Tres Chic Saturday

Since I am beyond excited about planning my fall France trip (which you will all get sick of hearing about, I’m sure!) this seemed appropriate. I decided to have a Paris-y, fashion-y night, and started by ordering some perfume samples from The Perfumed Court (I’ve been reading my way through Perfumes: The Guide and found several scents I need to test), and tried some craft-y stuff.

Usually crafts and I don’t mix well. Things get glued or sewn together that are not meant to, messes get made. But I’ve been working on accessories for my costume for the RWA Beau Monde soiree this summer. I had a shoe dilemma–I have the perfect style of shoe, left over from a bridesmaid outfit several years ago, but it wasn’t the right color. Yet they’re too dark to re-dye. Megan advised me to put beads on it, so I borrowed my mother’s glue gun (Warning!! Hot glue ahead!) and took a trip to Hobby Lobby to find some beads. This is the result–what do you think? And does anyone know where I can get some big, plummy ostrich feathers?

And it was on this day in 1774 that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette ascended the throne of France! A candle was kept in the window of Louis’s grandfather, Louis XV, who was dying of smallpox, to signal his demise. It was extinguished at 3 in the afternoon, and immediately “a terrible noise, exactly like thunder” (from Madame Campan’s memoirs) as the courtiers ran toward the Dauphine’s apartments to make their obeisances. The young couple (still practically teenagers) fell on their knees and prayed together, “Dear God, guide us and protect us. We are too young to reign.”

But no one lingered at Versailles, due to the threat of contagion. By four o’clock the royal family was on their way to Choisy, leaving servants to clean up after the dead king, and a group of English tourists free to wander the chateau (they found the state apartments “dirty and neglected,” but liked the rooms of the Mesdames Tantes with their books and musical instruments). Louis XV was hastily sealed up in his coffin and driven to St. Denis in Paris. Lady Mary Coke observed that the people along the road, rather than showing respect and concern, “whooped and hallooed as if they had been at a horse-race instead of a funeral procession.” It was a new day in France.

What city do you belong in? Take then quiz and let us know!

Diane will be stepping in next Saturday–my baby brother is getting married that day, and I’ll be buried in Family Things! But I’ll be back the next Saturday with a full wedding report. Be sure and join us on Monday the 19th, when my Grand Central Publishing editor Alex Logan will be here to answer your questions and talk about the GCP romance program. See you then!