Who Started the French Revolution

Another Ron and Sandra short.

Sandra made potato and leek soup again. It’s referred to as Vichyssoise by some, the French mainly, or perhaps exclusively.

The third time she had cooked it.

Was she perfecting it, or was it the same each time?

The dish had a floury consistency and didn’t sit well in my gut. There appeared to be something else on board that hadn’t added to the experience.

‘Delicious, darling, even better than the one before.’ I placed my spoon in the empty bowl. ‘What was that, the difference?’

‘Nutmeg. It wasn’t in the recipe book, but I thought it would improve the dish—to offset the marjoram and thyme.’

She twitched a glance at me, doubtless thinking I might have a complaint. I’ve been prone to them my entire life. Not an attractive trait in a man, but there you have it.

Sandra’s uncertainty seemed scientific. All the best science is.

‘I’m not sure it worked,’ Sandra said.

Nor was I, but I’m no expert. ‘Marvellous,’ I burped. ‘Excuse me.’

She might have been a bit heavy-handed with the spice, but I declined to comment, which required extraordinary restraint on my part.

My stomach started feeling ever queasier with an ominous rumble now added..

‘It’s traditionally served cold. According to the French, that is,' she said.

‘Sounds ghastly. They said that about revenge, too.’ I glanced towards the bathroom.

‘The French?’

‘Probably. They are quite odd if you ask me. They eat garden snails…and frogs, for goodness’ sake. They also have this thing about tripe, beef tongues and pig’s feet.’

‘I know. My mother is French.’

‘Oh, yes, of course.’ My mother-in-law, a gynaecologist, is fluent in both English and wombs, though she speaks only French with Sandra. As far as I can remember, my wife’s womb has never been mentioned. I’m not fluent, but I went to great pains to decipher the French for stupid Australian and ignorant layabout.

She moved to Tanzania years ago to do something splendid regarding ovaries. We haven’t seen or heard from her since.

Sandra began clearing the table. ‘I knew you wouldn’t like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘The soup cold.’

‘No, I wouldn’t like that at all, dear. Sounds bizarre to wait for it to go cold before serving. I’m prepared to make an exception for gazpacho, which must never abide a flame.’

‘Blame Louis XVI,’ Sandra said while depositing the bowls in the sink. She returned to the table to finish her Viognier.

‘Pardone?’ I topped us both up.

‘The French king, an ineffectual, spoiled, and deeply paranoid fop, forced five servants to taste his food before he would touch it,’ Sandra answered. ‘Poison was the murder of choice for getting rid of your average despot in those days.’

Given my intestinal turmoil, I feared it might be having a comeback.

‘By the time it got to Louis, it was cold. He enjoyed the potato and leek soup so much he ordered it chilled before serving. On the other hand, he detested the cold roast pheasant, which wallowed in congealed fat by the time it reached him.’

‘So, the servants ate like kings,’ I said.

‘It took a lot to convince Louis a quail bone was at fault when one of his tasters choked to death.’

‘Poor fellow. The servant, I mean. I’ve never eaten quail, but I’ll be wary of the bones if I ever do.’

'Exactement. The dish was Caille aux raisins et sauce cognac.'

‘Say that again.’

‘Later.’

‘Why am I thinking that recipe is about to be added to your culinary lexicon?’ I asked.

‘I’m considering it.’

‘So, let me see…. Grapes are involved...and cognac?’

‘Quail with grapes and cognac sauce is exactly what I said.’

‘I find you speaking the lingo out of the blue like this a tad unnerving.’

‘You used to think it sexy. One evening, when we started going out, you pleaded with me to say passe le beurre. Repeatedly.

‘From memory, this was before I met your mother.’

‘Yes, well, asking me to say pass the butter far too many times in French was weird. I nearly dumped you that night.’

‘Oh dear, my memory isn’t what it used to be. Say it again. I might have missed something.’

‘Later.

Anyway, another became very ill with salmonella and also passed away.’

‘What…who?’

‘The nobility never bothered with the servant’s names.’

‘Oh, we’re still talking about the king’s servants.’ I took a long sip of my wine, hoping it might quell the despot working on my stomach.

‘They were referred to as you, those, them or they, and sometimes knave. Today, of course, they is considered, in some circles, to be a preferred form of address.’

‘Now that you mention it, I really must become more thoroughly acquainted with the current rules of address,’ I whined. ‘I’m always looking around to see where the other person got to.’

‘Sadly, one can be ostracised for life if one isn’t word-alert. Mother was insistent that lactating persons could only be referred to as her or she. Perhaps this is why she currently resides in Transylvania.’

‘Wasn’t it Tanzania?’ I asked.

‘One or the other. Getting back to the subject at hand, the servants were verbally abused or even physically assaulted for the merest of missteps.’

‘Not an easy life for those below stairs,’ I ventured. ‘I guess it could get pretty tough being a monarch, too…just to be fair.’

‘Servants were sometimes given lodgings within the palace, but more often, it was the barn with the shortly-to-be-dispatched cloven-hoofed beasts and fowl. As you say, they ate quite well. For the lower classes, a job with the nobility was an enviable position. You might be interested to learn that their attention to hygiene was superior to their betters.’

‘Really?’

‘At Versailles, courtiers urinated and even shat on the staircases, hallways or fireplaces because they couldn’t be bothered to find a chamber pot. The place stank to high heaven.’

‘Bloody hell!’

‘At least the servants went outside to relieve themselves. We take our modern plumbing for granted,’ Sandra said while yawning.

‘I never take plumbing for granted,’ I reciprocated with my own yawn. ‘It’s top of mind whenever I venture out. And presently indoors.’

After a thoughtful pause, she said. ‘You really should get your waterworks looked at. And get them to have a little peek at the back passage while they’re at it.’

‘There’s a separation of powers involved. Apart from the digital examinations they favour, urologists are ignorant of the bottom processes.’

‘Louis suffered from a perianal abscess, as it happens.’

‘Lovely. I assume they had more than one king over the centuries. Do they have one now?’

‘Were you asleep in high school history?’ She poured herself another glass of wine.

‘I admit, I was an unusually tired teenager.’

‘Well, there was this event called The French Revolution. It rather changed things...like, globally.’

‘Goodness, who started that? Should we be putting in an extra order of frog’s legs?’

‘You know how let them eat cake is ascribed to Marie Antoinette?’

‘Yes, I do know some things.’ I would have been indignant, but I burped again, which stole the heat from my displeasure.

‘Ron, are you okay?’

‘It’s alright. Please continue with the cake business.’ Dessert, though, was far from my thoughts.

‘She didn’t say that at all. Well, to be perfectly accurate, she said, "Let them eat brioche." The years, as with most things, have a damaging effect on the truth.'

‘Wait... Who didn’t say what?’

‘Marie Antoinette. Keep up.’

‘Okay. I’m all ears.’

Sandra paused, presumably to collect her thoughts. It occurred to me that they might be pretty nourishing. However, I’d stay away from the nutmeg if present. It really wasn’t agreeing with me.

‘I have it on good authority that this is what actually occurred. Are you listening? Ron! You know, you look quite pale.’

She scrutinised me with an expression that evoked intimidating dismay, as though she was inspecting my liver with X-ray eyes and finding it wanting.

‘No, no, please continue. Any story that involves cake is one I want to hear...or brioche.'

‘Okay. Now let’s see… One day, the Queen and Louis were strolling about the gardens of Versailles when the gamekeeper, cap in hand, approached them. It was unheard of for a commoner to breach the personal space of God’s representative on earth. The king’s bodyguard was about to run the poor rustic through. Though astonished by this outrage, the king was curious and signalled the guard to stay his pike.’

‘What might your business be, knave?’ the king asked.

‘The terrified gamekeeper fell to his knees and proceeded to inform the royals about the state of the palace pheasants. These ludicrous creatures were encouraged to grace the gardens until they were called upon to provide dinner.’

‘Sire, the pheasants have nothing to eat. Maize and wheat and the other grains upon which they sup are in short supply. I fear for the fowl’s continued suitability for the table.’

‘The gamekeepers of the day were surprisingly well-spoken,’ I said.

‘I’m paraphrasing for clarity. It was a long time ago. Anyway, this is when the notoriously silly Marie Antoinette piped up.’

‘But surely, Louis, the pheasants can eat cake. The queen followed this up with one of her adorable giggles.’

‘Ha! You see, gamekeeper, my wife’s a genius, said the king.’

Sandra took a good glug of her Viognier before continuing.

‘With a dismissive flounce of the king’s scented hankie, the Royals proceeded to promenade.’

‘So, what happened after that?’ I asked.

‘The bodyguard stayed his pike and, and after distractedly connecting his not-inconsiderable boot to the gamekeeper's arse, spent the rest of the day in a depressing funk.’

‘A shame, as I’d rather like to know how the poor gamekeeper got on in life.’

Like the hapless fellow, my curiosity was met with indifference. Sandra continued.

‘On his afternoon tea break, the bodyguard thought over the Austrian queen’s atrocious French and conflated faisans with paysans—French for peasants. Having come from peasant stock, he was not too keen on the royal’s callous remark.

‘As this occurred on a Friday afternoon, he galloped home for the weekend after a challenging week of kicking around gamekeepers nd the like.

He stopped at his local alehouse for a cleansing libation and told his drinking buddies about the cake incident. They were suitably disgusted but too stewed to do anything about it. However, once ensconced in his Parisian hovel, himself drunk as a lord, the guard repeated his interpretation of the queen’s thoughtless remark to his wife.

It turned out the wife had been making a list of bitter grievances for years, and her useless husband's news tipped her over into the simmering insurrectionist she was always meant to be. She spread the word far and wide.’

‘So, she started—’

‘Thus was the seed of a revolution planted.’

‘A sad tale, indeed. If only the royal gardener had thought to sow more maize, a great deal of bloodshed could have been avoided,’ said Sandra.

‘The French seem to have many grievances.’

‘Indeed, they do. You know both Louis and Marie Antoinette lost their heads to the guillotine.’

‘Yes, I did hear that. A horrible way to die.’

‘And perhaps not as quick as one might imagine,’ Sandra said. ‘It’s rumoured the king wrote a letter to the queen before he lost his head. The executioner gave it to her when she knelt before the guillotine for a quick prayer. Apparently, she is thought to have said, "Pop it in the basket; I’ll read it later."’

‘It does seem a tale for our own sad times,' I commiserated. 'I’ve been thinking of late that our supposed betters ill-use us latter-day peasants.

‘They do take us for fools!' Sandra said. ‘Liars and charlatans, the lot of them!’

We should rise up and storm the parliament—I almost whined, but then was forced to reconsider as I experienced my first stomach cramp of the evening.

‘Well, that was a turn-up for the books, dear,’ I croaked before heading to the loo. ‘You know, perhaps ease up on the nutmeg next time.’