Poster for the cartoon The Rose of Versailles
□ Li Xuemeng, a reporter of this newspaper
After the "six studies", "Fanxue" has become a rapidly emerging "Internet emerging joyful discipline" within a few days. Not only a number of news related to "Versailles literature" rushed to the hot search, the majority of netizens are more than happy to join the "one person, one sentence Versailles" relay game.
In line with the idea that "behind any hot event there is a deep historical background and cultural connotation", we do not stop at the "Fanxue" competition itself to understand the real "Versailles" and "Versailles Rose" - the same luxurious beginning as today's "Fanxue", but finally a completely different tragic ending.
Why Versailles and not the Louvre?
We will not dwell on what Versailles literature is, but the Internet is full of tutorials and examples. Those inadvertently revealed fishing forks or bull carriage logos, the positioning of Victoria Harbour, the big "H" of Hermès, always shine with a low-key and noble light.
But why "Versailles literature" and not Louvre, Buckingham or Forbidden City literature?
Because although every royal palace is magnificent, the Palace of Versailles is luxurious and unique - "Versailles" is a royal palace with a story.
Versailles is a small town about 15 km southwest of Paris. At first, the traffic was closed, the land was soft, full of ponds and swamps, and the winter was very cold. In 1624, Louis XIII bought 117 acres of wasteland for about a pound of silver, and built a temporary residence for hunting, which was only 26 rooms at the earliest, and the furnishings were simple.
Then came the time of Louis XIV. Louis XIV was the "Sun King" who proclaimed "the state of decay", and was the longest-reigning monarch in the world (72 years and 110 days). Louis XIV was an ambitious king, during which France became the most powerful country in Europe, but he is more talked about not by his achievements, but by inventing high heels, his love of wigs and leggings, his bathing no more than 7 times in his lifetime, and so on.
Like many Chinese emperors, Louis inherited the throne at the age of fourteen or fifteen, and when he was 23 years old, he built a new Palace of Versailles to herald the birth of a new era. The construction of the Palace of Versailles lasted for nearly half a century, and it was used while it was built. He asked the nobles and officials to move to the palace and attend balls, feasts, and other celebrations day and night. At this time, the Palace of Versailles was already clearly in the Baroque style, majestic, solemn and noble, and extremely luxurious. The roof is covered with large murals and displays of ornaments of great value.
Since Louis XIV lived too long, more than his son and three grandchildren, louis XV was his great-grandson.
Louis XV was also only 5 years old when he succeeded to the throne. Versailles opened the 2.0 era in his hands. Louis XV was a man of great spirits, the most famous mistress was the famous Madame de Pompidou, the leader of the artistic trend who brought a new artistic style to the Palace of Versailles - Rococo, magnificent, complex and feminine. There is also a large amount of Chinese furniture.
Louis XV hosted a wedding of unprecedented luxury for his son (the future Louis XVI). This wedding was the culmination of the Palace of Versailles, and many film and television works have been reproduced in detail. The total cost of the wedding was about 36 million francs. Louis XV once asked his Chancellor of the Exchequer how he felt about the wedding. The answer was: "I think it is... Difficult to pay. ”
In the late Louis XV and early Louis XVI periods, the Versailles reached its highest value in size, with bloated staffing and serious waste. The day-to-day expenses of maintaining it account for 1/4 of France's annual revenue.
On the afternoon of October 5, 1789, the revolutionary crowd broke through the gates of the Palace of Versailles, and the king and queen fled, ending the more than 100-year history of Versailles as the king's palace.
During the French Revolution that followed, the Palace of Versailles was looted. This luxurious palace of more than a thousand rooms, which had been glorious for a century, was almost in ruins and was later converted into a museum. On June 28, 1919, France, Britain, the United States and other countries signed the Treaty of Versailles here with Germany, which ended the First World War. This is the last time the palace has truly left its name in history.
Today the Palace of Versailles is open to the public as a tourist attraction where visitors can stroll freely. The fragrant sideburns, the pearls, the flashy exaggerations, those luxurious and dazzling marble and crystal lamps, on the one hand, are close at hand, on the other hand, they are still floating in the clouds, deriving the imagination of today's "Versailles writers" of nobility and luxury.
The spiritual origin of "Versailles literature"
Although "Fan Xueshi" has only become popular on the Internet in recent days, similar topics and styles have begun to originate more than a decade ago. Netizens traced the "Zhou Gongzi vs. Yi Yeqing" and "Little Times", and the more professional academic school examined the spiritual origin of "Versailles Literature", which was the Japanese manga "Versailles Rose" in the 1970s.
Set in the court life of Louis XVI's wife, Empress Mary, this comic book depicts the extravagant life of the aristocratic class and opens the eyes to the life of a european high-society noblewoman. As a result, "Versailles" has gradually become synonymous with luxury.
The Rose of Versailles began serializing in the weekly magazine Margaret in 1972 and was quickly adapted into anime television, live-action films, and stage plays, making it a national treasure of Japan and known as the three masterpieces of Japanese manga in the 1970s. The musical of the same name also broke the highest attendance at the Takarazuka Opera House. The comic was so popular that it was said that when the heroine Oscar was killed, the real-life Oscar fan group held a memorial service for her.
Oscar, the sixth girl in the general's family, had high hopes from her father and named him a boy and raised her as a boy. At the age of 14, Oscar, who had been dressed as a man, became the captain of the Palace Guard and the most loyal guard of the Crown Princess Mary.
Oscar and Mary both fall in love with the personable Swedish aristocrat Hans. For the sake of his male god, Oscar also wore the only women's clothes in his life. However, the person Hans loved was Mary. A bitter Oscar resigned as captain of the Guards and went to the Guard at the grass-roots level in Paris. Here she witnessed the power of the masses, and finally left the royalists and stood with the masses, and finally died in battle. The populace vented their anger on the extravagant and wasteful Mary. Hans assisted the king's family in their escape, but the plan failed and Queen Mary was executed. Hans returned to his native Sweden alone.
At that time, the story of "women dressed as men" was a clear stream, and the beautiful appearance, outstanding talent, and kind heart of the oscar character left a deep impression on the reader.
The story of "The Rose of Versailles" revolves around the love-hate love and hatred of Oscar's life, although it is a fictional story, but there are many real historical figures and historical events, so Riyoko Ikeda is also known as a "manga historian" and has received the "French Legion of Honor" awarded by the French government.
If there really is "Versailles literature", this is probably the real literary and artistic work about Versailles.
The real "Rose of Versailles"
There are two beautiful roses in The Rose of Versailles: the White Rose Oscar and the Red Rose Marie.
Of course, oscars are virtual characters, but the real Queen Mary is a real beautiful rose with blood, a famous "severed queen", "absolute queen" and "deficit queen". Her short life had unimaginable luxuries of the "Versailles writers", and eventually she broke the imagination of these "mortal scholars" and ended her life on the guillotine.
Zweig's famous words: She was too young to know all the gifts of fate, and she had already secretly marked the price - it was her.
Royal life made Mary graceful and elegant, but also made her proud and capricious. Mary left behind two famous sayings:
When the minister told Mary that the French people did not even have bread to eat, she laughed innocently and sweetly: "Then why don't they eat cake?" ”
When Mary was pushed onto the guillotine, she stepped on the executioner's foot, at which point she said, "I'm sorry, you know, I didn't mean it." ”
Born into the Austrian royal family, Mary was beautiful, intelligent, versatile, and enjoyed a wealth and glory that no other girl could match in her lifetime. At the age of 14, he married into the French royal family and became the wife of Louis XVI, who was still the Crown Prince, and the Palace of Versailles staged the most lavish wedding for them.
The most extravagant and hedonistic life of her life began. Jewelry, costumes, dance parties, high rollers, operas, horse racing, food... The extravagant life of spending days and drinks, coupled with the maintenance of imperial power and opposition to constitutional monarchy, the French royal family was already in danger at that time, and Mary's luxurious life was more likely to be the target of the people than Louis XVI, who did not do political affairs.
The flames of the revolution burned, and the rebellious people captured the Bastille and hit the Palace of Versailles. The determined and stubborn Mary never agreed to the outlaw of the crown, and even sought rescue from her mother's family and the Austrian royal family by betraying French intelligence. These acts were discovered by the angry French people, and the Empress Of the End was sent to the guillotine for treason at the age of 38.
Years later, Zweig wrote a biography of the withered Versailles Rose, The Severed Queen, lamenting: "She is the most careless of all the careless; she is the most extravagant of all the extravagant and wasteful; she is the most flirtatious of all the frivolous." No one can better express the social atmosphere of the 18th century than her, she is a symbol of the 18th century and the end of the 18th century. ”
There are many works about Queen Mary, in addition to Zweig and Rishiro Ikeda, Dumas also wrote the "French Revolution Trilogy" about the queen. Movies include "Goodbye, My Queen", "Absolute Queen" and so on.
The life witnessed in versailles for two hundred years is beautiful on one side and sad on the other. Today's "mortal scholars" yearn for life in Versailles, and those who have actually lived in Versailles do not think so.
Source: Jinan Daily