VERSAILLES!
Jun. 13th, 2016 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
motodraconisDespite a catalogue of disasters, and the only working camera nearly being destroyed... WE MADE IT TO VERSAILLES!
Most of the photos by Suzanne, with some of my photos at the end of the singers and guide.
Wigs in waiting...
Since we had a HUGE suite, Suzanne and Adrianne came to our hotel to get ready, wot with complicated clothes to wrestle with, here's Adrianne in her underwear - with some baroque censoring...
Adrianne looking after my equipage while I get dressed...
Selfie time!
Me ready to go
Suzanne
A glass of champagne to fortify the nerves - and the prospect of many hours in stays, skirts and wigs.
Pandora with snacks and champagne... I think she's exhausted already from getting into the dress!
And we arrived at Versailles, in the pissing rain, but surprisingly, a taxi from the hotel was not too expensive.
Our lone garçon!
There were Entertainments... first, some dancing.
Cards...
Hoop and target Billiards! "The game was originally played with two balls on a table with a hoop similar to a croquet wicket and an upright stick used as a target. During the eighteenth century, the hoop and target gradually disappeared, leaving only the balls and pockets, which were, most likely, added to the table in the late 1700's. Tables originally had low vertical walls whose only function was to keep the balls from falling off the table. The walls came to be called "banks" because they resembled river banks. Players discovered that balls could be bounced off the walls and began to deliberately plan shots that included a rebound from the table edge or "bank," creating a "bank shot". The "banks" were unpadded until the 1600s when they began to be stuffed with flax, cotton, or horsehair and came to be called cushions."
I was given a "mace" to strike the ball with, sort of a stick with a big ivory shovel on the end. "The cue stick was developed in the late 1600's. When the ball lay near a wall, the mace was difficult to use because of its large head. In such a case, the players would turn the mace around and use its handle to strike the ball. The handle was called a "queue" - meaning "tail" - from which we get the word "cue". For a long time only men were allowed to use the cue; women were forced to use the mace because it was felt they were more likely to rip the cloth with the sharper cue. A French Captain Mingaud, who was a political prisoner in Paris during the French Revolution, studied the physics of shot making. He added a leather pad to the end of the cue, reducing the pressure exerted on the wood. By rounding off the cue end he increased the area of the tip that could put a rotation on the ball itself. When the ball was hit off center with his cue it created backspin. Cues were used by most players by 1810."
Slightly dissappointed that Suzanne didn't snap my amazing tactic of wagging the mace at my opponent while leering... in order to put him off his game so I could win. Those danged maces are pretty unwieldy! (No bloody wonder the men insisted the women play with the fingers-like-pigs-tits end.)
OMG! IT'S THE KING!
Time for a bit of gossip...
La Galerie des Glaces!
Well well... shades of Gala Nocturna?
A pair of delightful German fops...
More entertainments... first sung in French. The mega-lute player, a Frenchman, is in love with a Spanish woman...
But she spurns his advances because he's a Frenchie who smells of cheese. (I was the only person in the room who burst out laughing at this point.)
His chum, the cello player, tries to step in and act as wingman.
But she ends up falling in love with him instead!
Then they started singing in Italian and I lost the plot.
They were pretty good!
Last of all, we were taken on a tour of Madame de Pompadour's private apartments by this chap...
Who did a really good talk about the apartments and the great lady herself. Er... all in French. I tried to translate for Adrianne, but he never really stopped long enough in his monologue for me to whisper out the briefest of gists.
A wee video by French Media channel RTL, you can spot us about 50 seconds in.
Well I enjoyed myself! I'd like to go back next year if I can. WHO DARES COME WITH ME?
Most of the photos by Suzanne, with some of my photos at the end of the singers and guide.
Wigs in waiting...
Since we had a HUGE suite, Suzanne and Adrianne came to our hotel to get ready, wot with complicated clothes to wrestle with, here's Adrianne in her underwear - with some baroque censoring...
Adrianne looking after my equipage while I get dressed...
Selfie time!
Me ready to go
Suzanne
A glass of champagne to fortify the nerves - and the prospect of many hours in stays, skirts and wigs.
Pandora with snacks and champagne... I think she's exhausted already from getting into the dress!
And we arrived at Versailles, in the pissing rain, but surprisingly, a taxi from the hotel was not too expensive.
Our lone garçon!
There were Entertainments... first, some dancing.
Cards...
Hoop and target Billiards! "The game was originally played with two balls on a table with a hoop similar to a croquet wicket and an upright stick used as a target. During the eighteenth century, the hoop and target gradually disappeared, leaving only the balls and pockets, which were, most likely, added to the table in the late 1700's. Tables originally had low vertical walls whose only function was to keep the balls from falling off the table. The walls came to be called "banks" because they resembled river banks. Players discovered that balls could be bounced off the walls and began to deliberately plan shots that included a rebound from the table edge or "bank," creating a "bank shot". The "banks" were unpadded until the 1600s when they began to be stuffed with flax, cotton, or horsehair and came to be called cushions."
I was given a "mace" to strike the ball with, sort of a stick with a big ivory shovel on the end. "The cue stick was developed in the late 1600's. When the ball lay near a wall, the mace was difficult to use because of its large head. In such a case, the players would turn the mace around and use its handle to strike the ball. The handle was called a "queue" - meaning "tail" - from which we get the word "cue". For a long time only men were allowed to use the cue; women were forced to use the mace because it was felt they were more likely to rip the cloth with the sharper cue. A French Captain Mingaud, who was a political prisoner in Paris during the French Revolution, studied the physics of shot making. He added a leather pad to the end of the cue, reducing the pressure exerted on the wood. By rounding off the cue end he increased the area of the tip that could put a rotation on the ball itself. When the ball was hit off center with his cue it created backspin. Cues were used by most players by 1810."
Slightly dissappointed that Suzanne didn't snap my amazing tactic of wagging the mace at my opponent while leering... in order to put him off his game so I could win. Those danged maces are pretty unwieldy! (No bloody wonder the men insisted the women play with the fingers-like-pigs-tits end.)
OMG! IT'S THE KING!
Time for a bit of gossip...
La Galerie des Glaces!
Well well... shades of Gala Nocturna?
A pair of delightful German fops...
More entertainments... first sung in French. The mega-lute player, a Frenchman, is in love with a Spanish woman...
But she spurns his advances because he's a Frenchie who smells of cheese. (I was the only person in the room who burst out laughing at this point.)
His chum, the cello player, tries to step in and act as wingman.
But she ends up falling in love with him instead!
Then they started singing in Italian and I lost the plot.
They were pretty good!
Last of all, we were taken on a tour of Madame de Pompadour's private apartments by this chap...
Who did a really good talk about the apartments and the great lady herself. Er... all in French. I tried to translate for Adrianne, but he never really stopped long enough in his monologue for me to whisper out the briefest of gists.
A wee video by French Media channel RTL, you can spot us about 50 seconds in.
Well I enjoyed myself! I'd like to go back next year if I can. WHO DARES COME WITH ME?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2016-06-17 07:08 am (UTC)