“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Orson Wells, The Third Man
Sites/Topics covered in this post:
• Metiers Museum of Technology, Science & Industry
• Versailles
Go-Date: Day 135, Thursday, June 6
Happy D-Day.
Lesson Learned: I like the French. We were expecting aloof, rude, impatient, and uninterested in speaking with Americans. Now, I’m sure that is propaganda to attempt to stem the flood of tourists into Paris. People are People, and I like the French better than most.
We have found Parisians to be friendly, outgoing, helpful, and possessing a very dry sense of humor. I love it. As a matter of fact, I found Greeks and Croatians to be much the same. We don’t speak diddle as far as other languages go (OK, a smattering of Spanish, and Ellen is much better than me) but that hasn’t been an issue, except in Egypt, and even there it wasn’t that big of a deal.
People, we’ve found them all to be very welcoming. Maybe less so in Egypt, but I think its because so many saw us as a source of revenue and that got to be a bit tiring (I believe that’s a poverty issue, not cultural or religious). Even in Egypt, we never felt in jeopardy or worried for our safety. Everything has been great, and the people have been great.
Metiers, History on Display
The Musée des Arts et Métiers is an industrial design museum in Paris that houses the collection of the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (National Conservatory of Arts and Industry). Founded in 1794 by Henri Grégoire, the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, “a store of new and useful inventions,” is a museum of technological innovation. The Musée des arts et métiers was refurbished in 2000, and now exhibits over 2,400 inventions. They are split into seven collections Scientific instruments, Materials, Energy, Mechanics, Construction, Communication and Transportation. Since its foundation, the museum has been housed in the deserted priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, in the rue Réaumur in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris. Today the museum, which underwent major renovation in 1990, includes an additional building adjacent to the abbey, with larger objects remaining in the abbey itself.
The museum has over 80,000 objects and 15,000 drawings in its collection. Among its collection is an original version of the Foucault pendulum (proved that the world was rotating), the original model of Liberty Enlightening the World (commonly known as the Statue of Liberty) by Auguste Bartholdi, some of the first airplanes (Clément Ader’s Avion III, Louis Blériot’s Blériot XI…), and Blaise Pascal’s Pascaline (the first mechanical calculator).
We knew of the museum, but sort of half stumbled upon it as we were wandering about in the area around the Picasso Museum. At first, we thought it was a church (oh, look another cathedral), but once you get in there its amazing how much technology from our youth and the past were in there. Yeah, there’s a Betamax, an old record player, a Polaroid camera, roller skates, early bicycles, biplanes, Formula One race car, and even a model of the Statue of Liberty (oh, I already said that). Pretty neat. We really enjoyed the museum and the building was lovely. The best thing is the lack of crowds. You could get close up to the exhibits without being rushed along by other tourists.
Versailles – Never has so Much Been Spent on so Few by so Many
The Palace of Versailles is a French Château and was the principal royal residence of France from 1682, under Louis XIV, until the start of the French Revolution in 1789, under Louis XVI. It is located about 20 kilometres (12 miles) southwest of Paris. It’s a pretty easy Metro and train (RER) ride from out apartment. It took about 1 hour 15 minutes (the train was packed) on the C Train (yellow). The RER lines are a bit more confusing than the metro, but you know you are headed in the right direction if you are following a crowd. The RER requires a different ticket from the metro, but hang on to your RER ticket on the way back, because it gives you a free transfer onto the metro for about an hour and a half after you clock in in Versailles. Buy two RER tickets when you start so you won’t have to queue to buy your return ticket in the crazy station in Versailles.
The palace is now a Monument historique (historic monument) and UNESCO World Heritage site, notable especially for the ceremonial Hall of Mirrors, the Royal Opera, and the royal apartments. The royal garden is also magnificent and stole the show for us. In addition, there are intimate royal residences, the Grand Trianon and Petit Trianon located within the park; the small rustic Hameau (Hamlet) created for Marie Antoinette (so she could live like the common people of France); and the vast Gardens of Versailles with fountains, canals, and geometric flower beds and groves, laid out by André le Nôtre. The Palace was stripped of all its furnishings after the French Revolution, but many pieces have been returned and many of the palace rooms have been restored.
In 2017 the Palace of Versailles received 7,700,000 visitors, making it the second-most visited monument in the Île-de-France region, just behind the Louvre and ahead of the Eiffel Tower. It honestly felt like all 7 million of the tourists were here on the day we visited.
The site of the Palace was first occupied by a small village and church, surrounded by forests filled with abundant game. It was owned by the Gondi family and the priory of Saint Julian. King Henry IV went hunting there in 1589, and returned in 1604 and 1609, staying in the village inn. His son, the future Louis XIII, came on his own hunting trip there in 1607. After he became King in 1610, Louis XIII returned to the village, bought some land, and in 1623-24 built a modest two-story hunting lodge on the site of the current marble courtyard (modest meaning about 5,000 square feet).
Later on, King Louie liked the area so much he purchased the surrounding territory from the Gondi family, and in 1631–1634 had the architect Philibert Le Roy replace the hunting lodge with a château of brick and stone with classical pilasters in the doric style and high slate-covered roofs, surrounding the courtyard of the original hunting lodge. The gardens and park were also enlarged, and reached essentially the size they have today. So, the area of the estate was about as large as Yellowstone Park. Well, that’s really not the case, but this estate is big, stretching out about as far as the eye can see.
Louis XIV first visited the château on a hunting trip in 1651 at the age of twelve, but returned only occasionally until his marriage to Maria Theresa of Spain in 1660, after which he suddenly acquired a passion for the site. He decided to rebuild, embellish and enlarge the château and to transform it into a setting for both rest and for elaborate entertainments on a grand scale. After the remodel, he decided to get out of Paris because his home there, the Louvre, just wasn’t adequate for his needs. And he had so many needs.
The King increasingly spent his days in Versailles, and the government, court, and courtiers, numbering six to seven thousand persons, crowded into the buildings. The King ordered a further enlargement, and added two large new wings on either side of the original Cour Royale (Royal Courtyard). He also replaced the original terrace with one that was new and improved on the west side of the château outside of the Hall of Mirrors.
With all the court lackeys hanging about, the King wished a quiet place to relax away from the ceremony of the Court. So, in 1687 he commissioned the Grand Trianon, or Trianon de Marbre (Marble Trianon) in the northern section of the park. In 1682 Louis XIV was able to proclaim Versailles his principal residence and the seat of the government and was able to give rooms in the palace to almost all of his courtiers. It’s a shame he didn’t widen the halls a bit more to handle the 7.7 million visitors.
Of all the sites we’ve visited on this trip Versailles was the most crowded, and we visited on a Thursday, which is supposed to be the least crowded day of the week. (Saturday, Sunday and Tuesdays are the worst days to visit) Louis XIV died in 1715, and the King, Louis XV, just five years old, and his government were moved temporarily from Versailles to Paris under the regency of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. In 1722, when the King came of age, he moved his residence and the government back to Versailles, where it remained until the French Revolution in 1789. If you want to see the shenanigans L. 15 carried on with, watch the TV series Outlander it may not all be factual, but use your imagination. They had some nice shots of Versailles, but they also took liberty with Photoshop to make it more movie-like.
We arrived at 11 AM and the line for people without tickets was at least 100 meters long. I do not exaggerate on this. We had bought tickets online and breezed right through the door. If you are going to visit, I’d recommend arriving at 9 AM, when the palace opens, or at 3 PM, when the crowds begin to thin out. On the day we came there were at least 30 tour busses in the parking lot. That may be an underestimate. Definitely but tickets online, unless you like mingling with the tour bus crowd.
After looking at this place, I can honestly say France needed a revolution (off with their heads) to clear this crowd out. They had so much and the rest of the people in the country had so little with the exception of rats, smallpox, the black plague, taxes, and a brutal Catholic Church to keep them in line. Marie Antoinette may not have actually said “Then let them eat cake”, but she sure lived life with that attitude. If you visit Paris, one thing you will notice is how much they enjoy using gold leaf in their architecture. Its gaudy, bold, ornate, and expensive, and we’ve not seen nearly as much of it in use in any other country we’ve visited. Viva la Revolution.
Of course, for France, everything didn’t get better after the Revolution. Coming on the heels of the American Revolution, the French version really threw a panic to the monarchs of Europe and everyone thought the French needed to be schooled a bit in royal politics. There was a French victory over the Prussians at the Battle of Valmy in 1792, but the politics surrounding the Revolution still really bugged the rest of Europe and drove France towards war with Austria and its allies. Of course, Napoleon comes on the scene, naming himself in charge in 1799. France was always in a scuffle, and from 1793 to 1815 France was engaged almost continuously in wars with Britain (ah, the Frogs and Limeys, what a pair) and a changing coalition of other major powers. Its bad enough being a starving peasant, but being a starving peasant being shot at was much worse.
With the final defeat of Napoleon in 1814 (and 1815) brought a reaction that reversed some – but not all – of the revolutionary achievements in France and Europe, so once again there was a king on the throne in France. During all of this mess, they closed down Versailles, guillotined a few hundred heads off people wearing powdered wigs, sold Louisiana to America, and decided to name frittes as the national food of France thus giving it the name as we know it now, the French Fry.
We found the place over-the-top, crowded, and over-hyped, but its one of those things you need to gut out and just do it. It was something to see, but I doubt I’ll ever do it again.
Versailles Trivia
Floor area: 67,000 m² (721,182 ft²)
Property size: 1,070 hectares (2644.028 acres)
- Marie Antoinette brought her own chocolate maker with her when she arrived at Versailles
- When a bride had to be found for Louis XV a list of 99 eligible princesses were drawn up together with their pros and cons
- Madame de Pompadour’s emblem was dominated by fish – a reference to her bourgeois-name of Jeanne de Poissons literally meaning “fish”
- Louis XVI was the first King of France in about 200 years who did NOT take a mistress
- The total cost of Versailles is estimated to have been 116.438.892 livres or 1.285.456,000 pounds in today’s money ($1,634,756,378 dollars)
- The Chapel took 28 years to complete
- There are 1250 fireplaces and 67 staircases