Versailles at DC: Let Them Eat Ketchup

Dear Ms Liberty, 

When I was a teenager, I took my second trip to Washington, DC. The first trip, I don't remember, as I wasn't even a year old. On this trip, as a bored teenager sitting in the back seat with my kid sister, I remember feeling a bit of a rebel from the start, as many of my teen classmates were off to Disneyland for their summer vacation. Still, we had to go to Washington, DC, with an emphasis on an extended visit to the Smithsonian. Dad particularly wanted us to spend time at the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian, because his children were going to see the moon rock—and we did. 

One of my most vivid memories from this trip that I will never forget is when we drove up Pennsylvania Avenue (Note that this was back in the 1970s, when it was a public street open to vehicle traffic. In 1995, it was closed permanently to pedestrian traffic only).  Sitting in the back seat, I remember to my left I saw the White House and spoke out, "Look! It's the President's house!" 

To which my mother corrected me, "No, that's the People's House, and we let him live there."

I will never forget that, and I think of it often when an exterior or interior scene of the White House appears on the television screen. 

It's over 50 years later, and I found myself across the pond from Washington, DC, in Paris. It was a Sunday morning, and my traveling companions and I were having breakfast in a hotel wine cellar. At one end of the room, the space had been beautifully remodeled as a dining room. Between three of my friends and me, we had made plans for the afternoon to head out to Versailles and check out the lavish lifestyle and residence of King Louis XIV and his bride, Marie Antoinette. I had purchased tickets ahead of time, but something came over me. Versailles no longer had any appeal to me. I didn't want to be stuck and cramped in a palace, rubbing shoulders with a group of sweating strangers.

Instead, I wanted to stand outside of Notre Dame by the Seine (it was still closed due to the fire), check out the funky 700-year-old architecture where Shakespeare and Company resided (and buy a few books, too), and visit a church in the Latin Quarter that was constructed beginning in 1492 and concluding in 1626. We do not have buildings that old in America.

The current occupant of the Oval Office apparently wants to be King and fashions himself after Louis, or more like Marie Antoinette. We've all seen his gold throne... I mean, the toilet from his 1970s decor-appointed penthouse, and now, he has brought his maximalism and faux gold furnishings into the People's House. His MAGA subjects claim that the garish gold-like furnishings on the mantle, wall, and crown moulding around the oval ceiling, as well as the cheap brass-looking tschotskies, are the real thing. I don't think so. I've seen these embellishments on Amazon. They're made with pressed wood, and to give them their shine... Voila! Gold spraypaint! 

Bless my mother. She has since passed, but when she was still lucid, during her last Thanksgiving dinner with us, she expressed her contempt towards the 45th occupant of the Oval Office. Mom would not have approved of the tacky interior, let alone the inhabitants inside the People's House.

Thanks for being such a good listener.
Love,
C~

T-Louie Antoinette