Thoughts on Etiquette Absurdities

“It was a rule of etiquette in France during the reign of ‘Le Roi Soleil,’ the great Louis XIV, that when the King visited a sick subject the King, too, must lie down in a bed on the ground that it would never do for a subject to maintain a more informal attitude than his master during the audience. Louis XIV visiting the Marshal de Villars after Malplaquet, lay in a bed beside the suffering soldier in that way.

Etiquette… An Old Fashioned Man Frees His Mind About Its Absurdities

“Whether to eat fish with a fish knife and fork or a fork and a bit of bread, whether to serve champagne in a tumbler or a goblet—it is quite absurd to regard one of these courses as right and the other as wrong and to admire or despise a person accordingly. The average rule of etiquette has nothing to do with courtesy, with good breeding, and it is no criterion of courtesy or of good breeding.” The speaker, an old fashioned gentleman from the country, knotted the ends of his napkin more firmly about his neck. ‘‘Smile at me, nephews and nieces,” he resumed, “because I tuck my napkin under my chin. Yet, why should I spoil my black broadcloth coat with turkey stains or smears of cranberry sauce? 

It is a rule of etiquette, you say, that the napkin may only be placed across the knee—an absurd, ephemeral rule! “It was a rule of etiquette in France during the reign of ‘Le Roi Soleil,’ the great Louis XIV, that when the King visited a sick subject the King, too, must lie down in a bed on the ground that it would never do for a subject to maintain a more informal attitude than his master during the audience. Louis XIV visiting the Marshal de Villars after Malplaquet, lay in a bed beside the suffering soldier in that way. Behold the absurdities of etiquette and let me do with my napkin what I please.” —New Orleans Times-Democrat, 1909

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia