The Art of Kingship in Modern France
All eyes were on Charles III and Camilla postponing their trip to Paris, but there is a real autocrat at work there.
Message to the king.
Photographer: LOU BENOIST/AFPOn Friday, I missed the announcement that the King and Queen Consort of England had postponed their trip to Paris because of the strikes blanketing the city and the rest of France. I was stuck in a massive traffic jam trying to get to the airport in Berlin and spent most of the time muttering to myself about how I’d miss the flight. I made it, but the Air France flight had no onboard Wi-Fi.
Isolated from news, I mapped out the one thing I always do when visiting the French capital: a trip to the Place de l'Alma, where a gilded replica of the flame of the Statue of Liberty has been placed. More significantly for me, it also overlooks the road where Diana Spencer, ex-wife of the then-Prince of Wales, died in a car crash on Aug. 31, 1997. I enjoyed the frisson of mischief: I’d be paying homage to the late princess on the eve of Charles’s journey to Paris with the woman who broke up their marriage. It would be my own private episode of The Crown.