On The Throne

Boys: you’ve just gotten yourself comfy in your favourite Barca lounger, the game is on, your beer is cracked and your wife is gone for the afternoon. Does it get any better than this? Well, if you’re a 17th Century French King, it does in fact. Because you wouldn’t even have to get up to take care of your business. Little known fact: there is such a thing as a Toilet Armchair. It was invented by a man.

It’s basically a wooden chair with a hole cut in the seat.

Red Green would have been so proud.

And the next time you complain about your job, think about the long-suffering chair-bearers of the 16th Century. Introduced during the reign of François I (1515-1547), chair bearers carried around His Majesty’s portable toilet and attended to his “Royal needs”. So grown men had potties. Got it. This was actually considered to be a very prestigious career choice, since it meant getting to spend intimate time with the King. One of Versailles’ most esteemed positions was the Gentilhomme porte Coton, (does saying it in French make it sound better?) a man who, armed with little more than a cotton ball and a silver platter, would receive the Sun King’s tragically infrequent droppings and hurry them to the appropriate authorities. Merde, what a job.



No, forget about Versailles, gentlemen; forget about his attempts to transform France into the industrial and intellectual hub of Europe; overlook the new road system, the construction of canals and ports, the organization of a modern police force and the expansion of the navy and merchant marine into major exporters. No, No. Louis XIV should be remembered for popularizing the Toilet Armchair. Louis announced his marriage to Madame de Maintenon while on his “business seat.” Or as he liked to call it, his chaise d’affaires.

And would they have had people leave the room, or was it business as usual?

Louis XIV was known for having a ‘delicate stomach.’ So the toilet armchair would ensure that no opportunity (sorry, can’t help it) passed unexploited. Because although his successor Louis XV was considered the greatest military genius of all time, according to inventory conducted shortly before the French Revolution, he left nearly three hundred toilet seats behind at the Palace of Versailles. And isn’t that the true measure of a man? Isn’t that how we are going to remember him best?

Condolences go to the poor, starving masses of French revolutionists who ransacked and looted the Palace of Versailles after Louis XVI’s reign. To the victors go...the spoils...of three hundred toilet armchairs.