Versailles Quotes

“Little by little, the old world crumbled, and not once did the king imagine that some of the pieces might fall on him.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“Dreams weigh nothing. - Marie Antoinette”
― Kathryn Lasky, Marie Antoinette: Princess of Versailles, Austria, France, 1769

“It was like the first time I visited Versailles. There was an eerieness, like I'd been there before. I don't know if I was Louis XIV or Marie Antoinette or a lowly groundskeeper, but I lived there.”
― Maurice Minnifield

“It is a natural propensity to attribute misfortune to someone’s malignity. When prices rise, it is due to the profiteer; when wages fall, it is due to the capitalist. Why the capitalist is ineffective when wages rise, and the profiteer when prices fall, the man in the street does not inquire. Nor does he notice that wages and prices rise and fall together. If he is a capitalist, he wants wages to fall and prices to rise; if he is a wage earner, he wants the opposite. When a currency expert tries to explain that profiteers and trade unions and ordinary employers have very little to do with the matter, he irritates everybody, like the man who threw doubt on German atrocities. (In World War I) We do not like to be robbed of an enemy; we want someone to have when we suffer. It is so depressing to think taht we suffer because we are fools; yet taking mankind in mass, that is the truth. For this reason, no political party can acquire any driving force except through hatred; it must hold someone to obloquy. If so-and-so’s wickedness is the sole cause of our misery, let us punish so-and-so and we shall be happy. The supreme example of this kind of political thought was the Treaty of Versailles. Yet most people are only seeking some new scapegoat to replace the Germans.”
― Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays

“Let's get one thing straight," I interrupt, jerking my arm out of his grip with such force that I nearly knock out the woman standing behind me. "You are not my father, I am not your responsibility, and I did not come here to have a list of my faults related from him or be condemned for who I associate with-not by you or that damned duke. So while it's been a jolly good time, being treated like a child all evening, I think I've just about had enough and I can make my own way from here.”
― Mackenzi Lee, The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue

“Sometimes, I recall the little things in life that make the journey more joyful, like the cheerful guy playing the accordion in Paris, on the way to Versailles. Of course everyone has their own perspective, but I believe that music does indeed provide more substance to life, so I dare imagine that one day I could walk through life as in a movie scene, with a soundtrack accompanying and enriching my every emotion, slowly dancing a tango towards one of those "and then they lived happily ever after" endings.”
― Virgil Kalyana Mittata Iordache

“I felt a tightening in my chest, a sharp spike of intense sadness-almost like nostalgia, except it was for a life I never had.”
― Katie Alender, Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer

“The Nazis' entrance upon the European stage did not, at first, alarm the British. After all, under the Versailles treaty, the size of the German army and navy was limited and the defeated country was forbidden to maintain air force. The wake-up bell began sounding only when, in March 1935, Hitler renounced the treaty and declared that his country would indeed rebuild its military. The following year, when Germany reoccupied the Rhineland, Britons were unsettled to learn that his army was already three times the legal size and that his air force, or Luftwaffe, would surpass their own.”
― Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

“In this autumn of 1919, in which I write, we are at the dead season of our fortunes.”
― John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace

“...Quando Isabelle alzò lo sguardo ebbe l’impressione che il cuore le si fermasse. Stava risalendo insieme a Jeanne la scalinata che dall’Orangerie riportava al castello dopo avere verificato che per loro quella poteva essere la via di fuga perfetta la sera dello spettacolo. Era emozionata e non vedeva l’ora di fare ritorno alla locanda per potere parlare liberamente dei dettagli del piano che aveva in mente con l’amica, quando all’improvviso si era trovata a guardare un uomo il cui sguardo avrebbe riconosciuto in mezzo a mille.
Jacques.
Lui era lì a pochi passi da lei e quell’incontro non aveva senso.
Perché mai Jacques si trovava lì a Corte,a Versailles e per giunta vestito da aristocratico?
No, c’era qualcosa di sbagliato.
L’uomo che aveva amato e che ancora non riusciva a dimenticare non era un semplice borghese che rientrava da un viaggio all’estero? Forse però quella era semplicemente l’idea che lei si era fatta di lui, dopotutto Jacques non le aveva mai detto chi fosse realmente.
«Cosa c’è?» domandò Jeanne vedendo l’amica ancora immobile e visibilmente sconvolta. Poi alzò lo sguardo anche lei e vide quel giovane bellissimo e riccamente vestito che fissava l’amica. Se però a lei quel volto non diceva nulla, diversamente fu quando il suo sguardo si spostò sull’altro uomo che intanto aveva raggiunto Jacques e si era fermato accanto a lui.
«Oh mio Dio» mormorò Jeanne.
La situazione che si era creata aveva qualcosa di surreale. Isabelle, Jacques, Jeanne e Nicolas che si fissavano l’un l’altro lì, immobili su quella scalinata e con le prime fredde gocce di pioggia che cominciavano a cadere sui loro visi.
Il rombo del tuono annunciò che il temporale era ormai arrivato.
Sembrava che il tempo fosse congelato.
Nessuno osava fare un gesto o pronunciare una parola.
Infine fu Isabelle a parlare per prima.
«Tu...qui?» riuscì a dire.
Gli occhi azzurri di Jacques puntati in quelli verde smeraldo di lei.
“Dio quanto è bella” pensò l’uomo avvicinandosi alla giovane che aveva lasciato due mesi prima. Vedere quegli occhi, quei lunghi capelli corvini legati in una treccia come ricordava di averli visti quella prima sera insieme alla locanda… e poi quel semplice vestito bordeaux che metteva in risalto il colore ambrato della sua pelle nonché le sue forme che ancora ricordava così bene. Il ricordo di loro due insieme era ancora troppo forte, troppo vivo in lui e quell’incontro non aveva fatto altro che riaccendere i suoi sentimenti e il suo desiderio.
«Isabelle» fu tutto quello che l’uomo riuscì a dire. Aveva sceso gli ultimi gradini della lunga scalinata che ancora lo separavano da lei e se avesse allungato un braccio avrebbe potuto sfiorarle il viso con la mano...”
― Marta Savarino, La Vendetta di Isabelle

“I’m a soldier. Believe me when I say that the greatest weapon anyone can use is not the sword but love. One day the world will see that and it won’t need men like me anymore.”
-Antoine (from Twiceborn)”
― J.P. Robinson, Twiceborn

“Nec pluribus impar (Não inferior aos outros)”
― Louis XIV (King of France)

“Quo non ascendam? (onde não chegarei eu?)
- Louis XIV, King of France”
― Verbo, Os Grandes da História Luis XIV O Rei Sol

“Nec pluribus impar (não inferior a outros)
- Louis XIV, King of France”
― Verbo, Os Grandes da História Luis XIV O Rei Sol

“As the light faded on that cold afternoon, Brătianu presented Rumania’s case. Rich and polished to the point of absurdity, Brătianu had a profound sense of his own importance. He had been
educated in the Hautes Ecoles in Paris, and never let anyone forget it; he loved to be discovered lying on a sofa with a book of French verse in a languid hand. Nicolson, who met him at a lunch early on in the conference, was not impressed: “Brătianu is a bearded woman, a forceful humbug, a Bucharest intellectual, a most unpleasing man. Handsome and exuberant, he flings his fine head sideways, catching his own profile in the glass. He makes elaborate verbal jokes, imagining them to be Parisian.” Women rather liked him.”
― Margaret MacMillan, Paris, 1919: Six Months that Changed the World

“The Rumanians themselves were the Neapolitans of central Europe. Both sexes loved strong scents. Among the upper classes, women made up heavily, and men rather more discreetly, but even so the military authorities had to restrict the use of cosmetics to officers above a certain rank. Even after Rumania entered the war, foreign observers were scandalized to see officers strolling about “with painted faces, soliciting prostitutes or one another.” Noisy, effusive, melodramatic, fond of quarreling, Rumanians of all ranks threw themselves into their pastimes with passionate enthusiasm.

“Along with local politics, love and love-making are the great occupation and preoccupation of all classes of society,” said a great Rumanian lady, adding: “Morality has never been a strong point with my compatriots, but they can boast of charm and beauty, wit, fun, and intelligence.” Even the Rumanian Orthodox Church took a relaxed view of adultery; it allowed up to three divorces per individual on the grounds of mutual consent alone”
― Margaret MacMillan, Paris, 1919: Six Months that Changed the World

“I'll never forget how the gray October light reflected off the glass and filled the space with a weight that didn't seem to befit the room. I knew that the Treaty of Versailles was signed in that mirrored hallway, and with that gray light, it seemed as though the World War I era was still ensconced in there.”
― Krista Marson

“those who come after us will think that they are just fairy tales”
― Elisabeth Charlotte von der Pfalz

“Indeed, for the denizens of Versailles, clothes and other seemingly superficial emblems remained concrete measures of their success . . . or failure. In this rarefied world, the surface was the substance. And the appearance of power, legible in everything from a slashed sleeve to a patent coat, was the real thing.”
― Caroline Weber, Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

“Louis the 14th, as we know, liked to think of himself as the sun. The dazzling light that irradiated all around him. Like that it may have been, but there was very little warmth. Let no one imagine that life at Versailles was fun. It was, for the most part, bitterly cold, desperately uncomfortable, poisonously unhealthy, and of a tedium probably unparalleled. The most prevalent emotion was fear. Fear of the king himself, fear of his absolute power, fear of the single faultless word or gesture that might destroy one's career, or even one's life. And what was one's life anyway? The ceaseless round of empty ceremonial leading absolutely nowhere, offering the occasional mild amusement, but no real pleasure. As for happiness, it wasn't even to be thought of. Of course, there were lavish entertainments, balls, masques, operas, how else was morale to be maintained? But absentees were noted at once and the reasons for their absence the subject of endless inquiries. Social death, or worse, could easily result.”
― John Julius Norwich, France: A History: from Gaul to de Gaulle

“Finally, each night, the crowd gather at the king's antechamber to attend the dinner of the Royal Table. Another grand ritual: four soups--- his favorite being crayfish in a silver bowl--- sole in a small dish, fried eggs, a whole pheasant with redcurrant jelly, a whole partridge or duck (depending on the season) stuffed with truffles, salads, mutton, ham, pastry, fruit, compote, preserves, cakes. All stone-cold, for the kitchen is so far away that the king has never experienced a hot meal, and eaten largely with hands, for nor has he ever touched that new-fangled device the fork. For special occasions entire tiered gardens of desserts form pyramids on the table: precariously balanced exotic fruits, jellies, and sweet pastes; sorbets scented with amber and musk; the wonders of the ancient world recreated in spun-sugar and pâte morte; gingerbread palaces.”
― Clare Pollard, The Modern Fairies

“Versailles: The best I can set down is to say that the whole seemed, almost, to flow in its wondrous horizontal order, and its colours of pink brick and cream stone to rise up in one harmonous chord, as though it had been conjured there, not be any architect but by a composer of Music.”
― Rose Tremain, Merivel: A Man of His Time