Day 14: Versailles & Villette

Versailles was not as cool as I thought it would be, I hate to say. Yes, it was beautiful, but it was just another grand, ornate palace. I wish the weather had cooperated and we could have walked around in the gardens, but alas it was cold, windy, and rainy today. Not a good day for meandering in a park.

(side of the front gate)

(view of the gardens from inside the palace)

Maybe it was because of the hustle and bustle and hundreds of people that were in the palace at the same time that caused me to not enjoy it as much. If I had been a lone wanderer in the palace, with my audioguide, and a bar of chocolate :) I feel that I would have enjoyed it much more. Also, a castle, while beautiful, cannot give you a real sense for what the people were like who lived there, especially since it was such a public place. Privacy and personal preferences had to be weighed on the scale of public display and decorum.

If people were to walk into my room in Provo, they would get a little glimpse at the kind of person that I am--pictures of my family, Paris, Christ, Education in Zion exhibit postcard, notes from my younger brothers, Weeping American Elm photos, a shoebox full of photo albums, textbooks and binders piled high at the edge of my part of the desk, and various knick-knacks strewn over the whole of the desk. They may be able to discern that I like blue from my blue comforter and blue pillow case and blue picture frame at the side of my bed with my brothers' pictures inside. My scriptures and journal on the table next to my bed, with the space under my bed crammed full of boxes and suitcases arranged in a surprisingly well-managed manner. Yet the people who look over my things don't know me. They can't know about the kind of person I am, my likes, dislikes, what makes my breath catch, what causes my pulse to race in anger, my experiences, my habits, myself. They can't know me by looking at my belongings.

In a similar way, while it is a wonderful experience and opportunity we have to look at and walk through many grand chateaux from various French royalty and nobility, we can't fathom the lives they lived. Even reading about the general time frame, unless we know what they themselves wrote in letters or published, we can't know those people. If someone were to study 21st century and try to create who I am out of that knowledge, they would fall sadly short of describing me.

We looked at the bedrooms of Louis XIV, the Queen's Chamber and the Dauphin's quarters. I looked at them and marveled at their beauty, but what did I really gain from looking at those things?

(Louis XIV bed)

(view from Louis XIV bedroom)

(Queen's chamber)

(Dauphin's childhood room)

(Dauphin's adult chamber)

However, if I were to take what I saw and experienced walking through Versailles today and apply it to what I have learned and what I may learn in the future about life at Versailles and Louis XIV life, then I will gain a closer picture of who he was. Just like many people only see one side of a person at work or school, if you were to visit their home you would see that person in a different environment and therefore gain a new perspective.

(bust of Louis XIV by Bernini)

(Beth in the Hall of Mirrors)

Leaving Versailles alone, on Sunday I began reading Villette by Charlotte Bronte. That book, like Jane Eyre (maybe it's just Charlotte...), has struck a chord within me. Like Jane, I recognize myself in Lucy Snowe. I'm almost halfway through the novel and there is so much that I have already felt is like me. There are four parts in particular that have struck me enough to put a marker in so that I will extract the quote for later remembrance (or perhaps memorization, like my favorite quote from Jane Eyre). One of these parts applies very well to my experience here in France:

"I could say nothing whatever; not possessing a phrase of speaking French: and it was French, and French only, the whole world seemed now gabbling around me. What should I do? Approaching the conductor, I just laid my hand on his arm, pointed to a trunk, then to the diligence-roof, and tried to express a question with my eyes. He misunderstood me, seized the trunk indicated, and was about to hoist it on the vehicle" (p. 123).