We were musically serenaded at work today. A quartet turned sextet, or were there seven of them?
Anyway they played on first floor this afternoon so we got to jam to classical music for an hour.
It was pretty much me and John Boy paired up all day. We had a lot of fun, we always talk comics and music and movies and all that.
But I felt bad today cause with all the music and stuff on the first floor I couldn't like distract from the performance so I stayed behind the desk the whole time. Felt semi-lazy. And then of course Boss's Boss's Boss is there in the audience. But it's not like I can walk in front of them to put out new books and fix the displays.
So I stayed at the desk and helped people there. Trying not to go stir-crazy as it's slow on Sundays. But I learned a lot. Cause they played something from Beauty and the Beast I guess - Wordie explained it - which led me to Charles Perrault (even though it wasn't one of his) - which led me to other random history stuff.
Things I learned about today at work:
-The Labyrinth of Versailles - apparently before Perrault became Perrault the awful and gruesome fairytale author he was some sort of advisor to the king. Anyway, he once advised the king who had recently built this giant labyrinth - the whole maze deal with giant hedges and everything - that instead of having it just shrubs that he should include fountains. He said they should dedicate a fountain to each of Aesop's Fables and then put an inscription on each and they could use it as a way to teach the king's son aka the dauphin to read. So they had 39 statues plus two in the entry. And it sounds super cool! And I'd go visit it but then like a few years later they destroyed the whole thing!! and replaced it with some sort of exotic forest thing instead. Now only pieces of those fountains are left and they put them in the museum.
But isn't that cool?
Or am I just giving you another example of how big of a nerd I am?
If so here's another.
Anyway, so Beauty and the Beast led me to Charles Perrault which led me to the Labyrinth of Versailles which led me to the Affair of the Diamond Necklace - sounds like a cheesy romance novel right? No, but you're close - because the incident happened in the labyrinth.
Keep in mind that history isn't really my strongpoint so if you know this already just roll with it.
The story behind this one is that there's this necklace that was made for one of the king's mistresses and by the time it's finished the king is dead and his mistress is banished and now there's a new king. The jeweler is going broke cause the necklace was so expensive to make so he wants the new king aka Louis XVI to buy it from him and give it to his queen aka Marie Antoinette, but he refuses. So in comes a con-artist named Jeanne de Saint-Rémy de Valois and she basically had it out for Marie Antoinette. She decided that she was going to get the necklace for herself and use it to make lots of money and hopefully tarnish the queen's name in the process.
She became the mistress of a Cardinal named Rohan - I know right?! - who was not so high on the queen's favorite people in the world list. So, Jeanne, knowing this, convinced him she was friends with the queen and he could use her to his advantage to get back in the queen's good graces. Jeanne, who was obviously not friends with the queen, convinced him to write the queen letters, and then Jeanne intercepted them and sent them to a forger named Rétaux de Villette who responded to the letters in what Jeanne convinced him was the queen's handwriting. Eventually he began to believe the queen was in love with him - cause Rétaux was very persuasive in his letters - and he told Jeanne he wanted to meet the queen privately.
Jeanne, who has vast amounts of resources apparently but hey she's a con artist, hires a prostitute (Nicole Lequay d'Oliva) who looks like the queen and has her pretend to be Marie Antoinette and meet up with the Cardinal IN THE LABYRINTH OF VERSAILLES - see how it ties together?
He fell for it and so Jeanne kicked it up a notch. She started borrowing large amounts of money from the Cardinal claiming it was for one of the queen's charities and became very rich very quickly. She then convinced the jewelers that she could help convince Marie Antoinette to buy the necklace and save them from going completely broke.
In the meantime Rétaux is still writing letters back to the Cardinal as the queen so in one of them Jeanne makes him ask Rohan to get the necklace for her, claiming it would look bad in this time of poverty if Marie Antoinette was to buy lavish jewelry herself. He then goes and shows the jewelers the letters convincing them that the queen will pay for it, takes the necklace and gives it to who he thinks is one of the queen's lackeys but is actually Jeanne's real husband - who was secretly in on this whole thing. The husband took it to London and hawked it getting the money for himself and Jeanne.
When the jewelers came looking for payment they showed him the letters again but they said it wouldn't do so they talked to the real queen aka Marie Antoinette who obviously had no idea what the hell they were talking about. The king and queen summoned Rohan the Cardinal and he showed them the letters, which again Marie Antoinette didn't know about, so they arrested Rohan and sent him to the Bastille. On his way to prison he got word to Jeanne to destroy the rest of the letters which she did.
Soonafter Jeanne is arrested, as is Nicole and the forger Rétaux and then there's this giant trial. The Cardinal is eventually aquitted along with Nicole, Rétaux is banished, Jeanne's husband is sent to sail off on some ship for life, and Jeanne is sentenced to be beaten and sent to the prostitute's prison.
BUT! She's a con artist, so she escapes FROM PRISON!! dressed as a boy of all things. Again, this chick has some serious resources man. I really want to hate her, I do, but I'm just in awe. She hides out in London and writes her memoirs.
This whole trial thing was supposed to fix the royal's image but it just made it worse. For some reason people accused Marie Antoinette of being behind the whole plot because she hated Rohan. They thought she hired Jeanne and her husband to take down the Cardinal. And, since Jeanne is a con artist and very convincing, many people believed it!
Which I think is crap, but hey the queen wasn't exactly a gentle and innocent person.
This whole extravanganza inspired multiple novels including one by Alexandre Dumas aka "The Three Musketeers" author (amongst other works) and a movie starring Hillary Swank as Jeanne.
Which flopped, sad day.
And that's your history lesson for the day.
If you knew it already congratulations! But you still read the whole thing cause you're reading this.
So there!
I still had to laugh though, for my birthday I got the funniest card ever from the Cool Aunt. It has a picture of Marie Antoinette on the cover and says "All I said was Let's have cake! or Let's eat cake! or something like that and suddenly everyone got all pissy!" then you open it and it says, "Don't party with peasants. They ruin everything."
It's true, you know? Us simple folk? We're just lame.
Anyway, I found the whole thing fascinating as I have become interested - as of late - in the French Revolution. I blame this fact entirely on the Library Goddess. And I'm sure she'd own up to it. Cause she made us read this book by Jennifer Donnelly called "Revolution" for her young adult literature class.
Read it.
It will change your outlook on life!
Or maybe not, but it certainly shook up my life for two days, I couldn't put it down!! but had to cause you know I had to work and all that.
It was like the Hunger Games - though there were no similarities in the storyline other than a strong female protagonist - in that my life revolved around that book when I was reading it. Nothing else mattered, I just wanted to finish the damn book cause I had to know what happened.
At the moment I'm pretty sure it's at Smo's apartment, perhaps I can steal it back from her this weekend.
And I want to re-read the Hunger Games this week but I don't know if that will happen or not.
This week is pretty busy. For starters, Sketch is coming tomorrow, woohoo! and staying for a few days, then Friday is the Hunger Games with Slim Shady, Fearless Leader and our yet-to-be-nicknamed newest awesome Supervisor, who happens to be our age.
And Saturday! is an old friend's wedding and it will be party central. She was one of the bridesmaids in my college roommate's cowboy boot wedding - we all went to high school together. I'm dragging the boyfriend along, he seems thrilled let me tell you, though I did give him an out on multiple occasions and he took none of them.
I told him he didn't have to wear a tie, though I'm sure I will have to wear something of extravagance more than jeans because my sisters would kill me.
That has yet to be decided. The wardrobe choice I mean, not that they'd kill me we already know that for sure.
Anyway, I don't have to be awake until like 3 tomorrow cause I don't start until 4 so I'm gonna go back to editing cause I'm sure no more work will get done this week. Sketch is good with the whole distraction thing, I don't get a lot accomplished if she's here or we're on the phone.
Song of the night:
I felt "Witchy Woman" was appropriate for Jeanne's story and found this version...
I'm still debating on what I think about that.
Thoughts?
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