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In my 30 years of studying the literature and culture of Louis XIV, I never thought I would see an American president actually model himself on the Sun King, to the point that a recent essay in the New York Times declared the current Oval Office décor a “gilded rococo hellscape.” Along with the anti-royalist sentiment that used to characterize U.S. politics, I always assumed that most Americans had no real stomach for the hubris and sheer garishness that defined the style and surroundings of France’s most famous king. When I’ve taken students to Versailles, I’ve noticed that as much as they admire the size and ambitiousness of the château that Louis XIV declare

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