The Rose of Versailles and the Guillotine

In eighteenth-century France, the Palace of Versailles was a vast prison built from marble, gold, and lies. On the surface, it was a beacon of European civilization: candlelight gleamed on silk skirts, perfume masked body odor, and minuets drowned out the groans of the starving. In reality, it was a meticulously designed “live reality show.” The king was the producer, the nobles were the actors, and thirty million French people were the audience, forced to pay but forbidden to enter.