Versailles etiquette stripped royalty of ordinary bodily autonomy

Evidence

Dressing in the morning, she had to stand naked until she was handed a shift by the highest-ranking lady present; if, halfway through the ceremony, a lady of higher rank entered, Antoinette must shiver till the newcomer took her place in the line-up. She could do nothing for herself; if she wanted a glass of water, and the right person was not available to pass it to her, she had to go thirsty. — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 675

Categorization

• XREF: A concrete picture of how ritual systems physically constrain their participants - connects to Mantel’s broader interest in how power and ceremony enclose the body, seen in the Wolf Hall novels. — connects to: Exposure of royal bodies as sexual objects began with Diana — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 1185; Bourgeois republics punish the soul while monarchies punished the body.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 675