--MARIE ANTOINETTE-- A compilation of writings based on a concept of a past life. QUOTES OF MARIE ANTOINETTE Through the hole in this cake I can see all of France. Merit is more common than pigs. People who believe in karma tend to be victims of it. As long as I don't love my food, it should be bearable. Plutocrats don't have as much money as me. They live in outer-space. My soul has more jewels than the king. What is uncommon to men is bane to the rule-makers. Quoting Machiavelli. The devil. They ask me if I'm an evil dream? Well, that's what I say when I make excuses! And I feel horrendous! Without anxiety, I go to the window and admire Versailles. Sometimes I go to the roof. An ordinary view is not enough! It is like a museum, a museum of curious minds. Who pays the price? I feel like a financier! I have to remind the king to remember these words… Is the king God? This is a godawful place! There is lunacy even here, where the walls are paved with gold! Everything small is a God--for it has not written a great big cheque… The woman's place is to be God of the home… So I am spiritual like a woman… I am the God of Versailles… I rarely venture into the garden-forest… for there are smaller Gods that dwell there… Smaller Gods are more powerful Gods at Versailles… Versailles is the God of them all… And I am the smallest God when I stay home… I am a God among Gods, and yet not a God at all… but a woman… A God of paradoxes… The smallest of all Gods… I am only a God at Versailles! A perpetuum mobile was the death of poverty! I could argue that way. It's a fine house was a very fine argument at that time. All the problems of the nobility are solved by the religion. All of the problems, plums, and pens of the nobles are solved by religion… Thus spoke Voltaire, two devils! Does the king write anything, that's another thought. It is the same thing as aporia. I suspect it is a limited thing. Now, if Socrates is alive, that's four devils! Damning him makes five! I've suffered this magnitude too much. (Death to the devil someone shouts). There is a neon for every age! We think in neon! But the sky has become black! THE STORY OF MARIE ANTOINETTE 1. She was learning languages. “What lesson do you have for me today?” said the teacher. “Tempuesto, tempura, l’ temps, Augusto, gest alto, agité,” she repeated. Sacristí, sacristiá, sacristé…” Then she trailed off. “What is the word in Greek?” she asked. “There is none.” her teacher said. “But later, I have a secret.” Her father came to her. He said “You are to be the queen of France.” He said to her: “You cannot go on speaking the wrong languages. You should speak only the real language of France” “Apertur d’ terre” she said. “Apertur d’ munde” he said. “l’ Munde, l’ Munde, l’ Munde” she repeated rebelliously (since the word didn’t appear finished). 2. It came time for the Queen of France to select a husband. She spoke with her father. “Who do you select to be you husband?” he asked “Est un miscelle” she replied. “Au dressier ‘Q’est bon heur’ ” “N’est bon temps” he replied. “Tromp l’ temps au Msr. Dressier. Tromp l’ heur. C’est bon temps” 3. Finally she negotiated to leave her residence. A kind gentleman navigated her to what seemed like the only three-story residence in all of France. He said “It has three floors”. The trappings on the first floor were kind of posh. “We’re going to the third floor” he said. “We can’t go to the third floor, I’m deathly afraid of heights” she said. “Don’t distress. I’ll dress you as a figurehead” he said. She wasn’t quite sure what this meant, but it sounded fancy. She felt suddenly the pull of a commitment---to this new thing. He told her to undress, and she did, daintily she thought. He told her to close her eyes, and when she opened them she would have a view of the city. She was resting against some big satisfying thing. Her breasts were pushed up by the force of the object. He told her she would have a great wonderful feeling. Then he entered her, and she had a great sensation of joy. In the guise of a figurehead, she had many an ecstasy. Only he hadn’t properly introduced himself, so she didn’t think of the man behind her. She imagined her blood dripping and oozing onto all of France. Later she remembered it as the only three-story building in all of France. 4. “This isn’t lettuce. It’s garbage” The new king said: “That’s what she thinks of the lettuce. That it’s garbage. She thinks it’s not fit to eat. You know, I think she thinks I know how to fuck. But I don’t. It’s useless to fuck. Everyone I know that knows how to fuck has died. They’ve died fucking. Died!” “What’s the use?” the advisor replied. “She doesn’t like the lettuce. She’s sure not to like you in bed. You look like a mushroom, I understand. It’s how everyone looks. No one who dislikes lettuce loves a mushroom. You can quote me on that in private” said the advisor. “Next we’ll be talking about apples and Eve! Good grief! She‘s not Eve. She‘s not even an Adam. I mean, look at her carriage. I mean, look at her rear end! It‘s hideous!” said the king. “It’s how they all look when they’re down in the porridge” said the advisor, trying to make him more comfortable, and failing utterly. “She looks like my mother” he said. “If you’ll pardon the pun”. “Good grief. Heaven fell on this such trippant mischief!” said the king. “What we need is poetry! What we need is a good vacation! Or better yet, a palace to vacation in! That would be love!” “I know just the place, and it is Versailles!” she said. “I haven’t heard you say such a poetic thing in my entire life” said the king. “It may be the most poetic thing I’ve ever heard. But knowing you…” [gasp] “it will be your last…!” “I hope you don’t mean a beheading!” she said. “Oh dear… That’s the most ghastly thing I’ve every heard! Not a beheading. We’re going to pomp some francs on a vacation palace, in Versailles. I hope to the lord that that isn’t a pun.” “What a relief…and good grief” she said (in French). “Ghastly…” he said. “A ghastly palace named Versailles. Built in the sky with wings of brass. It turned into the image of pain. And then I died” she said. Romanticism was beginning to be in vogue, she thought. “Ghastly poem… ghastly” he said. “And too English”. “You noticed that” she said, in an English accent. “Now you’re playing fair” he said. “You’ve changed a bit” he said, in an English accent, and in English. “I have no reply to that” she said, in English, and in what she thought to be an American accent. “That’s far afield. To Versailles we go! We’ll requisition the grounds!” he said. “Joi d’ Vivre, if it’s not a pun” she said. 5. “Chambre d’ amour d’ piscin?” she said. “D’ piscin fragrance” he said. “Dans l’ mer d’ si amour” she said. “Nais c’est fabriqué” said the king. They got under the covers. “Sur nom vaginé. Dans le vaginé.” He mounted her, and then a foul look came across his face. “Putrifiqué!” he said. “Poir Si Nomine Anglique?” she said. What if we call it the English? “Nominé Latiné? C’est Angliqué! J‘fusilée reine d‘ Francais!” I fire the Queen of France he said. Now you’re my dirty mistress he said. This is getting more English by the minute he said. “Dans le vaginé?” she repeated. “Putrifiqué!” he said. “Revellé?…Carcellé? Exposité?” she mused at him. “Revellé l’ reine d’ Francais? Por sois? Bon! Dans le vaginé, putrifiqué! Mon Leib! Sur le bon, poesée! Putrifiquée poesée! Mon Leib!” 6. The time in the palace seemed like forever. The king arrived at a kind of moral in the mean-time: “A woman has everything and gives it all away! A king has a gift, and spends it thriftily” This reasoning was golden. So she hoped to God. 7. They were reading books together. Their unluckiness had become a game. “Abandon hope all ye who enter here” she said. “It should be written into all the Bibles” “It will be like Babel.” said the king. “Who reads the whole thing?” “It’s not a riddle.” she said. “I’ve invented Hell”. Then she laughed as well as she could. 8. “Madame Rege” someone said. “This is musical!” she said. “Get some chairs! We’ll play music, and play with the chairs. Whoever wins, their heads will play the role.” After some time… The king remained in the middle. Perhaps he had just stepped in. “Were you playing?” he said. She joined him in the middle. “I’m lucky” she said. “This is the viscompte of Chardin” he replied. “He’s not to be trifled with”. “I don’t care.” she said. “I’ve invented this, kind of like Hell”. He turned red and wouldn’t say that she was mad. 9. She was having time with her hair stylist. “Shall I try to be master of the papers again?” she said. “You should instruct them to write certain things, like: ‘she was least understood in her own terms’ ” “I like it.” he said. “Very ordinaire. Very cusp-of-the-times.” The newspaper ran with all the things she said, and it was a big success. The queen of France was now also the Queen of fashion. “Tromp l’ temps.” she said. 10. She was saying to the king: “Graci. Por l’ ‘mage. Terre terre rouge. Ignite l’ chambre d’ aur.” Later, he brought her flowers. “Assure, S’bon. Ignite l’ aur.” he said. “We aren’t imbecilic art basels!” she said. “These flowers rot away!”. It was yet another sign of bad luck. 11. “It was her folly to have nothing of what she had everything of” ---said of Marie Antoinette Reading the newspaper: “It’s perfectly bad. It’s so much who she IS,” an advisor replied. “You ruined it again. We’re having a honeymoon” the king said. “Another one?” The advisor said. “The first one didn’t work. It was perfectly bad. She’s still perfectly bad, only she’s so much more fair” he said. “You’re like the sun poet with her” he said. “That was so much more beautiful than much of what she said” he said. “We’ll make beautiful. We’ll have the longest vacation. But I don’t know if I’ll recover” “I’m sorry” the advisor said. “Don’t say sorry. Things are looking worse and worse for the French, I’m afraid”. “You’re afraid?” “No, she’s afraid! She’s a woman. He said. I’m beheaded! You know, I’m beheaded and disgruntled like a pig! This is getting more English by the minute!” 12. Eventually her attention came to the library. “You know Michel d’ Montaigne?” the king asked. “He’s a man.” she said. “That’s what I like” he said. “A woman who keeps her head in a cupboard”. She glanced at herself in one of the many mirrors that circled the great room. “My nose is hideous. I have humor to thank that I’m a female and not a hermaphrodite” she said. “You’re not gay. You’re not even a man!” he said. He said: “Soon I will show you something that must matter to your cold heart” The room echoed with the sound of his beating heart. Or was it the guns fired by the soldiers? 13. Partly fearing the king, Marie Antoinette ordered a security cabinet made. It was two stories tall, and six rooms deep. Each door had an outer and an inner lock. All the inner locks opened with the same key. But the outer locks required six different keys. One day, when it was built, she went out to test it. She sat up on the second floor of the ‘cubby’ inside the third room (she called it the fourth to have security from God). When she had waited quite long enough, she gave a high, shrilling scream. “Help! Let me out of this prison!” The king laughed, and soon all the doors were opened. “If you had waited long enough, you would have had more security than anyone else in the world!” “I was nearly dying of thirst!” she said. “How could you be so inconsiderate!” “It is very safe, though, if you get used to it.” He said. “Is it safe from gunfire?” She said. “Well, not entirely. But, they won’t know where to shoot.” “Clever!” She said. “Have the thing destroyed!” “Now?” “Yes, now!” She said. “How about by gunfire? I’ve had the thing pre-arranged!” The soldiers that were marching for her protection came to a halt. Something delicious was fetched and the soldiers were lined up to fire on the cabinet. “Too loud!” she said. And she wouldn’t look. But she felt imperial. 14. “Come and look at this” the king said. “It’s a Cloissone egg. Only a few of them were made”. She began to believe in her own subjectivity. These were marvels, run by invisible machines, with gold grommets and inlayed intricatesse. How mysterious! She thought. “I wonder if they contain a secret”. And the king, clucking, said “They certainly do. See if you can fish them out”. Later, when he wasn’t looking, she busted a few of them on the floor, to see if they contained the secret of ambergris. “Only money” he said. “We’re not the gods of Olympus”. It was her great disillusionment. The mystery, however, seemed to remain real, even when the dust was swept away. 15. She once said the king was “cold and challenging”. She thought he would never forgive her. But instead he loved her all the more. 16. She was always wondering in response to other people. She considered this to be metaphysical. “If we eat food then it’s like there are pigs” 17. She remembers how she invented magical thread. She was sitting in the library studying Ariadne. “We have extra thread. Let’s sell it to the evil serfs” she said. “It’s not that they’re evil, so much as that they’re too good” the king said. “So far as Ariadne goes, they have an evil inclination to sew their lips together” he said. 18. The next night she had an insight at the stroke of midnight. “Musical thread!” she said. The next morning , they called for the most magical musician, and had him appear in court. “Sheer-ah-ho-ah-sheer-ah-ho-ah, Sheer-ah-ho-ah-sheer-ah heer” He played. The king declared it to be enchanting. “We can use the musician to sell the thread” she said. 19. At first the thread was a tough sell. No one seemed to be able to market the material. “Situate him in a high room nearby” she said. She was speaking of the musician. 20. The thread was selling well, and they began to get greedy. “What will make these serfs buy more thread?” The king said “We need to get a special salesperson, a certain really good sales person” the queen said. 21. It took some time, but soon the vizier reported that a new salesperson had been found. “Indeed, he sells ten times the amount of thread. It’s a miracle” he said. “Pay him 15 Francs an hour” she said. “How much does he make?” she asked. “Oh, well near 1500” he replied. “Keep him on 15 and collect money by the hour” she said. “How much shall we pay the musician?” “Pay him 5 Francs to keep him bleak” she said. 22. Next news: “The musician has quit. He’s demanding more Francs.” said the Vizier. “Pay him 17 Francs an hour, and make sure it’s fair” she said. Then he reported back: “He’s taken 17 as a sign to quit, because it means temperance.” “Pay him another 17 and tell him he’s to be temperate with being temperate” she said. Then he reported back: “The musician has played himself to death”. She never heard the real story because all of France was in chaos. 23. One crazy day, “Requiré societé clandestín” said the king. “Societé clandestín? Por sois?” she said. “J’nais pas requiré. Requiré francs” he was saying. 24. One terrible winter, the palace was frozen. The king and the queen huddled by the fireplace. “This is the end of the affair of crepes Suzette” the king was saying. He was removing the burnt remains of their attempt at cooking. The servants were nowhere to be found. She would never forget the image of burning Francs in her mind. “Let’s go get warm together” said the King. “ S’ oi” she said. They took off their clothes, under the covers, as best they could. “We look so different in our other selves” she said. “You know, this is how we look, how we naturally are” he said. It seemed like a statement of natural philosophy. Philosophers seemed so cold in this domineering weather. 25. One day, revolutionaries arrived at the palace. They asked her to “Come in their company.” She thought the revolution was over. They looked just like any other soldiers to her. Then one of them shouted “That’s the wealth that she gives us, the bitch”. “That’s a fine thing to say in a house like this” she said. There were mutters of contempt. She realized the war had not ended her way. 26... Commenting before her death, she remarked “Maybe she was more brilliant than I remember”. She thought she had sold her soul in that moment. She was talking with a gawker, saying “It’s all made of cloth, the king has said so himself. I have no rear end,” when she realized she had missed the beheading of the king. There was an angry mob. Someone shouted in the crowd “Name no one man!” She swore under her breath “Damned with the dram”. Then she shouted back “Perhaps it’s that the king has fleas. You can name this ‘pallendrome’ after me! It‘s called a pallendrome, in my honor, she said.” “Did you really say that we should eat cake?” someone shouted. “I said if you look through cake it is a window onto France” she said. “It’s just an experience” she would have said, but her voice was drowned out by the crowd. “Are you a revolutionary?” someone said. “My love is for the king” she replied. “The king’s francs?” someone shouted angrily. “Devil!” someone said. “Murder her!” someone screamed. She was asked to summarize her life. “I thought it was practical” she said. Then she had a glimpse of the world swirling, bouncing, and turning dim. Life was gone like a bleeding scarf, she thought, in her decapitated head. 27... Circa 2005 Someone approaches Nathan Coppedge. They are wearing a small microphone, like a secret service agent. “Someone tells me that you were Marie Antoinette” “Maybe…I don’t quite remember” I reply. “Yes…I’ve found her.” he says in his microphone. “She has whiskers. And she’s gone batty. She has ears…” “Okay!” I can hear someone saying on the other end. “Should I requisition her or what?” he says. A dimly muffled voice replies. Then he asks me: “Are you rich?” I say: “No, I’m poor. I’m not sure that I have any money.” “Case solved!” I can hear him saying. And then trailing into the distance: “Thank God!” I can almost feel him disappearing like a Djinn. But I’m too scared to look. 28... Recounting my life as Marie Antoinette, I tried to re-phrase my attitudes towards life and death. “It occurs to me that I have never drunk wine” I say. “Now the price of opulence is perpetual motion. That or world peace.” I inquire. I pose a question to myself: “Would perpetual motion cause world peace?” And I answer in her voice: “Possibly. It should, but it might not”. “The world seems to depend on my divinity, since everyone else has been drinking wine, and I call for world peace or something that would make everyone rich as the king of France. Barring that, solitude is what is called for. And I suspect it is not just my subjectivity.” THE GENIUS OF MARIE ANTOINETTE The word 'nouveau’ may have come about as her concept of a street lined with salons. It is no coincidence that it rhymes with 'chaveau’ and sounds similar to 'avenue’! In the mind of Marie Antoinette, streets and cities were 'le moderne’ and this idea impressed the world immensely. It was as if sexual fantasies began by responding to Marie Antoinette. Because few had had any truly exciting ideas—The Bible, Copornicus, the Discovery of America, hair was her idea of the future. She felt it has an idea of immediacy, which was completely nouveau. It is likely that Antoinette contributed to what is meant by novelty, and modernism. When she discovered the idea of palendromes she decided it was the 'codi moderni’. She thought everything Italian was 'the devil’. She even looked for codes in her umbrella. She felt that life was provided by God. She contributed pathetic 'little miracles’ and tried to make the most of everything, even arranging an Easter Hunt involving Cloissonne eggs. She didn't realize she was the only one hunting, and then realized 'I am alone in the world’ which she felt was more genius than being 'alone in the crowd’. She said it was 'plus epique’. She felt she could define her own adventure. 'Advent le avenue’ she said. But her retinue restrained her. The word 'clinic’ may have been invented with M. Antoinette's 'salon clinique’. She was inspired by the American West. THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARIE ANTOINETTE An unauthorized sense from a past-life. Originally written as “The Holy Writ of Mortal Distinction.” 1. Alethenia. The best matters. For example, Aporia and Sophia. Critique: solid things are too hard. To be unethical. 2. Parodoxes. Mystique. The ground for emotion. This is neither with not without disaster. It is what the Easterns call denial, and it is the same thing as aporia. I suspect it is a limited thing. 3. Exceptions and Variations. The nouveau. To make something that is not disastrous is always nouveau. My principle: avant-garde! 4. Appertainments. Good ideas. If the avant-garde doesn't work, here we have our champion, any good idea! The principle of paradoxes! Aproximsm, Aproxa, Proximus (too manly), Paroxysthmeon. Or better, a color, like neon! The color of the age! There is a neon for every age! We think in neon! The king must write this down! Does the king ever write anything, that's another thought! In essence, she was a Neologist concerned with the Nouveau. Coppedge, Nathan / SCSU 2017 / 01 / 01, p.