Dancing at Versailles (Micro Fiction)

This week Pegman takes us to Palace of Versailles, France. What Pegman Saw is a weekly writing challenge to write a fictional piece (150 words or less) using the location provided.

For my photo prompt, I chose an inside palace view and here is the story:

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Dancing at Versailles (Priorhouse fiction word count: 150)

Come on Louie – tell’em the story.

Okay…. Back in 1988, I went to a wedding reception at the Palace of Versailles.

Guests were dancing slowly. Classy. Two steps and a hip right, two steps and hip left. Kind of boring.

I sat most of the night just watching.

Then… the DJ played Shannon’s Let the Music Play. The atmosphere changed.

Hold on, let me tell this part.

So Louie gets on the dance floor and started to boogie down.

floatin’ moves – gliding, sliding, and movin’ his shoulders with rhythm and finesse.

The DJ started scratching vinyl (like this) and he let that music play, oh yeah.

“I am still so embarrassed. More folks joined in but a photo of me dancing ended up on the cover of Versailles Times: Invité de Mariage Aime Danser Boogie.

People still attribute my “getting down” to being drunk – but I was completely sober.

 

Author’s Notes

1) The Palace of Versailles is a royal château in Versailles, France (southwest of Paris). Palace of Versailles was declared the official royal residence in 1682 and the gaudy and ornate palace is a symbol of royalty abuse; it signifies the excesses of the French nobility (which eventually led to a Revolution)

2) Most of us know the “let them eat cake” phrase, which was viewed as a snobby response to the poor. Or is viewed as showing that the privileged nobility were being unsympathetic/unaware of the plight of the poor.

However, on Quora it was noted that this phrase might be “wrongly attributed to Marie Antoinette.” The phrase was attributed to Marie because she was a “spendthrift airhead” and as her infamy grew – the phrase was attributed to her because it seemed to fit her MO.  Or it had to do with pastry chefs (see bottom comic).

 

3) Not sure if you saw the 2012 documentary Queen of Versailles (here), which highlighted the Siegel family and how they were interrupted while building the biggest house in the United States. David Siegel is owner of Westgate Resorts (largest privately owned timeshare) and his wife, Jackie, has the title of Queen of Versailles. I heard that they sued for defamation and it was later dismissed. Then in 2016 the Siegels lost their teen daughter from a drug Over Dose (and Jackie Siegel started the foundation Victoria’s Voice). 

However, I guess the Siegel’s Versailles mansion is currently getting finished (They did not lose it to foreclosure after the 2008 crash) and Mandall (here) wrote: “The plans for the American Versailles, a 90,000-square-foot behemoth near Orlando, FL, seemed to have one overarching goal: to make the French original look shabby by comparison. Did Marie Antoinette have 10 kitchens, an ice skating rink, and a 5,000-square-foot closet? We think not.”

Also, once the mansion is done, Mrs. Siegel said she wants to hire French servants, ahem….? (More on that here)

4) I heard Let the Music Play (here) this week and it brought me back to the 80s – and so I wanted to somehow add that in to my fiction piece. 

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