Essays in Idleness

Would Marie Antoinette have had a personal videographer? It is a question for the ages.

While I might be a personal fan of Marie Antoinette (as long as she stays off Facebook), I’d be happy to concede the point. But in practice, she probably would not have had a personal videographer. I can’t imagine the “reality show,” in which she tells the peasants how to make good, nutritious cake, should they be short on bread. To start, the very line (“let them eat cake”) was not uttered by Her Majesty, but by some leftist scum — the way they wrote the lines that sank Sarah Palin. For another thing, I can’t imagine the Queen of France cavorting for a camera. Surely, sitting for a portrait would be the limit. Moreover, even when she was Dauphine, or an Archduchess of Austria, she wouldn’t have messed about in a kitchen. I doubt she’d care how her servants baked the cake, so long as it was decorated nicely.

But what do I know? I’m more the peasant myself, and truth to tell, I had tea at Versailles much too late to meet her. According to a sign, she’d already been carted off.

On the other hand, the wife of the Mayor of New York (the communist, Bill de Blasio) has a personal videographer, who recently filmed her baking cookies. Apparently, people are complaining about how much the videographer gets paid, along with more than a dozen other personal staff. (Americans do whine so.) But when your husband can slash $1 billion out of the police budget on a whim, I’m sure he can afford them.

New York taxpayers should hardly mind; they re-elected him handsomely. That they are mentally enfeebled, is not for me to say.