The Library › Reel I · The Scissor Queen
Did Louis XVI really have a locksmith’s workshop?
VERDICTTRUE
Yes. Madame Campan describes a forge with two anvils above the King’s private library at Versailles, stocked with common, secret and gilded locks. His teacher, the locksmith François Gamain, said Louis hid from the Queen and the court to file and forge with him. The Queen scolded him for his blackened hands. Gamain later accused the King of trying to poison him and got a pension for it.
The receipts
- Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette (Madame Campan), Project Gutenberg
- Louis XVI and metalworking, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
The comedy version
The untold story of Marie Antoinette, inventor of scissoring.
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