Portrait of Louis XIV
It can be said with certainty that these are all false rumors, which were taken for granted by the grassroots under the historical conditions at that time. Louis XIV is said to have "not loved to bathe" only because he was born in a big era when Europeans "did not love to bathe".
In the filthy and smelly towns of Western Europe, both public health and personal hygiene are simply incomprehensible to today's people. According to statistics, until the middle of the 19th century, Parisians only bathed twice a year on average. Attention - here is the average, and there are many people, inexplicably lying guns "averaged", you know! Even Queen Elizabeth I of England in the 16th century was known for her "cleanliness", and she bathed once a month.
So why don't Europeans love bathing? How many times does Louis XIV himself wash it a year, and how can the personal hygiene problem be solved?
Two flowers, one on each side, start with ordinary Europeans. In fact, they are all civilized people, no one is born to love sloppiness, and Europe was originally a bathing paradise.
During the Roman Empire, bathing was not only a hygiene habit, but also a way of life, one of the hallmarks of Roman civilization.
In the 4th century, the city of Rome, which covered an area of only 20 square kilometers, was dotted with 856 baths and 1352 swimming pools. Other cities in the Empire, if they did not build several large baths, would be considered to be in trouble with the economic situation, just like today's GDP decline, which will directly affect the performance of local officials.
Ruins of the Roman Baths in the ancient city of Bath, England
As you can imagine, building and maintaining a large bath like the one shown above is a significant expense. Like The largest Diocletian Bath in Rome, with its huge dome measuring 29 meters high and serving more than 3,000 people, the famous Baths of Caracalla, which can accommodate 1,600 people at the same time, is estimated to store up to 80,000 tons of water. Obviously, public baths, like today's city squares, museums, mountain parks, etc., were a social welfare project built by the government. Diocletian and Caracalla, these were the names of the emperors at that time, who paid for it, who named it, it was fair, and many small baths were mostly donated by rich people or philanthropists.
In Rome, bathhouses also performed entertainment and social functions. Take the Baths of Caracalla, for example, a complex multi-body building, as shown in the picture below, flanked by shops, lecture theatres, libraries, sports fields... Provide a one-stop service. The Romans called friends and friends in it, talked loudly, ate and played, gathered in the middle of the day, dispersed at sunset, and were not happy, almost more lively than the tea houses in old Beijing.
"Entertainment complex" Caracalla Baths
According to history, the Roman Emperor Hadrian once went to the bathhouse, saw the veterans who had served under his command, and actually could not afford to invite the bathers, leaned against the wall and rubbed their backs, and with emotion, gave the veterans two slaves and a large amount of money. The emperor later consulted with the Senate to improve the treatment of veterans. For Rome, the baths are indeed a ukiyo-e painting of "declaring the emperor", listening to public opinion, and exhibiting the faces of all sentient beings.
But the question is, how did it decline later?
The immediate reason is simple: it can't be supplied.
Today, high social welfare is also an important cause of the economic recession in European countries. The public baths of the Roman period were such a bottomless pit of social welfare, free for soldiers, children and other groups, ordinary citizens only symbolically charged a small amount of ticket money, from construction to operation, all rely on the imperial financial blood transfusion support.
Take a look at the standard Roman bathing process:
First, go into the locker room and strip naked, apply sesame oil all over your body, and go to the gym to get sweaty.
The second step is to enter the warm pool for a bath.
The third step is fumigation in the steam chamber.
In the fourth step, go to the hot water pool and use a special metal scraper to scrape off the oil scale all over the body.
Finally, go into the cold pool to rinse, and then you can drink big tea and brag about forks...
It was by conquering and squeezing the entire Mediterranean world that a Roman city of luxury bathing was created. In medieval Europe, where there were layers of feudalism and small countries and widows, could this model be played? It is hard to imagine that an "international metropolis" with a population of only a few tens of thousands of people in the Middle Ages could build such a bathing area of several thousand people.
So, it's always okay to wash yourself behind closed doors at home, right? Sorry, the bidet, the bath soup, and the bath material are all problematic.
Copper or iron bathtubs, which are simply unimaginable, most nobles can only use wooden basins. Because of the rough craftsmanship, the wooden basin must be covered with fine cloth or even silk to protect the delicate ass from being pricked. Boiling hot water requires a large pot, and you have to fill several pots in a row, and in the early Middle Ages, even iron farm tools were rare, let alone iron pots. There are also those bathing sesame oils, spices, soaps, so expensive that ordinary people may not even have heard of it.
Bathing in a medieval rich family
Of course, objective conditions can always be overcome, as shown in the picture above, rich people can still wash, but people's "braids in their hearts" are the root cause of not bathing.
In medieval Europe, Christianity ruled the world. Christianity believed that one had to endure all kinds of suffering in order to atone for one's sins, which ran counter to the Roman culture of pursuing physical and mental enjoyment and pleasure. The recreational function of bathing was first cut off.
In the teachings, bathing is an important religious ritual that symbolizes rebirth, which is probably like our Chinese fortune teller, paying attention to "the first warning, repeated blasphemy, and the blasphemy is not reported", and cannot be casually engaged. Moreover, people at that time also believed that "the cleanliness of the body is a blasphemy against the soul" and "a dirty body can better approach God."
Bathing, anyway, can not afford to wash; not washing, not only save money, but also "flesh sanctification", it is no wonder that the Middle Ages was "Europe that has not been washed for a thousand years".
However, the era of Louis XIV's reign was in the 17th and 18th centuries, which was already modern, so why did Europeans still "not wash"?
In fact, there are rich people in every era, and not everyone in the common people likes to be ascetics.
Therefore, from the 11th century onwards, with the development of productive forces and the expansion of urban scale, the bathing industry in Europe was revived. According to the literature, by the 13th century, there were more than 30 baths in Paris, only 4 pence for a bathhouse and 2 pence for a steam bath.
However, the Black Death in Europe in the mid-14th century exploded and reversed overnight. At that time, hundreds of years before the birth of Comrade Pasteur, the founder of microbiology, Europeans could not find the source of the disease, and had to regard it as God's punishment, and many innocent women were executed as witches.
The terrible Black Death broke out
At that time, public baths, sanitary conditions were not good, and prostitutes engaged in sex trafficking, which became the source of many infectious diseases. From this, people think that it is water that causes the spread of disease, which was already a very "scientific" discovery at that time. It is believed that the Black Death was transmitted through the air, and that hot water would stretch the skin, open pores, and the disease would take advantage of the void. The immersion of water will also cause weakness in internal organs.
Therefore, if you want to survive, one is to wear tight and thick clothes, such as silk products; the other is not to take a bath, or even not to get wet, it is best to save a thick layer of body dirt, that is the natural firewall...
The fear of life was much better than the religious doctrine, and since then the public baths of various countries have closed their doors, like king Henry VIII, who banned all the baths in England during the reign of King Henry VIII. Bathing changed from an aristocratic sport to a truly taboo activity.
The cleanest man at that time was actually a psychopath, and the Medical Journal of 1785 openly declared:
Patients with mania should take a long-term bath or shower, if you can induce vomiting a day, take a bath for one day, and the effect is better.
- Look, this man has picked up his clothes and soaked in the bath, this is a crazy person!
It is also during this period that the perfume industry has developed vigorously, after all, people's noses are long, and if they do not take a bath, no one can stand the stench. Although he was not the inventor of perfume, it is said that this king was very sensitive to smell and could not use aroma products with strong taste, so he hired the world's best perfumers to gather in Paris to develop and serve him. Since then, France has been at the forefront of the world's perfume industry.
The main evidence that Louis XIV did not bathe is the medical records of the Imperial Physician, which records that he bathed only once in 64 years from 1647 to 1711. However, after all, this thing is not the "Living Notes" of the Chinese emperor, and it is meticulous in every aspect. In fact, the so-called 64 years of a bath, refers to bath therapy.
Once, the imperial doctor opened his brain and asked Louis XIV to use a bath to treat fistula, and the result was that the king reacted violently and painfully after going into the water, which was also ridiculed by his peers as destroying poor patients with laundry water. Only this time, bath therapy was extinct on Louie.
Louis's time, more than three hundred years after the terrible outbreak of the Black Death, always had good scars and forgot the pain of people, and the wind of bathing entertainment was rising again. Although Louis XIV will not bathe every day like some modern people, he will definitely not soak only twice a year. There are at least two reasons.
Interior of the Palace of Versailles
First of all, in the Palace of Versailles in France, there are three special bathrooms for Louis XIV. Indoor hot and cold water pipes separate water supply, the ground has drainage holes to facilitate drainage, which in the past, are very "strange and obscene" design, has been very close to the modern bathroom facilities. Once, Louis XIV and his mistress, the Marquise de Montespan, had a secret bath in a private bathroom, and they were very beautiful. I think this kind of thing must not be recorded in his annual bath "number of times".
The second reason is that Louis XIV ascended the throne at the age of 5, was born without a hard life, and was a well-treated and clean person. Every day he would wipe his face with a soft cloth filled with perfume, rinse his mouth with wine, and change his shirt several times a day. On the other hand, Louis's grandfather, Henry IV, the founding prince of the Bourbon dynasty, was originally the lord of a small remote state on the border between France and Spain, both the "rich generation" and the "poor last generation", who did not bathe much all his life, and emitted a "rotten smell", which is understandable. But by the time Louis XIV arrived, they were all "rich three generations" and still had such a "hard struggle", it was unreasonable to think about it.
Louis XIV's grandfather, Henry IV
However, at that time, even for the nobility, bathing was indeed a luxury enjoyment, and the situation of ordinary citizens was even more imaginable. It was not until the second half of the 19th century, during the French Third Republic, that a municipal water supply and drainage system was built in Paris, which solved the fundamental problem of bathing.
Just like the passage that Chinese was familiar with, the farmer thought, how did the emperor live his life? That must have been a golden flattened burden to carry water and dung. At that time, most of the French "farmers" could not imagine the bathing scene of the exclusive bathroom, the special copper basin, and the sky-high price of soap, so His Majesty the King could take a bath two or three times a year, which may really be regarded as a "golden flat burden".
Mr. Ma Weidu once said: "The bathing industry is developed and is a sign of prosperity." ”
Compared with China and Europe, the pre-Qin era "remove its stench, the bath of the king", "with the female Mu Xi salty pool"... Needless to say.
Just when Rome was bathing in the whole country, the Han Dynasty also clearly stipulated that "officials should rest for five days and one bath"; when Europe did not wash for a thousand years in the middle ages, Tang Xuanzong and Yang Guifei "gave baths in Huaqing pool in the spring and cold, and the hot spring water slid and washed the gel"; when the Black Death in Europe was raging and everyone regarded bathing as a fearful way, Marco Polo was in his travelogue, enthusiastically describing the bathhouse in Suzhou City...
The noble concubine went out of the bath to draw a picture
For example, in 1884, the International Health Exposition was held in London, England, and at that time, foreign missionaries were evaluating the braids of the Qing Dynasty at that time, because they did not wash for many years, "rats smell to be afraid."
Time has passed, and those times must be gone forever. We briefly describe a european bathing history, in fact, it also reflects the rise and fall of the development of human civilization. When everyone can enjoy bathing, it must be a good time.