Even when looking for him, his appearance is a surprise. A kind of astonishment paired with a disappointment specific to so many encounters with what is supposed to make humanity great. A “Oh wow! followed by “I didn’t imagine it like that…”
Posted yesterday at 11:00 a.m.
Buckingham Palace delivers all that disappointment. The building itself is not the most spectacular castle in the world, or even in England. From an architectural point of view, I would even dare to say that it is quite dull. The courtyard of dry dewy asphalt unrolling under its facade does not establish any magic and the impressive guards of immobility are too far to be really. Despite everything and being a fanatic of complicated clothes, Rembrandt and incomprehensible protocols, this day in June 1998 would finally allow me to combine all my passions by visiting the palace!
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR
Philippe-Audrey Larrue St-Jacques visiting Buckingham Palace in June 1998.
The architectural blandness was the harbinger of even greater disappointment: the gates would remain closed. Why ? Versailles opened up to me as soon as I went there. The kings of France were much more welcoming than the queen of England. Some will say that the revolution had something to do with it… In my opinion, by sulking in front of the palace, it was because the queen lacked consideration. Especially since the previous year, the death of his daughter-in-law had revealed the abyssal schism which separated the royal family from its people. It is precisely this distance that has always fascinated me with the monarchy. How, while the values of equality and permeability of classes are taught everywhere, do we agree to favor a single family?
Finding an answer at 10 years was perhaps too optimistic. Finding an answer at my age is still too optimistic. I have no competence to explain the relevance of the constitutional intricacies binding us to the Crown. I’m still struggling to understand a phone bill…
To console me, at the time, my parents showed me the best the British crown had to offer: the British Museum (not yet renovated)! The Museum of All Civilizations. I remember my amazement in front of the friezes of the Parthenon and the Bronzes of Benin! Humanity was marvelously beautiful! I remember my fascination with Japanese tools 9500 years old in all respects comparable to Mesopotamian tools also several millennia old. Humanity was wonderfully mystical! At the time, this museum was one of listening, sharing knowledge and everything that gives dignity to humanity!
A few weeks ago, I found London. This city shared between the God Save the Queen of the Royal Choir Society and that of the Sex Pistols. Where in a few minutes you can meet royal riders like in 1822 and drag queens like in 2022. History in London is written and erased everywhere at the same time.
I returned to Buckingham Palace. This time, the queen, although absent, was sensitive to my presence and the gates opened! To have known that the interior preserved the disappointments of the exterior, I would not have sulked in 1998! Which didn’t stop me from transforming a 75-minute visit into a 2:45 ordeal for all those who accompanied me (you have to know what happened to the descendants of Princess Louise in 1882! And that of Prince Arthur in 1886…)
To forget my disappointment, I found the British Museum (now renovated, but still not air-conditioned). The age-old artifacts were waiting for me there almost like old friends. As much as the first visit was a celebration of sharing and human listening. As much this time, it was the staggering observation of the atrocious desire for domination, of cultural extinction and of deafness in the face of peoples who have the dignity to claim the stolen fragments of their past. Perhaps because I am from Quebec, I understand the fragility of historicity. Perhaps because I am of my time, I understand the aversion to an institution that has uprooted entire peoples. (Horror lovers? Listen to a documentary on the territorial division between India and Pakistan…Freddy Krueger will console you in your nightmares.)
I have always seen history as a point around which we build the future by trying to perpetuate or correct the past. The Crown, in my eyes, embodies history and, thanks to the sovereign who wears it, it will become embedded in our popular culture through photos and series. History bears a face that we will forget to look at by dint of seeing its profile at the bottom of our wallets. This story represents both what we have most solemn, dignified and mystical, but also what we have done worst and that we must repair. And this crown, as with all that is supposed to make the greatness of humanity, causes disappointed amazement.