Discovering the Age of Discomfort

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I'm reading Joan Dejean's newest work, The Age of Comfort; When Paris Discovered Casual — and the Modern Home Began.

Dejean is the meticulous author-historian of the wonderful book, The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour.

Oh la la! Now, it appears, the French also invented comfort.

I'm learning a great deal from this wonderful book: not only about how the concept of comfort came into being, but also, at the same time, I'm gaining a deeper understanding of how uncomfortable everything had been before.

Before, into the 1670s, all that mattered in a home was magnificence: fancy façades, enormous rooms, jaw-dropping furnishings. The primary task of architecture was to show status. Casual could not even be considered because one was always on display, rigidly encased in stiff clothes, sitting on hard wooden stools. 

Before the "Age of Comfort" dawned — and it dawned rather suddenly at the tail-end of the 17th century — one was always in company. Like pack-animals, people slept, bathed, and relieved themselves in company. Homes were composed of a few, large undivided rooms. A dining table would be set up anywhere. A bathtub would be set up in the warmest room — usually the kitchen.

Hand-in-hand with the concept of comfort came the concept of privacy, and everything changed: the furniture, the lay-out of the rooms, the size and number of rooms, how one dressed, sat, entertained. How one slept, bathed, relieved oneself — privately. (I won't be surprised if this new concept of a private space, where one could be at ease, engendered a more introspective psychology, and with it the value put on individuality.)

This remarkable revolution began with ... gowns. In January of 1678, a French newspaper with a large European readership published the big news: "In France today, people only want to live comfortably." The very word — commodité — had never been used. It all had to do with a fashion at Court: women were rebelling against the rigid grand habit in favor of a less confining dress. 

From the gown came an avalanche of innovations: the chest of drawers (instead of the trunk); the padded armchair (instead of the wood stool). A double-sized armchair — known as a canapé — led to the invention of the sofa.

And, with that, of course, came the complete unraveling of all moral standards. Listen to this account from Princess Palantine, that Germanic upholder of traditional values:

"At Trianon ... all the men now sit down in the presence of M. the Dauphin and Madame the Duchesse de Bourgogne; some of them are even stretched out full-length on sofas .... You can't imagine what it's like here because it no longer looks at all like a court."

On-line articles on Dejean's book:
"How the sofa changed the world" by Heather A. Davis, Penn Current
"The Couch Potato Was Born in Paris" by Julie Scelfo, New York Times


*****
Website: http://www.sandragulland.com/
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In praise of Moe's Books in Berkeley

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I've just returned from a quick Thanksgiving jaunt to Berkeley, loaded, as usual with books. Berkeley has seen the sad demise of two independent bookstores, but Moe's Books on Telegraph keeps on thriving: thank goodness! I always comb the stacks in the European history section. Here's what I came away with this time:

Life in the French Country House, by Mark Girouard. This is a delicious art book filled with beautiful old illustrations. A delight.

The Dirt on Clean; An Unsanitized History, by Katherine Ashenburg.

The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley. I own this book in my Ontario library, but I thought it would be worthwhile to have it in my Mexico library, as well. 


The Remarkable Life of Don Diego; being the autobiography of Diego de Torres Villarroel, translated from the Spanish by William C. Atkinson. This is a treasure of a book, a Folio Society edition published in 1958, with etchings and a swirly ink cover. It's an early 18th autobiography, and not French, yet there is a great deal to be learned from accounts of the period. Every page is rich in expression. 

Vermeer's Hat; The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World, by Timothy Brook.

Malleus Malefícarum; The Hammer of Witchcraft, translated by Montague Summers. Another Folio Society treasure! This "how-to" text was first published in 1486, and is considered the most important work on demonology ever written.

As well, in the San Francisco MOMA, I picked up a gorgeous little Taschen on sale: Alchemy & Mysticism by Alexander Roob. Like all Taschen books, it has gorgeous illustrations. I'm amused by the blurb from the NYTBR on the back: "...a fast-food, high-energy fix on the topic at hand." 




*****
Website: http://www.sandragulland.com/
Blog: http://sandragulland.blogspot.com/
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Internet enchantment

I'd stumbled onto the British Library's "Treasures in Full" site yesterday, seeking information on 17th century staging. (Links to the articles I found are on the left, under Baroque theater.) Coincidently, Sandra Taylor on the Louis XIV Yahoo list mentioned the same site today, but called my attention to specific festival books published for the court of the Sun King.  I went back and did a search, typing XIV into the searchbox, which revealed links to a number of Louis XIV festival books. Wonderful!

This one, of the L'Isle enchantée festival at Versailles the week of May 7, 1664 is my favorite. You can turn the pages to see one beautiful illustration after another.

Saint Fiacre: the patron saint of taxi drivers and gardeners

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Karen Newman's recent post, "Coach: Status Symbol" on the wonderful Wonders & Marvels site reminded me of something I'd read in A JOURNEY TO PARIS IN THE YEAR 1698 by Martin Lister.

Here is the passage (with changes made for readability):

To begin with the coaches, which are very numerous here, and very fine in gilding: there are but few, and those only of the great nobility, which are large, and have two seats or funds. But what they want in the size, beauty, and neatness of ours in London, they have infinitely in the easiness of carriage, and ready turning in the narrowest streets.


For this purpose, they are all crane-necked, and the front wheels are very low — not more than two feet and a half in diameter — which makes them easy to get into, and brings the coach-box down low, so that you have a much better view out the foremost glass (our high-seated coachmen being ever in the point of view).


Also, most coaches — even fiacres or hackneys — are hung with double springs at the four corners, which breaks all jolts. After having used the Paris coaches for four months, I  rode in the chariot of my Lord, which came from England. Every jolt could be felt, so one was more tired in one hour in that coach, than in six in the others.

Interesting! (There is so much in this book, I'm tempted to transcribe—and translate into modern English—the entire thing.)

Note: A fiacre is a small hackney coach (see illustration above). In 1640, Nicholas Sauvage, who hired out hackney coaches, lived at the Hotel St. Fiacre in the Rue St Martin, in Paris. (Now 223 rue St Martin in the Marais, according to this post.)

As well as being the patron saint of gardeners, Saint Fiacre is now the saint of taxi drivers.

In the 17th century, there was a revival of his fame, and pilgrims came to the chapel where he was buried, traveling by hired coaches known as fiacres. The first taxi stand in Paris was said to be near the Hotel St. Fiacre, and today Paris taxis are still known as fiacres.

*****

Website: http://www.sandragulland.com/

Blog: http://sandragulland.blogspot.com/

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A Royally Abusive Upbringing

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I've become a regular reader of Weave a Garland, Jackie Hodson's wonderful blog on 17th century history.

Today's post is a moving portrait of the care of Sun King's father, Louis XIII, by his doctor, Héroard.

I was pained to read, for example:

"When just two days old, the dauphin Louis had trouble suckling so Héroard brought in a surgeon who cut the membranes beneath the infant’s tongue in three places – a common enough practice but Louis – for the rest of his life – was afflicted by a stutter and he often had to poke his tongue out of his mouth and hold it between his lips."

No wonder Louis XIII was shy and withdrawn!

Book 1000 and Google Books unite: a fantastic research tool

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When I don't have the emotional strength to take on the Next Scene, I catalogue my new books. Basically this mean logging the title, author etc. onto a list and assigning it a reference number. I just hit the number 1000 with:

Riley, Philip F. A Lust for Virtue; Louis XIV's Attack on Sin in Seventeenth-Century France. Greenwood Press; Westport, Connecticut; 2001.

One thousand! Which means, in essence, that there are around one thousand books in my offices and spilling over into the basement.

In fact, I use many, many more titles because the books I tuck into "My Library" on Google Books I merely (and a bit lazily) reference only with a link to the Net.

But speaking of Google Books, I've found it useful when searching for something, to check the title on Google Book, see what page it's on, then go to my shelves for the book and read the account. In other words: I use Google Book as a giant index.

I'm researching Madame Voisin, for example, and the index in A Lust for Virtue does not mention her at all.* However, checking A Lust for Virtue on Google Books, I'm able to see that Voisin is mentioned five times in the book. Since I've got the book in hand, I simply turn to these pages.

This, then, is a great research tool.

One problem is that in snippet view — grrrr, snippet view! — Google Books often only shows three references. Yet rarely does a day go by when I'm not astonished at what's now available on-line. Researchers, rejoice!

* Afternote: I should have checked "La Voisin."



*****
Author of the Josephine B. Trilogy and Mistress of the Sun
Website: http://www.sandragulland.com/
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An historian's treasure-box

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There are times when the most extraordinary things fall right onto my lap. I've been struggling to find a decent map of 17th century Paris -- a detailed map that shows the names of the street.

I recently purchased an e-book collection (Paris: An Electronic Tour of the Old City by Robert W. Berger) that promised to have maps. Although the collection is fantastic, with visuals of Paris I'm thrilled to have in hand as well as a number of other documents, the maps were too general for my use, and I couldn't zoom in on them.

Today, historian Holly Tucker sent me this link to a page put together by the Kyoto University Library: click here.


Mon Dieu! For here was the map I'd been searching for. It was made in 1739, but that's close enough. I can zoom in to my heart's content, and the streets are all labeled.

Another document in the collection provides a map of 1684. It's more general, but it helps give some idea of the changes.

One of the documents -- one of several on this site -- is a digital copy of a book describing Paris in 1684. I can turn the pages, enlarge the type.

I'm overwhelmed!