paintings and decorations, all by French artists like Rigaud and Le Brun, as they moved through the stately sequence of high, cold rooms. The culmination was the War Salon, a temple of green and red marble, massively ornamented with gold, and dominated by a huge oval relief of the godlike Sun King, mounted on a horse that was trampling upon his enemies.
    “Everything depended upon the king,” Roland remarked. “His control was complete. The ritual was endless.” He gave Fox and Hadley an amused look. “Everything that the English and the American political systems wanted to avoid.”
    And with that he led them through the doorway into the most famous room in France.
    The Galerie des Glaces, the Hall of Mirrors. Nearly eighty yards long. Great windows down one side, gilded mirrors opposite, a tunnel-arched ceiling from which the massive row of crystal chandeliers hung in galactic splendor. The almost endless polished expanse of parquet floor gleamed like a lake under the sun.
    “This is where everyone waited for the king to pass on his way to chapel,” Roland remarked.
    “I’ve read that the court etiquette was pretty stifling,” Hadley said.
    “It was. But I think the women had the worst of it,” Roland told him. “Somehow a fashion evolved where the women were supposed to take tiny steps very quickly—you couldn’t see it of course, under their long dresses—so that it seemed as if they were floating.” He turned to Marie. “What would you say to that, mademoiselle?”
    A mischievous glint came into Marie’s demure eyes.
    “Do you mean like this, monsieur?”
    And then, to the astonishment of the four watching men, she set off up the Hall of Mirrors. Her dress was long enough so that one could not see

Weitere Kostenlose Bücher