THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR' S TALE

Gerard Araud outgoing French ambassador to the United States compared in his "political testament" the Trump administration to the court of Louis XIV. He called the American president "whimsical, unpredictable and uninformed", all things the king was not.

Paradoxically this statement is at the same time unfair for the Sun King and flattering for Trump, who is usually put in the company of Brecht's Arturo Ui and the Sopranos. The ambassador just proved that wit is not always the best of recommendations.

Louis XIV never reclaimed the mantle of virtue (but with his last mistress).  In building Versailles he finalized a sophisticated coup, obliging nobility to live in and finance the golden cage which became their prison. The Trump White House looks like a small bathroom for too many users.

Besides, if Trump is an obese psychopath, Louis was a strategic thinker, familiar with the maps, the intentions and the vanities. L'etat c'est moi,  and so was his court, in his image.

The ambassador might have been too elliptic for his own good.