Everyone is Made of Glass

I always liked stories about eccentric royals doing mad things. Queen Christina of Sweden reportedly had a miniature cannon made for firing tiny cannonballs at fleas in her bedroom. Louis XIV made a proto-reality-show of his daily routines, allowing an audience of courtiers the honor of watching him dress, bathe, and use the toilet. Peter the Great famously returned from a tour of Western Europe, and refused to let men have beards near him. Intent on “modernizing” Russia, he personally shaved many of his noblemen, and implemented a beard tax. The weird behaviors of aristocrats always seemed especially fanciful to me. We probably only know about their quirks because they had the power to make others take them seriously. When a famous person expresses a novel form of madness, it sometimes catches on. In the 1390s, Charles VI of France came to believe he was physically made of glass. Insisting he could be easily shattered, he wouldn’t let people touch him, and had iron reinforcing rods…