Louis XIV and the Land of Love and Adventure
Description:... If this story seems like it has a thousand voices, there are; and they are set to the rhythm of the flow of their time.
We are entering a virtual and imagined reality for us, and a real and imagined world for them.
The baroque space. The living realm.
Imagine this story as a fairy tale, a fantasy, even though it all is true. So many princes and princesses, duchesses and marquises, the abdicated Queen, Christine of Sweden, the exiled Queen of England, Henriette de France. A pageant, a parade. The whole Court going from castle to palace to castle, the royal caravan stretching out for miles and miles, golden carriages, riders in full colors, red, purple, blue, and their hats with long plumes. Beautiful prancing horses, The King rides alongside a carriage and flirts with a lover. Shiny ornate razor-sharp swords sheaved at the men’s waists. Delicate fans flickering lightly in the dainty white hands of the demoiselles let pass glimpses of flattering smiles. Musketeers mingling. Soldiers bringing up the rear.
Stopping, dallying in the pristine and bucolic French countryside. The farmers come to watch as the procession passes, googling at their near heavenly presence. The nobles pass through villages and towns, banners waving, trumpets sounding. They stop for accolades, a party and a feast, telling stories, laughing, drinking and dancing through the torch and candle lit night. There is no hurry, nothing presses except their barely fettered desires.
And as they lived they imagined. Charles Perrault, the author of Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Puss in Boots, The Sleeping Beauty, and Bluebeard, was not only a member of the Académie Française and the leader of the “Modernes” in the controversy with the “Ancients”, he was an integral part of the Court.
The Court was young and uninhibited, incessantly creating new ways of thinking, plays, ballets, novels, painting. The art of conversation, the social arts. These were the artists of the time and if they weren’t themselves artists they supported and patronized them. Racine, Molière, Lully, even the satiric Scarron, to mention just a few, received pensions from the King.
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