The Canary in the Coal Mine...

As someone who's been fortunate enough to travel most everywhere, I've got to tell you one of my favorite places to visit is the Versailles Palace.

The "Palace," as you may well know, is located about 10 miles south of Paris, France.  It was a nondescript hunting lodge used only by the Plantagenet Kings for more than a hundred years.  Then, in 1682, one Louis XIV, France's infamous "Sun King," decided to turn this small lodge into his primary Royal residence.

And turn it he did.  The Palace compound covers some 3 square miles.  Louis grew this place into what can only be described as a world wonder (It's on the United Nations Historic Register).  It is surrounded by lush forests and bubbling streams, which the Kings used for game hunting.  Its room count can vary, although it sports at least 700 of them restored for public viewing.  

Most impressive, perhaps, is its vaunted "Hall of Mirrors," which is more than 240 feet long.  The "Hall," festooned with mirrors from floor to ceiling, was the location of the signing of the "Treaty of Versailles," ending World War I. 

Having lived in Paris for a time during the Cold War, I was able to visit Versailles more than a dozen times.  And what impressed me most back then, and still does, is its decided lack of bathrooms.  With more than 700 rooms, it features exactly NO bathrooms!  None!

Why?  The historians tell us that the French of old had decidedly different feelings toward human waste than we do now.  So different, in fact, that they didn't use rest rooms.  At all.  Should you be in attendance at one of Louis' nightly feasts, usually comprising 400 or more guests, and need to take a leak, or worse, you would simply step outdoors, drop your garments and proceed.  Or, if you were busy partying in the Main Ballroom and needed to evacuate, you could call over a "piss pot" servant who would dutifully step up behind you, help you raise your skirts, or lower your breeches, and assist you in "minding your own business."

I'm guessing these folks were not too high on the social register back then.

Needless to say, the Versailles Palace stunk like a sewer.  Indoors and out.  So, to overcome that stench, and the awful stink of body odor resulting from no one bathing (they thought it would cause disease!), they were masters at manufacturing perfumes to mask their terrible smells.

BTW, Louis took but one primary bath a year!  And his minions would gather around and lovingly watch his servants bathe him.  And they paid a tax to do so!  Think of it:  a public delousing of the Sun King.  

Imagine:  The richest, most powerful people in the richest, most powerful country on Earth, pooping in public and covering up the smell with perfume.  The Minoans on ancient Rhodes had flush toilets 4,000 years ago.  The French had a guy carrying a piss pot 3,600 years later...

Why do I choose to bring this up on a nice, sunny Labor Day Weekend?  Because I find the comparison between the Versailles Palace of 400 years ago and the City of San Francisco today tremendously compelling.  

The French would step over or around piles of human excrement, taking care only to keep the crap off their tony little ballet slippers.  The San Franciscan swells step over or around piles of human excrement today, taking care only to keep the crap off their Jimmy Choos and their Johnson and Murphys. 

Both were/are at the top of their game.  They both then abused their mandates and raised taxes beyond their citizens' ability to pay.  They both then disarmed their populaces once rumblings of discontent were observed.  And they both passed onerous, unnecessary and unworkable rules and regulations designed to keep their "serfs" controlled and compliant.  And broke.  

But following decades of mistreatment, the poor peasants finally decided enough had become enough.  They chose to take up their torches and pitchforks back in the 1780's, turning the French Royals out and ushering democracy in.  I'm wondering when, or even if, the "peasants" of modern-day San Francisco will rise up and reclaim what used to be the most beautiful city in America.  Now?  The most poop-covered, homeless-infested, nasty-smelling, overpriced and underserved, and most misled, mismanaged and totally messed-up mess in all of America.

But do the "leaders" of San Francisco notice?  I somehow doubt it.  Just as Louis and his cadre of smelly swells chose to avoid noticing the undercurrent of discontent swirling around them back then, so do the "leaders" of San Francisco today.  

Just as miners of today bring canaries with them into the mines as an "early warning" signal to indicate when danger necessitates evacuation, I'm thinking perhaps the people of San Francisco should do the same.  I guess Kate Steinle's murder by a 5 time-deported illegal alien wasn't enough to sound that early warning.  I wonder just what it might take?