Part One: In Honor Of Our New Monarchy, Let's Talk About Versailles

In honor of the American oligarchs trying to form their own aristocracy, Robert and Ed Zitron look back at the court of Versailles, how it was formed as a sort of frat house pentagon that broke the brains of every subsequent generation of French nobles. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Robert Evans?

  Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about terrible people. You know, we've got a great episode, a couple of episodes for you this week with Ed Zitron of Better Offline. Ed, how are you doing, buddy? I'm doing fantastically. Love being here. I'd be doing better, but you know, we have something sad to talk about today, Ed. We're gonna give a little moment of silence for 14 FDA agents who were just trying to do their job. But unfortunately, you know, they, they got between Sophie and her HGH ring. And you know, that's just, that's just never, uh, never a safe thing to do.

• 0:44Robert Evans?

  Also back on the show is Sophie Lichterman, who is recovering south of the border in a hidden, uh, steadfast. Sophie, why did those men need to die?

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Why, why, why is that the cover story you gave me? I feel like you could have done something so much cooler.

• 1:05Robert Evans?

  I think that's pretty cool, shooting it out with the FDA and going on the run to Mexico. Yeah, an HGH ring. Well, I didn't want to like accuse you of selling hard drugs.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  I mean, sure.

• 1:18Robert Evans?

  And everybody loves, loves HGH. At least Joe Rogan loves HGH. Sophie, maybe you could get on the show.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Is that the, I mean, I've been sent some very fascinating messages. Is that the only reason you told people I was out?

• 1:32Robert Evans?

  I just told people you'd shot it out with the FDA and you were on the run.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  I mean, I kinda wish.

• 1:38Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah, it would be more fun. Uh, but you know, you're back, uh, you're healing. You're feeling, feeling a little better?

• 1:47Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, surgery sucks. Don't have surgery unless you absolutely need it, is my recommendation.

• 1:52Robert Evans?

  Surgery sucks and let's, let's talk for a second here. Doctors are not giving out enough painkillers. You should have gotten delotted for, for, for what you went through and they just gave you a little bit of codeine. I'm livid on your behalf.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  The amount of times you've said me that in writing is so funny.

• 2:13Robert Evans?

  Ed.

• 2:16Robert Evans?

  Welcome again to the show.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Can I, I just have one more thing to say.

• 2:20Robert Evans?

  Sure.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  I'm so sorry for anything that happened without my supervision. I'm so sorry.

• 2:26Robert Evans?

  Fine, it was fine. I was on my best behavior. But I'm not gonna be today.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  I didn't even listen, and I know that's not true.

• 2:33Robert Evans?

  Today, we're going to get really out of pocket, you know, because I've got a subject that I could only have brought a British guest on for. And that subject is France. Right.

• 2:49Robert Evans?

  Okay. Specifically, specifically, I wanted to talk about the culture of Versailles. The, the subculture of the nobility at Versailles. That started in the reign of Louis XIV, the son king, and led right up to the French Revolution. And I wanted to talk about this because, Ed, I'm sure you, you've heard a little about this. We've caught a little case of the oligarchy here in the United States.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  I have been hearing this.

• 3:19Robert Evans?

  You've been, we've all been hearing this.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:22Robert Evans?

  You know, as, unless you're listening to this years after the fact, and we, we did it, Joe, again. You are probably here, listening to this on a day where you have slightly fewer rights and freedoms than you had a few days earlier, right?

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:39Robert Evans?

  Because that's, that's been the vibe of the last couple of weeks.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  And as someone who looks and sounds like both Beavis and Butthead knows my social security number.

• 3:50Robert Evans?

  Yes.

• 3:52Robert Evans?

  The day I started typing out this episode, February 19th, 2025, President Trump made a very funny joke describing himself as a king. And this set me to thinking about the first Trump rally I attended in 2016, in which I met a British man who was a naturalized US citizen, who told me that he supported a Trump dynasty ruling the United States from here on out. He wanted Trump Jr. to take over after his dad finished his terms. And I was like, man, you are in the wrong country. You, you lived in the country that did that.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  You already did this.

• 4:24Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  I think I talked to that, I think I talked to that same guy at last RNC.

• 4:33Robert Evans?

  Oh, good. Yeah.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  He was also British and I also looked at him like, he was like, yeah, well, I mean, there's many of them, you know, you go Don Jr.

• 4:41Robert Evans?

  There's plenty of Trumps forever.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And he's like, and what about that Baron? And I'm like, sir.

• 4:46Robert Evans?

  What the fuck about that Baron?

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Sir.

• 4:49Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Sir.

• 4:51Robert Evans?

  He could probably hoop. You, you, you do have to give that to him. He's got at least potential. Although we don't, I don't think he's very fast. Anyway.

• 5:00Speaker 03

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• 5:05Robert Evans?

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• 6:08Robert Evans?

  When you've got the guy in charge of your country talking about being a king and you've got a group of the wealthiest people talking openly about ending voting rights and solidifying themselves as a permanent aristocracy, um, you know, you're in a situation where it's not unreasonable to start looking at other quote-unquote "permanent aristocracies" in history and what happened to them, right? Um, and so that's why I wanted to talk about Versailles this week, right? You know, this is a case where the, the bastard is this system. This, this, this world of the nobility where they were cloistered away from the rest

• 6:50Robert Evans?

  of the country deliberately for some interesting reasons and like what happened to their brains as a result of that and kind of why it all came crashing down, right? This is not going to be, obviously, Mike Duncan's done the, the much more full version of like, why the French Revolution happened? This is not, these aren't episodes about the French Revolution. These are specifically episodes about how the court at Versailles came into being, why, how it kind of, how it deranged the people who lived there and how that aspect of things contributed to the revolution. So largely, we're talking about what's wrong with French people.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 7:29Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Get eight or nine episodes. Yeah.

• 7:34Robert Evans?

  And what do you know about Versailles?

• 7:37Speaker 02

  Oh, alarmingly little, just the Treaty of Versailles and how well that went.

• 7:42Robert Evans?

  That did go really well.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Really good.

• 7:44Robert Evans?

  There were a couple of those treaties and they all went well. But yeah, yeah, so there's a, probably the, the best popular culture touchstone on this recently would be that 2006 Sofia Coppola movie about Marie Antoinette.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Sure. And everybody knows about, you know, The Garden.

• 8:05Robert Evans?

  I actually don't know about The Garden.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  The Garden of Versailles?

• 8:09Robert Evans?

  Oh, I mean, you mean the literal, I thought you were talking about a movie called The Garden. No, yes, there's a nice garden in Versailles, yes.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  That is, that is the borderline, like, basic knowledge that everybody has.

• 8:21Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 8:23Speaker 02

  Which is why I knew about it.

• 8:24Robert Evans?

  Yeah, nice garden, big palace, you know, but I think that, okay, I'm glad that's what you know because there's a lot more there. The story of Versailles is the story of, among other things, the invention of like, the modern centralized administrative state, just done in kind of the craziest way imaginable. And in order to tell that story, we've got to start with a guy who is Probably close to, you know, one of the contenders for like best at being a king, just on a technical level of anybody who was ever a king. Louis XIV, better known as the Sun King, because he had a very high opinion of himself.

• 9:10Robert Evans?

  But which was somewhat justified. This is the guy who is the longest reigning king in human history. Like, nobody, nobody was king for longer, probably. He spent 72 years on the throne, which is nuts.

• 9:26Robert Evans?

  Like, an objectively crazy amount of time to do any job. Al Davis of kings.

• 9:33Robert Evans?

  I do plan to beat that as a podcaster. He was wretched and crazy at the end. Wonderful, perfect. He's so wretched and crazy, oh my god. His ass is rotting, that's what kills him, it's great. He dies from, from his bum rotting? From ass rot, yes, he sure does. And, um, oh yeah, oh yeah, this, this story's got it all, baby.

• 9:57Robert Evans?

  So Louis XIV, all of the French kings in this period are Louis', right? They will be referred to kind of casually by some historians as the Louis', right? Because they're kind of interchangeable with the exception of the Sun King in some ways, where you're just talking about like, and then this Louis and that, yeah. So Louis XIV, our boy, was born in September of 1638 to Anne of Austria and Louis XIII. His mom was shockingly old to give birth at the time. She's like middle aged and had had four stillbirths before him. So the fact that he came out not just alive, but very healthy, was regarded as a miracle and a good sign, right?

• 10:41Robert Evans?

  He would grow up to be a mama's boy. So Louis XIII dies like immediately after his son is born. And he had been very clear in his last days that Anne, his wife, should not govern after his death. This is a thing in a lot of other European countries, like in many European countries, like in Russia, right? Women can reign. You know, like the queen, if if things work out that way, the queen can be the regent, she can run shit, right? Right. Um, that is not the case in France. They do not allow that uh in this period in France. And Louis the eighth is like, Anne should not govern after my death.

• 11:21Robert Evans?

  And so he creates a Regency Council to manage things until Louis the fourteenth is old enough to run France on his own. Um, and part of why he does this is that Anne is not French, right? Uh, she's Anne of Austria. Now, that's also not a good description of who she was. Because you you would expect, given that the name is Anne of Austria, you would expect her to be from Austria, right? Right. Where is she from? Absolutely. Oh, Ed, of course, she's not from Austria. She's from Spain. Obviously, you call Anne of Austria. The Austria of Europe. From Spain.

• 11:58Robert Evans?

  She's actually, she's the queen of Navarre. Um, she's like, uh, the whole Austria thing in her name has nothing to do with geography. It's purely a result of the fact that she is a Habsburg, right? There's a branch of the family who are Spanish, right? Yeah, and that that's why she's Anne of Austria, because the Habsburgs are also the house of Austria. Yes, yes. Yes. Oh, there's so many Habsburgs. Oh, we're gonna be talking about a Habsburg jaws later in this story. Don't worry, buddy. Don't worry. There's there's Habsburgs all throughout this motherfucker. Makes me so happy. Makes me, does it make you Habsburg? Habsburg.

• 12:38Robert Evans?

  Hopefully not. You need to drop me a few times as a baby to do that. Then then your blood wouldn't clot.

• 12:46Robert Evans?

  Actually, I don't think that was a Habsburg problem. That's anyway. I I truly don't actually know. I just know that they all have sex with each other. They all did. There's a lot of people fucking their cousins in this story. That's just, that's just how royalty is.

• 13:00Robert Evans?

  So from age four on, which is like when his dad dies, Louis XIV's earliest memories would have been a political turmoil between his mother and her native country. Because again, the fact that she's a Habsburg means that the French people don't trust her. They're like, well, she's obviously going to be more loyal to Spain and to Austria than she is to France. This is a constant problem because you are always bringing in nobles from other houses in Europe to like marry the king. And there's always this kind of like, well, then they can't possibly put France first, right? Right. And there had just been a war between, you know, as there is constantly in this

• 13:42Robert Evans?

  period, between France and Spain. So there's a lot of reasons why people don't trust Anne. And that's going to have a big influence on him is this like distrust for his mom by the French people. Now, because we're talking about European nobility this week, I really need to emphasize everything that I say, explain about these people is going to sound ridiculous. This whole culture that has come up around the nobility is nonsense by this period. They've just been in power for too long and the system is crazy. Louis is going to make it a lot crazier. But I do think it's worth kind of emphasizing that. So the next time you read that our grand vizier Elon Musk has appointed a man named

• 14:25Robert Evans?

  Big Balls to control all of our personal tax data, remember that people in power have always been irritating dipshits, right? That's not unique to the United States. That's just, that's just something that comes with giving small groups of people all of the power, right? But traditionally, we did it in the past. Yes, yes. And now we're doing it in the future. Yeah.

• 14:49Robert Evans?

  Good stuff. Great stuff. So Anne actually had gotten, his mom had gotten confined to house arrest for passing military secrets to her dad at one point. But she does this thing that is very common. When she becomes the queen regent, she exiles a bunch of her own supporters and kind of betrays her family to run. France, right? She she chooses to go for France. And this was a pragmatic move because once her husband died, her position was not really stable. Now, most of the big decisions made for France in this period are not made by Anne. They're made by a guy that Anna points to rule in her son's stead. And that guy's name is Cardinal Mazarin.

• 15:31Robert Evans?

  And he is one of these like extremely powerful. Like non royal ruler, like not, he's not like a king, but he's kind of governing France for a period of time here. By the time the child king Louis XIV is eight or nine years old, the Thirty Years' War, which is this war that his dad, you know, had spent his life fighting, is drawing to a close. And given the fact that it was a Thirty Years' War, it had been monstrously expensive and kind of a financial disaster for France. So near the end of it, Cardinal Mazarin is anxious to keep the army funded until everything is locked down about the peace treaty.

• 16:11Robert Evans?

  And since the crown had no more money after Thirty Years' War, this meant that they had to institute new taxes. Now, France is a semi feudal society at this point. It is less feudal than basically all of the rest of Europe. In Germany, there are still serfs, right? As in, like, the common people are literally like bonded to the land. Like, they're essentially a kind of slave. They can't leave without the permission of the landowner, right? Serfs are really not much of a thing in France in the period that we're talking about. And they are, they're basically going extinct, right? France has modernized to that extent.

• 16:54Robert Evans?

  And in fact, they're kind of, the country is sort of in the process of becoming less of a feudal state and more of kind of like a hybrid, like, modernized semi feudal state, right? Like, you still have a nobility. The nobility are most, are going, in this period, are going from like literally governing directly where you've got this duke and he can Trolls this area to you've got this Duke and he doesn't govern anything directly, but he does have the right to to collect taxes in this certain area or to collect duties in this industry or whatever. And right, that's his privilege as the Duke.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:35Robert Evans?

  But he's not doing the governing. We have like professionals who are are doing the actual governing in this region or whatever.

• 17:43Robert Evans?

  Now, during the 30 years war, again, the the only way that they can pay for this is by increasing taxes and these these taxes don't primarily hit the nobility. One of the nobility's privileges that they maintain is an exemption from the taxes paid by peasants and the bourgeoisie, right? Like the this basically you call them the small business owners of France, right?

• 18:04Speaker 02

  What you're suggesting is that the poorer people pay more and the richer people have found a way around taxes somehow?

• 18:11Robert Evans?

  That's that's a big part. It's a yes. But there's a caveat to that, which is the the peasants are poor people and they are paying taxes. The bourgeoisie are often wealthier than the nobles, right?

• 18:25Speaker 02

  Huh.

• 18:25Robert Evans?

  But they're they're not nobles. These are guys who start businesses who are running trade and stuff for France. Some of them are are extremely wealthy and they are also paying taxes and they're really not happy about that, right?

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:41Robert Evans?

  But the nobility get a big exemption from taxes in this period, right? One of the conflicts that's going to like increasingly be a problem up to the revolution is the bourgeoisie being like, well, why are we paying taxes and these people are exempt, right? Well, we're not thrilled about that.

• 18:58Robert Evans?

  So this does mean that regular French people are largely being kind of brutalized by the cost of the war against the Habsburgs of Spain. The job of approving new taxes, like the king will say, I want this tax, but it has to be approved by the parliaments. Now, To you and I, coming out of the English tradition, parliament means like essentially a governing body, sort of like a congress is, right?

• 19:23Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:24Robert Evans?

  That's not really what a parliament is in France. Parliaments in France are courts, right? They're court systems. Like, the Parliament of Paris is a court system in Paris. And you have a bunch of judges who are nobles, who own their, their, their, uh, their seat as a judge. Like, that judgeship is the personal hereditary property of a noble, who is one of these members of the parliament. And the parliaments have a lot of judges and clerks and whatnot. But these are like court systems when we talk about parliaments. But it is their job to approve new taxes. And this is kind of one of the ways in which the French state has started to modernize in this period, right? It's not just, this duke controls this area and he takes taxes.

• 20:08Robert Evans?

  We've got this professional legal system, right? That, that is responsible for approving these things. And a lot of conflicts with the crown are going to be the parliament trying to protect its power, right? When the king wants to do stuff directly. Anyway, this causes issues, uh, because it makes the fact that the king wants these new taxes on the common people in the bourgeoisie, and the parliament has to approve them, right? You've got these parliaments and royal courts that have to approve the taxes, and they don't want to? They don't want to, not because they like, love the peasantry and think that it's unfair. They don't want to because the peasantry riots over new taxes?

• 20:47Speaker 02

  I was gonna say not dying.

• 20:49Robert Evans?

  Right. And the parliament needing to approve them. It's kind of this situation the kings have developed so that like, hey, if, if these guys have to sign off on it too, maybe they're the first people who get sort of mobbed, you know?

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. The, the people with the signature are probably the one. Why are the kings so insulated as well? Is it just because they can deploy the army against the peasantry?

• 21:12Robert Evans?

  They can deploy the army, and this is a thing that increasingly happens in this period where there's this desire to strip the nobility of direct power, right? So just kind of a smart play. If the nobility has to, is in this position where they're doing, you can make them do unpopular things, right? You can kind of loop them in on the shit you need to do that nobody likes, to the extent that they get blamed for that. It makes it harder for them to like have their own power base, you know?

• 21:43Speaker 02

  And they also get, they don't get taxed though in the nobility.

• 21:46Robert Evans?

  No, they do, they're, they're, they are in this period immune to most taxes, right?

• 21:51Speaker 02

  And that's the trade off, I imagine.

• 21:53Robert Evans?

  Yeah, that's part of the trade off. And kind of the issue here is the nobility are not friendly always with the crown, right? Like the nobility are both the people who govern with you, right? And who are supposed to be taking your lead as the king. But whenever there's a rebellion against a king, it usually comes from the nobility in this period, right? So that's part of why you would want a system like this as the king, because it protects you to a degree, right?

• 22:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:22Robert Evans?

  But it doesn't mean that there's constant conflicts between the, the crown and these parliaments. And these judges resist some of the central government's new taxes. Cardinal Mazarin and Anne repose by threatening to change the rules about how judgeships work and like make it so that you don't own your seat today. Again, in this period, being a judge is like being a subway franchise owner, right? And that it's your property and you pass it on to your kids.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:50Robert Evans?

  And the rules governing this are part of something called the Paulette Tax, which came up for renewal in 1648. It's a little bit like, you could, you could consider it a little bit like a union contract coming up. And so Mazarin and Anne are like, well, we don't have to let this work the same way. We can take these privileges away from you. And I'm going to read a quote from an article by the UK College of Arts and Sciences Department of History on the matter. And their anxiety to force through new tax edicts, Anne of Austria and Mazarin drove the judges of Parliament too far. On 15th January 1648, they brought the nine-year-old king to a formal session of the court called the Lit D'Justice to force the judges to

• 23:32Robert Evans?

  register an unpopular tax measure. The judges exercised their right to remonstrate or criticize the edict, starting a series of events that culminated in a call for the judges of all the Paris courts to come together to consider reforms in the kingdom. On the 26th of June, acting without the regent's support, the Parliament summoned those judges to meet in a body called the Chambre de Saint Louis. This date marked the beginning of the frond. Street demonstrations organized by rets showed that the judges had strong popular support. The frondeurs focused their anger especially on Mazarin. They'd announced him as a foreigner who had no respect for the laws and institutions of France, and as an intriguer who was using his influence over Anne to enrich himself and ruin the country. Paris was flooded with

• 24:13Robert Evans?

  printed pamphlets called Mazarin aids. Vicious personal attacks on the minister. This foreign rogue, juggler, comedian, famous robber, low Italian fellow, fit only to be hung, is one of them. Get his ass. He's a juggler! Bodied. Bodied as a juggler.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  I feel like if this was 2025, they would have been like, podcaster, where's bathrobe? Oh, sorry.

• 24:36Robert Evans?

  Cardinal Mazarin, I mean, first off, as a low Italian, I hate this kind of racism. As a judge. As a judge as well. Who are you loyal to in this? I'm really in between. Oh, man. Foreign rogue, famous robber, juggler, comedian. We had a foreign guy doing something to our government as well.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, can you imagine? That would never happen.

• 25:00Robert Evans?

  It is funny bringing up Musk too, that like, he keeps bringing his like, little kid into these like, massive, like, these moments that are like, going to be major political moments, like, sticking his child in there. Brings his child admin.php to the White House, like. I think it's fun that in this, and this just does show how even our dumb system is a little less dumb than things used to be, where today, the nine-year-old child king, it doesn't, you know, is not the one, like, the nine-year-old is not like... In charge of anything, he's just being brought around by his dad, who's basically the Cardinal Mazarin.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what I wanted to establish. Is this child in France? How can the child do things yet?

• 25:46Robert Evans?

  Not, not, not.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  Cardinal Mazarin.

• 25:48Robert Evans?

  No, no, it's obviously, it's not this, this society isn't stupid. They would not let a young child run things. You don't get to run things until you are the mature age of 13.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  Of course, that's when you become a man.

• 26:01Robert Evans?

  Of course, that's when you're a full man and able to govern.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  Perfect.

• 26:05Robert Evans?

  So as a nine year old, of course not, that would be silly.

• 26:08Speaker 02

  What would you possibly know? You have four long years to go through.

• 26:13Robert Evans?

  I think, I think I could have governed France at 13.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  Utz, I'm busy, you can do it.

• 26:20Robert Evans?

  I would have spent the entire national budget on Warhammer miniatures, but honestly, can you tell me that's worse than what the French are doing now? I don't know. I don't pay attention.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Better than AI, fucking Macron.

• 26:31Robert Evans?

  Yeah. Look, guys, you don't get healthcare this year because I, I really went on a spending spree in Nottingham. Like, there's a lot of unpainted plastic and resin coming my way.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  Shit ton of pyramids and you're just like, you're just like, this is why you can't, like, your power is $100 pounds an hour. Well, sorry, Euros, good lord.

• 26:52Robert Evans?

  This year?

• 26:54Speaker 02

  But I will be happy painting.

• 26:56Robert Evans?

  But I, I'll have a lot of work to do.

• 27:00Robert Evans?

  No, so they bring this nine year old king to this, this formal session and it causes this, as a result of how bad it goes, you get this rebellion. This is a civil war called the Front, right? Which is, you know, it's kind of on one side, you've got these, these judges and nobles who are angry at the fact that the king is, are angry at the fact that the king is continuing to like pull strict powers from them, or at least that you could, you'd say the crown is, right? And so they're trying to protect their traditional powers. And the crown is trying to protect its absolute power as, you know, the monarch, right? And so you get a civil war. Now, this doesn't go well for the Front, right? They, they sort of.

• 27:43Robert Evans?

  Start out this thing, but they never, they never get momentum. There's never like much popular backing. The common people are like, I don't really like, in part because the, the nobles in these parliaments are the ones who approve new taxes. Regular people are never like, one side is much better than the other, and they tend to overall back the crown. So the young king Louis XIV doesn't get uprooted by the Frond, right? But there are a couple of points that come close to a disaster for him, right? There's a shitload of riots in this period. He and his mother have to flee the capital, Paris, for a palace in Saint Germain nearby.

• 28:22Robert Evans?

  The army clashes with rioters, and while they put down the riots, the next year, more nobles join the insurrection. And they put together an army large enough to force Mazarin to resign and flee the country temporarily. The height of danger for young Louis comes when a rumor spreads in Paris that the king and his mother had fled the palace for a second time. And a mob swarms the palace to make sure that the king is still there, right? That like, he's not, he hasn't left again. And they demand proof, and so they break into his bed chambers. And like, as, as they're like busting down the door, basically, Queen Anne and like this 10-year-old kid are talking. And he's like, what the fuck do I do?

• 29:04Robert Evans?

  And she's like, just pretend like you're sleeping. Just pretend like you're sleeping. And so that's what happens. This mob busts in, and Louis XIV just pretends to be asleep.

• 29:16Robert Evans?

  Did it work? It does. It does work. Again, these guys are not, this isn't like it'll be in 1789. They're not busting into the palace because they want to kill the king. They're busting into the palace because they want to make sure he's still there. And like, when he's asleep there, and he's like, he's sorry, he's 12. Like, these people, number one, they're not like anti-monarchy. And number two, they see like a sleeping 12-year-old and they're like, eh, we should probably go. Maybe this got out of hand. Yeah, when did he fall asleep? Is he gonna be up soon? Yeah, yeah, maybe we don't want to like fuck with this little kid who's asleep. So the front, this is obviously, this is traumatizing, right? Having a mob basically forced their way into your bed chambers at age 12.

• 29:59Robert Evans?

  This fucks Louis XIV up and is going to massively impact the decisions he makes as an adult and regent. But the front ends with him still in power. That said, again, he's like traumatized by this and he comes away from the whole experience with a couple of conclusions. One of them is that the nobility of France are fucking out of pocket and they need to be, they have too much power and they need to be somehow corralled and stopped from building bases of power of their own. And they need to be put in a position where the crown can keep an eye on them and make sure that they're not plotting or scheming independently from the king, right? That's one conclusion he makes.

• 30:42Robert Evans?

  The other conclusion he makes is Paris is not a safe place. And he's got this palace at Saint Germain, but he has bad memories of it. So he's like, as an adult, he's going to be like, I want a new seat of power, right? That's where we're going to get Versailles from. So cut forward by about a decade or so, Louis XIV is 24 years old. He is already a veteran of war in the Spanish Netherlands. So he's, he's gone to war successfully as the monarch at this point. He's going to spend most of his time going in between palaces and the front. He is a, a, most of his reign, a wartime king. He had pushed France's frontiers outward and he had kind of built up a military that

• 31:26Robert Evans?

  is France is the number one land power in Europe at this time, right? And economically, the only country in Europe that is a bigger economy than France is Denmark. Because Denmark's doing a lot of overseas trading. This would be the last time, this kind of period of Louis XIV's reign will be the last time for a century or so in which France is actually in the black, as in like in a good economic condition. But right now Louis is rolling in it. He's got a shitload of cash and a very powerful army and he decides to use that money to build a palace where he can number one, feel safe and number two, lock all of the nobility away from the rest of France to keep an eye on them, right?

• 32:10Robert Evans?

  That's where Versailles comes out of. So, speaking of a bunch of out of touch rich people, let's throw to sponsors. This ad is brought to you by ViiV Healthcare, the makers of Dovato Dolutegravir Lamivudine. If you're living with HIV, do learn about Dovato. Dovato is a complete HIV treatment by prescription only for some people 12 and older. Your doctor will determine if Dovato was right for you. Most HIV pills contain three or four medicines. Dovato is as effective with just two. No other complete HIV pill contains fewer medicines than Dovato.

• 32:45Speaker 05

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• 33:21Robert Evans?

  Do ask your doctor about fewer medicines. Visit dovato.com or call 1-877-844-8872.

• 33:28Speaker 06

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• 34:01Robert Evans?

  Okay, we're back. So, I think when you look at casual histories of the revolution, they always talk about Versailles and the situation there, how out of touch people are, this inwardly-focused ruling class who live in this palace altogether, as a contributing factor to the revolution. And it is- I just want to establish something. Yeah. All the nobility was made to move in. I mean, not 100% of them, but that's the idea, right? It's like nobility dorms. A significant of the amount of them do, and the ones that don't literally live there, like get second houses nearby, like you have to, we'll talk about this more because this is a thing that develops. But like, yes, that is, that is the ultimate product is that like a significant chunk,

• 34:46Robert Evans?

  most of the powerful nobility are at Versailles forever, right? And that's the idea that Louis has, right? Is he's building this palace specifically to force them to, to hang out with him, right? Right. And, and when I'd read casual kind of histories and my understanding previous to really digging into this was that this was a holdover from like France's busted old feudal government, right? This is like a medieval holdover, kind of coming into conflict with the modern world. And that's part of why we get the French Revolution. That's really not what Versailles is. Louis XIV is actually kind of creating one of the first modern central governments when he establishes the palace at Versailles, right?

• 35:29Robert Evans?

  This is actually a modernizing thing in some ways. Rulers had always owned palaces and those palaces were both homes and fortresses, right? So you could have a place to wait out an inconvenient war or an uprising. But Versailles, it's not a fortress, for one thing, and it's not just a home. It is an independent center of government. Versailles has more in common with Washington DC than, for example, any of like the palaces in, and, and in England, right? Any of like the palaces of the House of Windsor, right? Buckingham or whatever. Versailles is less like that. It is more like DC as in DC was a city that was created from the ground up to be a center of government, right?

• 36:14Robert Evans?

  Right. That's what Versailles is. And, you know, in creating Versailles, Louis XIV, he doesn't just want a home. He wants a sprawling complex where the nobility of France will live and, and hang out and basically always be around him. And the, all of the governing of the country will be done there. And he's doing this both because that makes things more efficient for him. You know, he's, he's a relatively intelligent ruler. He understands that centralizing all of the people who are in charge of the country and keeping them around him makes communication a lot more efficient. But also keeping all of these people literally under the same roof allows him to keep an eye on the group

• 36:58Robert Evans?

  that had nearly overthrown his family. Right? So we should talk for a bit about the location he picks, right? Why Versailles? Cause there's nothing there, right? There's not a town in the area at this point. They build one, but there's not a town there. There's just an unpaved road into Paris and a hunting lodge that Louis XIV's father had used while, you know, hunting and stuff. Right. Um, so Louis had grown up fond of the area, which is about 20 miles from Paris because of his dad's hunting lodge. Um, and what became the palace started with, they put some gardens in next to the hunting lodge. And it's kind of a place when he's a young man, like 18 or 19, Louis will go there with his friends and they'll like camp out there and have parties, you know?

• 37:42Robert Evans?

  And, uh, so this is kind of like the start, uh, that, that, that's why he gets the idea that like, this is where I want to build my palace is because like, this is, he and his friends, his little Burning Man spot, you know, effectively? So in March of 1661, Cardinal Mazarin dies and Louis XIV, this is, this is kind of what makes him independent as a ruler for the first time, at least totally. Later that year in August, he goes to a party thrown by one of the nobles who's hoping to curry favor with a new thing, uh, king, a guy named Nicholas Fouquet. Fouquet is the minister of finance and he's built this massive sprawling elaborate palace, Vaux de Vicomme,

• 38:23Robert Evans?

  uh, which is like the, the, the best, probably the nicest palace in France at the time. Uh, the architecture impresses Louis. He's, he's like, wow, this, this place is really amazing, but he's also kind of pissed at Fouquet because Fouquet is trying, is like, okay, Mazarin's out. This guy is now the dude to impress. I am going to like all, go all out to basically try to bribe him so that he will make me his top advisor. And I can basically run things. And he tries to do this by like handing out diamond tiaras and horses as party favors to his guests. Like he is, he is just like- Yeah, horse, really nice horses, you know? Not, not your, not shit horses, good ones. Shit ass horses, no, the, the good stuff.

• 39:07Robert Evans?

  Is that just he promises it, he's have, as him on? Yeah. Like? No, no, he's got tons of horses on him, yeah. Just like, wonderful. Society used to be so much stranger. Horses are a big, like, the king at any given point's gonna own like 2,500 horses. Okay, sure. Like, that just, that's just the way it is, if you're rich. Um, that's like the equivalent of having three nice cars. Right. Yeah. But, so thi- this guy, Fouquet, he's showing off this massive palace that, like, impresses even the young king. And he's handing out diamond tiaras and horses, and it's, you know, this is, mint is kind of a bribe to, to get Louis to be like, oh, this guy really knows what's up. Um, but it just pisses off Louis, right?

• 39:52Robert Evans?

  And it pisses off Louis because he's like, you're the minister of finance. How much of this money you're spending is really my money? Right? Oh. Like, where did you get all of this money, minister of finance? Is any of it my shit that you're tossing around? Are you bribing me with my own money? Uh, and so he ends the night by arresting Fouquet and locking him up in a fortress.

• 40:20Robert Evans?

  Oh, that rogs. Yeah, it's pretty cool. In her book, The Sun King, Nancy Mitford writes that as a result of this, quote, "We seldom hear of other people giving parties for the king."

• 40:34Robert Evans?

  Yeah. How long did he stay in prison for? Was it just? I think he's in there for a long, years and years and years. Oh my god. I don't know when, when that guy specifically gets out. Just because he might have spent the king's money? Yeah, yeah, that, that is. So willy nilly with the horses? If, if, if Louis XIV doesn't like you, he will lock you in a fortress for a decade or so. Maybe longer. That's his thing. Okay. Loves putting people in fortresses. So the king raided Fouquet's home, taking silver ornaments, tapestries, a library, and more than a thousand orange trees. This is gonna be a signature of Louis XIV's reign, is he fucking loves orange trees. And it starts here. Okay. Now, orange trees, it's not easy to keep them healthy in the north of France.

• 41:19Robert Evans?

  And they were so valued that each tree lived in a pure silver pot. Like, that's the planters that they use for orange trees. Are just made out of silver.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Is there drainage holes? What are we talking about here?

• 41:33Robert Evans?

  I don't know, but there were, when Nancy Mitford wrote her book in the 60s, some of Louis XIV's orange trees were still alive.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 41:43Robert Evans?

  So, he's pretty good at keeping these things going, you know?

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Maybe we all need silver pots?

• 41:49Robert Evans?

  Maybe we should grow everything in silver.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  We don't know.

• 41:53Robert Evans?

  We don't know. You know, if you've got a baby, have them plated entirely in silver, see if it works. I don't know, I think I watched a James Bond movie that suggests that might be a bad idea. Try it either way. So, he orders the construction of a palace at Versailles, Louis XIV. Built after this, because he's like, "Look, this Fouquet guy, fuck him, but this palace of his is pretty nice. I think I could do better." So he hires the guys who had made Louis' or Fouquet's palace, and he has them start building a palace at Versailles, with the centerpiece being his dad's old hunting lodge, right? Now, the resulting complex, which is gonna take years to build, is massive.

• 42:37Robert Evans?

  Among other things, there are 350 apartments, right? Which is 350 individual living areas for different nobles, right? This is just dorms. He just invented dorms. He does invent dorms. This is, and one way to look at Versailles, if you cross the Pentagon and the White House with a frat house. And a WeWork. That's Versailles. And a WeWork, yes, yes, yeah, it's all of those things at one. Nice. Yes, yes. There's also banquet halls, there's dance Halls, there's meeting rooms. Uh, there's even an entire 240 foot room lined entirely in mirrors.

• 43:17Robert Evans?

  And mirrors are hard to make at this point, right? It's if you have a room lined in mirrors, it's to show off. I got fucking mirror money. I got so much mirror money. I got a room of the sons of bitches.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  So is there a logic behind the mirror room? Or is it just so everyone could see?

• 43:32Robert Evans?

  Impress everybody. Yeah. So everybody can see this is how rich the king is.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  And themselves at every corner, like.

• 43:39Robert Evans?

  And them and they can, yeah, see themselves at every corner. Frances Loring Payne describes in her book, The Story of Versailles. 17 lofty windows are matched by as many Venetian framed mirrors. Between each window and mirror are pilasters designed by Cozivu, Tubi and Cafary, reigning masters of their time. Walls are of marble embellished with bronze gilt trophies. Large niches can niches can contain statues in the antique style. So pretty fancy. Uh, and this is in fact a palace unlike any of the world had seen before. Louis XIV, the man who would call himself the sun king, was not a patient person. So he ordered the construction rushed and damned the cost, either in money or in lives.

• 44:23Robert Evans?

  Once he has this idea, he's like, I want this operational as soon as possible. He's like the emperor Palpatine. If his, if the Death Star was just a place for rich people to party and be spied on. In an article for BBC History Magazine, Johnny Wilkes writes, "Building went on from dawn to dusk with up to 36,000 people working in the gardens in dire and dangerous conditions. Injuries became a daily occurrence and so many died that bodies would be quietly removed at night in bulk. The workers went on strike, but Louis saw Versailles as a symbol of his prestige and therefore France's prestige. It was worth any price.

• 45:03Robert Evans?

  When half a dozen men were crushed in an accident, one grieving mother approached Louis to request her son's body. He had her imprisoned.

• 45:12Robert Evans?

  Okay, seems fair. Seems cool. Yeah, of course. How dare she? Yeah, fucking rude. She didn't understand that this was about Francis Prestige. Yeah, poor in prison with the fucking horse tiara guy. Yeah. Rude asshole. Look, people are gonna get crushed to death, obviously. It happens. Oh my god. Get over it. You can't have a frat house Pentagon without breaking a few hundred laborers. God. Yeah. Jesus, give me a break here. Fucking uns-

• 45:43Robert Evans?

  People, people are unreasonable, you know? So, by May 6th, 1662, the whole palace is still very much under construction and would remain that way for years. But enough had been completed that Louis was able to throw a grand party and begin the process of moving in. Now, this would be a years-long process. At first, Louis is like spending a day every week there, in part because he's also traveling constantly in between like Versailles or wherever else he's staying and the front, where the wars are happening, right? And, and basically for, for Louis, the war is kind of a gig work thing, right? Like, he's got his marshals who handle the full-time thing. He just kind of comes in when somebody like sends him a letter being like, "Oh, hey, man, I think the war is about to get cool again. Maybe you should come up and check it out now," right?

• 46:28Robert Evans?

  Yeah. Like- That's fine. Yeah. Don't want to waste your time on the boring parts of war. For him, it's a little like a soap opera where like, "Yeah, you don't watch every episode. There's long, some of these storylines aren't super interesting. We got like a year of this siege to get through. Go party," you know, "we'll handle that." Get me at the end when we're knocking down the fuckers. Bring me, bring me in when some cool's going on, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, the process of moving everybody in takes years because, and this is such a, this is like, the pain, pain in the ass this creates for everyone while they're unable to live there full-time, but he's having people spend as much time there as possible because every time Louis heads back to Versailles for like a night, every government minister,

• 47:13Robert Evans?

  every high-ranking noble, as well as like Louis's whole family and his coterie of mistresses have to travel back with him. It's like this- Massive pain in the ass and there's not rooms for most of them. So like Louis got, even Louis is not living in comfort for most of this period. His rooms aren't really finished, but everyone else is like camping, basically. Um, under like scaffolding and shit. In this giant, beautiful palace that should be luxurious. Yeah, that should, but is just unfinished and filled with dead people. Yeah. That'll happen. Yeah, that'll happen. Real estate is challenging. Yeah. Yeah. Real estate is a real, real complicated endeavor. Yeah. Now, the fact that this is a huge pain in the ass and that it kind of, even before Versailles finished,

• 47:58Robert Evans?

  it is dominating the lives of a huge chunk of the nobility. Because they have to constantly be aware of where Louis is, when he's traveling back. They have to get themselves back. They're like missing sleep because they're not able to live. Like completely disrupts all of their lives. And that's, that's part of the plan. Like Louis XIV is doing this intentionally. Oh. I want to read a quote from Mitford's book. Quote, "The king had already begun to enslave his nobility by playing on the French love of fashion. In 1654, he gave a fate, uh, he gave a feat which lasted from seven to 13 May. This really caused more pain than pleasure for the guests had nowhere to sleep

• 48:41Robert Evans?

  and were obliged to doss down as best they could in local cottages and stables." So again, he's like, the, the, the fact that this is a pain in the ass and the fact that he's increasingly forcing everyone, you're not just constantly obsessed with where is the king? When do I have to get back to Versailles? But you also, there's these parties whenever you're there. So you're, you're spending a lot of your free time making sure you've got outfits and like spending a lot of your money making sure you got outfit. It's a party. Sort of like a six day long jolly. Yeah, I mean, some of them are shorter than that, but like it's a it's a big party. Yeah, and it's it's a mandatory party that you have to have an outfit for that outfit is going

• 49:24Robert Evans?

  to cost you 30 years salary for a laboring person, right?

• 49:30Robert Evans?

  And so you have to be constantly like traveling, sleeping in uncomfortable conditions and and spending your time and money figuring out what you're going to wear, which means you're not spending any time thinking about rebelling, right? You're not, you have no extra attention to spend on building a base of power for yourself. Cause you're going to and from parties and working out how you dress. Yes, exactly. Interesting. And that's it, cause Louis XIV, his big motivation with Versailles is to make another fronde impossible. Hadley Mears writes, "The move was designed to neutralize the power of the nobles. This it did, but it also created a hotbed of boredom and extravagance, with hundreds of aristocrats crammed together, many with nothing to do but gossip, spend money, and play."

• 50:16Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, the amount of like tea being spilled at these events, the gossip had to be.

• 50:21Robert Evans?

  Well. And then new gossip being created in real time.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 50:26Robert Evans?

  That's going to be a major factor in what happens next, right? And we'll be talking about like what, how this gossip eventually trickles out and it kind of leads to the creation. Paris basically has Twitter in this period. I was gonna, I was gonna say, this is like Parisian Twitter. Yes. Yeah, that's kind of where things are building towards, right? Very good. And it's also, you know, people are gambling here constantly. So fortunes are being won and lost, you know. This is just CES but French, like you've got fucking people gambling away everything. Everyone's, everyone's tired. Everyone's exhausted and deranged and people are like going broke and need loans from the king, which makes them more dependent on him.

• 51:11Robert Evans?

  Nice. And all of this was intentional? Yes, yes. Fuck, yeah. This is part of the plan. This guy's completely insane. I love it. Louis XIV, but he's very intelligent in that like, he never faces another threat to his rule, right? Like, that does not happen. Like, he locks the nobility down. They're too busy partying. They can't, yeah, they're too busy going to mandatory parties. He has, he has, what Versailles is, he builds a totalitarian dictatorship just for the ruling class, where they are forced to party and gamble their whole lives. The Andrew Dubbinkay system. Yes. Now, much has been written about the intricate and stifling rules of etiquette that had to be practiced at Versailles.

• 51:56Robert Evans?

  They had their origins in, you know, every medieval, every royal house in all of Europe has these complicated etiquette rules that they have to abide by. But they're not all enforced the same way, right? And they're not, they're not all, none of them are as intricate as they become in Versailles. Because what, you take these kind of baseline rules about like, oh, if you have, you know, this guy, this guy, this guy, and this guy in a room, only this guy is allowed to hand the king his shirt, right? But if that guy leaves, then the next person is allowed to hand the king his shirt. So you have to remember who is allowed to hand the shirt? Yes, yes. Do we know the punishment for this?

• 52:36Robert Evans?

  It's not a punishment thing so much as it's a violation of etiquette, and thus it is offensive to everybody. And it causes like gossip, and it makes like, instead of protecting their power to tax and rule the commoners, the nobility are increasingly protecting their power to hand the king his shirt in the morning. Fucking brilliant. I love it. It's so stupid. I love it. Yes. So again, every royal house, you know, all of the nobility in all of Europe have some version of this, but it gets like 10 times as intense in Versailles because everyone is now living under one very large roof, right?

• 53:20Robert Evans?

  And this means that for one thing, nobles no longer have the same kind of lives of their own outside of court. So there's nothing going on in their lives, but obsessing over perceived slights and the intricacies of social dynamics. Who's snubbing who? Who is in the king's favor, et cetera? And it also means the nobility traditionally in like a feudal society, if you're the king and your nobles are your warriors, right? That's like the core of the elite of your army in part because they have the time to train. The nobility are no longer training to fight, right? They are, they are training and spending their whole youths and childhoods, learning how to be the most effective member of what is effectively a bickering high school clique, right?

• 54:04Speaker 02

  Right. And this is years long as well, so it marines.

• 54:06Robert Evans?

  Yes. Your whole life is a high school and the king is the coolest kid in the school. So everyone is constantly trying to figure out how to make him like them, right? Instead of focusing on being good at war, you know, which is a danger to you as the king.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  When you say they're warriors, what does that mean though for the nobility?

• 54:24Robert Evans?

  Well, like traditionally in Europe, like that's where what knights are, right? Yeah.

• 54:28Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 54:29Robert Evans?

  The knight, like knights are nobility and they are like the core of your army in the earlier medieval period, right?

• 54:36Speaker 02

  Except they're now all bickering about who had to the shirt.

• 54:40Robert Evans?

  Yes. And now instead of having like any real, doing anything else really, all, all that these guys are doing, a lot of these people are doing on a day to day basis is obsessing over like the minutia of this, like basically big high school, right?

• 54:55Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 54:57Robert Evans?

  So for the next decade after 1662, construction continues at a relentless pace. And as more gets built, more and more nobles live full time at Versailles. It becomes the king's primary residence when he's not out engaging in his favorite hobby, going to war with the Dutch. The Sun King felt that Dinmar- Mark was natural French territory and he very nearly managed to make this a reality. But his capture of Amsterdam was thwarted when the Dutch opened their dikes and flooded the lowlands. So he does get stymied in his dream of owning the Netherlands, which is very sad for all of us, you know? I would like to own the Netherlands one day, so I can understand why this is big for Louis XIV.

• 55:38Robert Evans?

  Back home, you know, he couldn't, he couldn't make this work, but back in Versailles, he's able to exercise ultimate control over nature. For example, the king decided he wanted a forest around Versailles. And you know, the problem with forests, Ed, you can plant a forest, anybody can plant a forest if you got enough seeds. But trees take so fucking long to grow.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  I know, I was just gonna say you gotta bloody wait for the thing.

• 56:02Robert Evans?

  Huge pain in the ass, you know? He's not gonna do that. So rather than wait for trees to grow, he has thousands of adult trees dug up from nearby forests in a hall.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  Just take a tree from somewhere else.

• 56:15Robert Evans?

  Take it from somewhere else and he plants them. Mitford writes, "Those which died, about half were immediately replaced." So basically they're just planting, digging up adult trees, planting them, waiting for ones to die, and then replanted them until they have a living forest.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  As in grabbing new trees to replace the trees that you've already grabbed. Wonderful, cool.

• 56:38Robert Evans?

  But you've already murdered?

• 56:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:41Robert Evans?

  Speaking of killing trees, you know who hates trees?

• 56:47Robert Evans?

  Not our sponsors.

• 56:51Robert Evans?

  This ad is brought to you by ViiV Healthcare, the makers of Devoto Dolutigrevir Lamivudine. If you're living with HIV, do learn about Devoto. Devoto is a complete HIV treatment by prescription only for some people 12 and older. Your doctor will determine if Devoto was right for you. Most HIV pills contain three or four medicines. Devoto is as effective with just two. No other complete HIV pill contains fewer medicines than Devoto.

• 57:14Speaker 05

  It is unknown if Devoto is safe and effective if you have HIV and hepatitis B. If you have Hep B, don't stop Devoto without talking to your doctor, as it may get worse or harder to treat. Don't take Devoto if you're allergic to its ingredients or taking Dofetilide due to serious or life-threatening side effects. If you have a rash or allergic reaction symptoms, stop Devoto and get medical help right away. Other serious or life-threatening side effects include severe liver problems and lactic acid buildup. If you're female or obese, you may be more at risk. Tell your doctor about your medicines or supplements, medical conditions, liver or kidney problems, pregnancy, breastfeeding, or planned pregnancy.

• 57:50Robert Evans?

  Do ask your doctor about fewer medicines. Visit devoto.com or call 1-877-844-8872.

• 57:57Speaker 06

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 58:30Robert Evans?

  We're back, we're so back. We've never been more back. And we're talking about the palace at Versailles, which has just murdered thousands of trees. The king can have a forest. Right. So obviously, for years, the palace is dreadfully uncomfortable. Courteous slept wherever they could before the various apartments were finished. And the Sun King was also usually like, kind of roughing it too. Behind his back, nobles called the palace "a mistress without merit", as in, like... This is like the king's lady, but like she sucks, you know? None would dare say that to Louis's face, to Louis's face, though. And the dream of the palace sustained him until the first phase of construction was finished in like

• 59:15Robert Evans?

  the 1670s. This gave way almost immediately to an expansion and remodeling. But the palace was done enough that it starts attracting foreign visitors with stories of its grandeur. One like anecdote you'll hear at the time is that

• 59:30Robert Evans?

  British people who would like go and see the court at Versailles would be like, oh, man, our king lives in a fucking slum, basically, right? Like, it is in short order, the most famous capital building in Europe. And it actually like every palace after this point is influenced by Versailles. It becomes like a destination for the other crowned heads and nobles of the continent. And so it actually does, it is a hideous expense. While they are building it, it consumes half of France's GDP. What? Yes. It is an outrageous expense. Wonderful. Like, it is almost an incomprehensible expense. And this enormous expense necessitated economic changes, which were brought about in part by

• 1:00:15Robert Evans?

  the further centralization and modernization of the French state. Part of, obviously, Versailles in and of itself is a centralizing the state in a way that makes it more modern. But also, they have to modernize and centralize the economy more in order to afford Versailles. Louis's economic minister was a guy named Colbert, who had taught the Sun King math when he was a child. And Colbert hated Versailles. He thinks it's a stupid idea, but he's also really good with the money. And he's probably the only person who could have made the whole project economically viable. And for a while, he does, as Mitford writes, quote, "The prestige of Louis XIV and the fame of Versailles mounted year by year.

• 1:00:58Robert Evans?

  Other European princes and magnates wanted a Versailles of their own, down to the smallest details of its furnishings. Colbert exploited this fashion to help his exports. He erected a rigid customs barrier. Nothing was allowed to be imported that could be made in France. Factories were set up to supply the linen, lace, silk, glass, carpets, jewelry, inlaid furniture, and other articles of luxury that used to come from foreign lands. The finest examples of their work went to Versailles and were shown to the foreign visitors who flocked there. The château became a shop window, a permanent exhibition of French goods."

• 1:01:31Robert Evans?

  Hmm.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  So the economy literally centralized around a house.

• 1:01:35Robert Evans?

  Yes, yes, and it becomes a massive part of the French economy. Both in that, like, like, this is where we use this as a showcase for the different things like French artisans can make. And because all of the crown heads come here, they're blown over by the palace and they're like, well, I need those kind of tables, right? I need those chairs, right? And only French artisans. This is part of why France gets its reputation as having the best artisans in Europe, right? Is Versailles. And so luxury goods become an increasingly massive part of the French economy. And Versailles is where they're shown off. And so it is like a CES for like rich people furnishings, you know?

• 1:02:18Robert Evans?

  Like, that is a big factor in like what, what Versailles becomes and its role in, in the economy. Now, it also is central to the economy because of the sheer, again, 36,000 workers at the height of this project. That's a massive deal for a country that is like France is in this period of time. And Colbert saw the sheer number of workmen the project consumed as more than the state could bear, given its current birth rate, right? Like, he comes, the Minister of the Economy comes to the conclusion that we are not breeding enough men to continue rebuilding Versailles. And so he institutes a national breeding program to ensure sufficient labor.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  For a house.

• 1:02:59Robert Evans?

  For, for the king's big fancy party house.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  This is so awful, but also so cool.

• 1:03:06Robert Evans?

  It's nuts.

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  It's just like half the economy.

• 1:03:09Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  Like, all of the, we have an entire thing of, like, housing furnishings.

• 1:03:14Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:15Speaker 02

  Like, multiple industries.

• 1:03:17Robert Evans?

  It's nuts and obviously like evil. It is also like Louis XIV is kind of the most king that a king has ever been.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, this really is king-ing it about as hard as one.

• 1:03:27Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  If you're gonna be a king, spend half of the economy.

• 1:03:31Robert Evans?

  Do it.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Create multiple industries, make everything built in one country to make your house cool.

• 1:03:36Robert Evans?

  To make your house cool.

• 1:03:37Speaker 02

  And then create a bunch of bizarre social rules inside it so that everyone's freaked out. Just like.

• 1:03:44Robert Evans?

  Yeah, it's it's so it's so like there are between once Versailles gets up and running, permanently between like 3,000 people is kind of like the normal level of inhabitants and up to 10,000 at times, right? When like the party seasons at full swing.

• 1:03:58Speaker 02

  10,000 fucking people in there.

• 1:03:59Robert Evans?

  Yes, yes, it's it is massive.

• 1:04:04Robert Evans?

  Now, Colbert institutes this breeding program. He exempts families with more than 10 kids from taxes. He also raises the age. That's nice. He also raises the age at which men and women are allowed to join the Catholic Church as priests and nuns because he's worried that like because they're not breeding, obviously.

• 1:04:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:04:23Robert Evans?

  And he forbids working men from immigrating, from leaving the country.

• 1:04:27Speaker 02

  Jesus Christ.

• 1:04:28Robert Evans?

  Yes.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  You must come to my house. Build my house.

• 1:04:31Robert Evans?

  Everyone has to come to my house.

• 1:04:34Speaker 02

  I need an extra child. Bring your boys to my house to build my house.

• 1:04:38Robert Evans?

  And for for Colbert, it's more like, I hate this house. It's stupid. It's dumb that the king is doing this, but the whole country will collapse if we don't keep this house going.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  I didn't teach you math so that you could build a house like this.

• 1:04:53Robert Evans?

  Now, it is hard for me to read stuff like this and not think about like Elon Musk and Palmer Lucky's obsession with birth rates, right? And they frame it as like a fairness thing. Oh, if you're not having 2.1 kids, you expect someone else's child to take care of you when you're old. But the reality is closer to what Colbert and Louis wanted, right? They also just want warm bodies to feed into the ravenous maw of their narcissistic death projects. They just not aren't as open about it or as good at it like they just and they'll never have Louis the 14th swag.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  That is the thing with Elon Musk and all of these other damp fellows. They don't have the killer instinct of like a like, like an old school French atrocity merchant.

• 1:05:35Robert Evans?

  Yes, because they didn't. He literally fought and like warded his way like his whole childhood is like wars and conniving, right?

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  And he.

• 1:05:44Robert Evans?

  Like Louis the 14th is.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:47Robert Evans?

  No, no, no.

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  It's just Musk is like trying to like couch everything like, oh, I'm doing this for the better than for humanity. Louis is just like, we need more fucking children to build my party house. Go, go, go.

• 1:05:58Robert Evans?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:06:00Speaker 02

  What are you fucking kidding? They don't make chairs here. Fuck you. You can't leave the country until you fuck more.

• 1:06:07Robert Evans?

  So the years in which Versailles is constructed and debuted to the world are good ones for the French economy, which doubles in revenue between 1661 and 1671. Again, Colbert is good at this. This does work.

• 1:06:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:21Robert Evans?

  However, the wealth coming as a result of Versailles is largely due to an explosion, again, in like luxury goods and work for skilled craftsmen. And so while there's, on paper, the economy is doing better, a huge group of the country is doing much worse, which is the peasantry, right? The people who make their living growing food suffer tremendously while this economic miracle is going on. Again, this is not similar to anything that's happened recently, you know? Not that it's the people growing food with us, but it is like, you know, the economy is great on paper for all of these corporations while a huge chunk of the working class is suffering, right? It is kind of, you can see it as similar

• 1:07:03Robert Evans?

  to that where, well, yeah, like the people who are making shit for Versailles are doing well, but like, the peasant farmers are like in a disastrous state. And Colbert is fine with this. He does not give a shit about these people suffering, and neither does Louis. They are concerned with the continued expansion of this pleasure palace and the attendant growth of the French military and navy. And those are the only projects.

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  It's not built fully yet, or are they just building more of it?

• 1:07:28Robert Evans?

  They're constantly building more of it and renovating it. And the only projects that are allowed to compete with Versailles for manpower are the military and the navy. As Mitford writes, quote, "He, Colbert, did little or nothing to help the French peasants through a period of agricultural depression. Indeed, low farm prices suited his policy of cheap exports. The gap between the peasantry and the rest of the population first became serious under Colbert. It was not bridged as an inkling." England by country gentlemen. He encouraged the slave trade, and although he did insist on certain humanitarian measures, this was the only way to keep down the death rate of such valuable cattle. Worst of all, he increased the number of galleys in the French Navy from six to forty, each containing two hundred unhappy souls.

• 1:08:13Robert Evans?

  Since black people were useless for manning them, they had no stamina and died at once. He employed, this was a book written a lot longer ago. He employed French criminals and Turks caught in the Barbary Wars. When the Turks were worn out, they were sold in America for what they would fetch. Young, solid Frenchmen accused of capital offenses were often sent to the galleys for life instead of being executed. Minor criminals, if they were able-bodied, were never released at the end of their sentences. They could only be freed if their relations could afford to buy a Turk to replace them. Colbert thought that too many of his galley slaves died. The intendant of the galley swore they were well-fed, but said they died of grief and boredom. Oh, pardon me. This is just a night, it's really to emphasize, this is a nightmare state, right?

• 1:08:58Robert Evans?

  Like, while they're killing all these laborers in the palace, the whole navy is, we tried using slaves, but they all died immediately, so we brought in, instead, we brought in Turks that were basically slaves and like captive prisoners and, you know, you can buy your way out, but you gotta find us another Turk, you know? Just like, there's like a side Turk economy, and all of this again is to pretty much make sure a big house is built. Yes, well, this is, this is for the navy, but the navy is there to protect your ability to continue building the big house, right? You need a strong Navian military, so no one can stop you from having this huge house. Of course.

• 1:09:37Robert Evans?

  Oh, God. Yeah, it's, it's, it's a nightmare. It is important to really emphasize the degree to which Versailles was from the beginning, a marvel of architecture and art and culture, as well as a yawning pit into which human lives were poured in order to build and maintain. That said, the plan works. The nobles don't trouble him or any other French king in his line with thoughts of revolution again. Beyond that, Versailles becomes the envy of every other king and emperor. It was, in one writer's words, "the cultural heartbeat of Europe." When people on the continent referred to "the king," like if people in other European states just refer generally to the king, it's often understood that they're talking about Louis XIV

• 1:10:21Robert Evans?

  because he is so powerful. In his centralization of power, he becomes one of the most absolute monarchs the world has ever seen. One illustrative anecdote is a rhyme the Sun King himself composed. "Le tat cess moi, the state, that's me."

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  Wow, lyrical genius.

• 1:10:41Robert Evans?

  Lyrical genius, Louis XIV. Boss. It's so funny. No ego has ever been more fevered. A whole language of etiquette and pomp is created and developed around earning and keeping the king's power. For one, so for an example of this, he hates the idea that people go to the bathroom, right? He can't stand this. He considers it a weakness, and if you- My man hates the toilet. If you are, if you are, if you are traveling with this guy or hanging out with him and you need to stop to pee, if you like ask to be excused to go to the bathroom, you're instantly exiled from the cool kids crowd, right?

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  He's just like trying to give everybody a UTI.

• 1:11:23Robert Evans?

  He loves UTIs. The man can't get enough UTIs. What if he needs to piss? Oh, he just does whatever he wants. He's the king. He's pissing, pissing willy-nilly. He's the king, he can do anything.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  What a strange little man.

• 1:11:39Robert Evans?

  So his, his, his like closest friends find themselves avoiding water or getting really good at holding it, or they have to sneak away to relieve themselves, right? I'm just going outside to look around. I just gotta have a smoke or something, man. I gotta go fuck my mistress.

• 1:11:56Robert Evans?

  Now servants, some nobles have their own apartments with chamber pots, right? And so their servants will barter and sell bathroom access to people who need to go to the bathroom, who are like running away for a second. This is wild. You gotta give me a second. I gotta be somewhere, right? This is so strange. Because of this, there are rumors which will really get crazy and later, among later kings, and these will spread heavily among like people in Paris. And it's fanned a lot by like newspapers and tracts that are printed in Denmark because there's no press freedom in France. So the newspapers that people are reading in Paris that have all of the gossip are usually printed in Denmark and then brought into Paris, smuggled into Paris.

• 1:12:38Robert Evans?

  They'll be sold at like the, at like property owned by nobles who are like the idea of these papers being around for their own personal benefit and can keep the police away, right? So that's how a lot of this, we'll talk more about that later. But, you know, one of the rumors that starts to spread because of how weird Louis is about people going to the bathroom is that members of the nobility are just pissing in the hallways and corners of the palace and that all of Versailles is one big expensive bathroom, right? Like, everyone's just pissing and shitting everywhere, right? That is a rumor that's widely believed in Paris. This is an exaggeration. Mitford says it's just outright untrue, you know, because of how many bathrooms there

• 1:13:22Robert Evans?

  are in Versailles, this just wouldn't happen. I don't think Mitford's got it right either, because here's the thing. It's certainly not true that it's the norm for people to piss and shit wherever they're standing, but this is a house filled with thousands of drunk people, partying all of the time. And also they're gossiping. Yeah. So they're like, did you hear Sally went to the toilet? I saw Jeremy pissing. And my, so one of the things that is a factor in Versailles, every room, basically, every major room has orange trees in it, like, and other plants. People are definitely pissing in those pots. Like, you're not gonna tell me people aren't- That's why they're still alive. Yeah. They're full of French hobbit piss. Right?

• 1:14:05Robert Evans?

  And people are for sure puking in random spots, right? Because again, it's a big frat house to some degree, right? So there's some amount of this that has, obviously, the degree to which they talk about this being a thing in Paris is a massive exaggeration, but it definitely happens, you know? Yeah. Especially if you have to surreptitiously piss. Yeah, you've got to hide that you're pissing. Just like turning around, I'm adjusting lip pens. Yeah. Hygiene was not as bad back then as people often assume among the nobility. But like, people didn't bathe daily. They're generally cloaked in perfume. And between that, the palace is constantly filled with smoke because of all of the candles and fireplaces.

• 1:14:46Robert Evans?

  So the smell of this place would have been fascinating at times, right? Let's put it that way. It smelled crazy in there. It smelled crazy. Not necessarily bad always, but crazy. Yeah. Like unfathomable to our modern noses.

• 1:15:05Robert Evans?

  So Louis XIV wanted the whole world of Versailles to revolve around him. And it did, which meant one of the most important questions for anyone to ask on a daily basis was, who is the king fucking? And the king is a notoriously horny guy. He is horny by the standards of French kings, right? Cool. And that's hard. Like, French kings almost invented modern sex. And he is, he is the fuckingest of the kings of France. Nice. One of his first mistresses was Louise de la Valliere, Louise de la Valerie, right?

• 1:15:44Robert Evans?

  Who eventually reached a sort of, and like, there's a huge conflict between her and his, his wife, the queen, and one of his other mistresses. And they eventually like, all sit down and talk about it in a way that feels like weirdly modern and like, become cool with each other, right? So talking about le boundaries and... Yeah, yeah, like that actually happens here. And like, they're actually kind of chill for a while about it. Okay. Progressive, modern, the first poly group. Yeah. I mean, it is, adultery is so normalized in the sun kings palace that it is kind of like that, right?

• 1:16:24Robert Evans?

  Like, the king's mistress is a specific named position at court and one that held quite a bit of influence, right? Wow. This government is insane. Saying you've got the piss house. The lady who's just fucking the king. The mistress is like a title. Do you have a business card? The mistress is a title and that people like gossip, like the way that we're gossiping about like who's gonna lead the FBI or whatever. People are gossiping about like, yeah, I think the king might fuck this lady next. And you know, who knows what that'll change.

• 1:16:56Robert Evans?

  And it's, it's one of those things where he has his official mistress. That is not to say that he limits himself to one mistress as Johnny Wilks writes, quote, "It said that one day he grew so impatient waiting for a lover to undress that he turned his attention to one of the maids." Cause again, he's the king, you know? Chop, chop. He's just fucking whoever he wants. And he needs to fuck then. And he needs to fuck then. Yeah. Now, because the king has the power to, he, he, one of the ways in which he'll show favor to a lady he fucks or to just like a dude. He has like a party, gets along with a guy one night. They have a good drunk talk or whatever. He hands out these gifts, right? And these gifts are not like sometime, he can hand out just money, but usually the gift is

• 1:17:41Robert Evans?

  like a pension or the right to tax a specific area or like you get a cut of the fish that are sold in this province, right? I got fucked up with Louis and now I can tax people. Yeah. I got fucked up with Louis and now I get 2% of all of the French, the fish sold in Normandy, right? Like that's just what I, that's what I have forever now.

• 1:18:03Robert Evans?

  So there's a lot of, there's a ton of money and like being a woman who he likes. And there's a ton of money and just like being a dude that he's friends with. And so a, a whole, because of how much money there is in this and how important it is to be in the king's favor. An entire shadow economy springs up among providing amulets, charms and magical spells to curry the king's favor. And even poisons to use on rivals for his affections. This is a whole industry in France is like witchcraft to impress the king.

• 1:18:36Speaker 02

  Fuck yeah.

• 1:18:38Robert Evans?

  Yeah, it's pretty cool.

• 1:18:40Speaker 02

  That's so great.

• 1:18:41Robert Evans?

  Nancy Mitford writes about one such perfayer of magics, Madame Voisin. And Madame Voisin was approached by a lady at court, vying with Louis de la Vallery for the sun king's attention. Right? So, you know, Valerie is his mistress and this new lady wants to become the next mistress. Her name is Madame de Montespan. And she wants to take over for Valerie and, you know, she thinks that magic's the best way to do that. So she, she talks to this Madame Voisin lady, and I'm going to quote from the book, The Sun King here. "She gave excellent advice to her clients and did what she could to help them, catering for little feminine desires, such as larger breasts and smaller mouths, white hands and luck at cards.

• 1:19:23Robert Evans?

  When unwanted babies were on the way, she was very understanding." This means she provides abortifacients, right? "If wishes concerned in inheritance, there were certain powders. For unrequited love, various forms of magic. No doubt, she began advising Madame de Montespan by talking over the situation. And who, longing to be loved, can have enough of such talks and such advice? But nothing happened. The king remained indifferent." Right? So she, she tries some of these like magics and spells and the king doesn't want to fuck her yet. So it's decided that they should move on to like the hardcore spells, which means bringing in the devil. Right? If you want to do the powerful magic, you're gonna, you're gonna have to talk to the devil.

• 1:20:04Speaker 02

  No consideration that the magic didn't work, it's just that you didn't use effective enough magic.

• 1:20:08Robert Evans?

  You didn't have enough of the devil.

• 1:20:09Speaker 02

  Of course, right.

• 1:20:10Robert Evans?

  Yeah. The nobility believes that no magic spell can be truly efficacious unless Satan is involved. And this leads to a separate cottage industry, one where you've got priests who want extra money. And so these, these Catholic priests will conduct underground satanic rites in order to like, do magic for these people at Versailles.

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is a terrible house. This house has its underground black magic economy.

• 1:20:40Robert Evans?

  Now, and obviously, other, like in Paris, there's other parts of France where this kind of underground trade exists, but it largely comes to focus around these people in Versailles courting for a favor, right? Now, again, Nancy Mitford is from a different generation, and she writes about all this magic more seriously, as if like, as if these priests and these witches believe literally in everything that they're doing. My suspicion is that a lot of these service providers are like con men and women, right? They know these black masses aren't really magic spells or whatever.

• 1:21:21Robert Evans?

  They just also understand that if they can create this space of altered reality for their wealthy, out of touch clientele who live in a permanent party and don't understand the real world, then they can get a lot of money out of them, right?

• 1:21:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:21:34Robert Evans?

  I think it really is much more cynical for, I'm sure there's some people who really believe that they're talking to the devil.

• 1:21:39Speaker 02

  These people didn't have a connection to the devil, like?

• 1:21:41Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yes, yes.

• 1:21:42Speaker 02

  A bit unreasonable.

• 1:21:44Robert Evans?

  But I, you know, they, they know the nobility believes that, and that's my interpretation.

• 1:21:48Speaker 02

  And these people are like sleep deprived, they stink, they've been living in the party house for like years.

• 1:21:54Robert Evans?

  They're just like insane.

• 1:21:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're out of their minds. Well, they're already in an altered reality, because they're living in this world where like you can't piss or shit.

• 1:22:02Robert Evans?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:22:03Speaker 02

  You can't, like, the wrong person can't hand a shit. Of course, they're open to magic. The laws of Madden don't exist.

• 1:22:09Robert Evans?

  You, you've gotten it exactly right, which is that Versailles is a cult. And when, once you get people into a cult, you, you have altered their brain chemistry in a way that makes them much more vulnerable to anyone selling this kind of bullshit, right? And that's why this magic trade really perks up. And I'm going to read another quote from the Sun King. Madame Boisin knew a priest who was willing to help. He read the gospel over Madame de Montespan's head. There was some nonsense with pigeons' hearts under a consecrated chalice, and she prayed, "Please let the king love me, let..." Monsignor L'Edoffin, that's the king's son and heir, be my friend and may this love and this friendship last. Please make the queen sterile. Let the king leave La

• 1:22:52Robert Evans?

  Valérie and never look at her again. Let the queen be repudiated and the king marry me. It was all rather harmless and undeniably successful. The king seemed to become aware of her for the first time. He went off to besiege Lille in June of 1667, taking her in the capacity of lady in waiting to the queen. Louis de Valérie was not invited. In despair, she followed the royal party and caught up with it as the camp was being pitched. When she came face to face with the king, he put on a terrifying manner and said, Madame, I don't like having my hand forced. She had to go away, deeply humiliated. During this campaign, Madame de Mataspan became his mistress. Her sacrilegious prayer seemed well on the way to being answered. The king loved her now.

• 1:23:35Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:36Robert Evans?

  So it worked, you know?

• 1:23:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:38Robert Evans?

  It's good.

• 1:23:38Speaker 02

  This whole system works.

• 1:23:40Robert Evans?

  I said, this whole system works great. Now, unfortunately, all of this, this whole industry of like devil spells is going to become a problem in part two, but we're going to be talking about that on Thursday. Ed, you want to plug anything after this super long episode?

• 1:23:56Speaker 02

  Go to betroffline.com, download the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, go back, download every single episode or else.

• 1:24:03Robert Evans?

  Or else. All right, everyone.

• 1:24:07Robert Evans?

  We love you.

• 1:24:08Speaker 07

  Kind of.

• 1:24:08Robert Evans?

  Goodbye.

• 1:24:10Robert Evans?

  Some of us love you.

• 1:24:14Speaker 07

  Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel, youtube.com/behindthebastards.

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