Christine A. Jones

The Chocolate Baby

by cjones May 8, 2012

One of the strangest anecdotes to emerge from the already larger-than-life annals of Louis XIV’s reign concerns a perfectly forgettable woman, the Marquise de Coëtlogon, who lives on in infamy because she (apparently) had a chocolate addiction and the famed letter-writer Madame de Sévigné found out about it. As the epistolary paparazzi of her age, [...]

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A Versailles Christmas

by cjones December 23, 2011

A few years ago I had the pleasure of visiting the Bibliotheca Bodmeriana in Geneva (a must-do for historical bibliophiles), where the eyes feast on marvels such as a full codex of the gospel of John and a Gutenberg Bible. Among the rare court documents that Martin Bodmer collected over his lifetime sits Elizabeth I’s Christmas [...]

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A Marvelous Dinner Party

by cjones November 18, 2011

Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, had a serious passion for porcelain. She took a leading role in patronage and artistic influence at the French manufactory at Vincennes, which produced the finest objects in the realm in the 1750s. The king provided the economic support to ensure that Pompadour and his court could [...]

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Louis XIV and his Marvelous Legs

by cjones October 22, 2011

By Christine A. Jones (Wonders & Marvels contributor) The young Dauphin loved the stage. He famously danced the role of the Sun to the delight of the court at the age of 13. Later, when he began his personal reign at the age of 21, he adopted this allegory as his legendary alter-ego. Louis XIV [...]

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Q&A: Christine A. Jones

by cjones September 26, 2011

As you may have seen, we’re adding some contributors to Wonders & Marvels. We want you to get to know each of them, so we’re planning on doing a Q&A (like the one below) with each new contributor. This time around, we’re hearing from Christine Jones. Christine’s first post for Wonders & Marvels was on the [...]

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The Architecture of Romance

by cjones September 24, 2011

By Christine A. Jones (W&M Contributor) Not long after the construction of the legendary Taj Mahal, Louis XIV built a monument to passion, but it was not for his wife, Queen Maria Theresa. Over the course of his reign, he fell in love with other women who came to live at Versailles. His second paramour, the [...]

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