When Louis XIV had an anal fistula, his doctors paced the mirrored halls of the vast palace he had built at Versailles pondering how to treat it. Eventually the Sun King agreed to an operation – a risky choice in the 17th century when modern surgery was barely in its infancy. The royal surgeon Charles-François Félix invented a curved silver scalpel to get at the fistula – you can see it in this glittering science history blockbuster – and practised on local paupers, killing several. The rehearsals worked: he fixed the royal fistula and Louis XIV lived on until 1715, his 72-year reign a world record.
In Versailles: Science and Splendour a silver scalpel slices through the cliche that the French palace was a world of pure fantasy frolics. The royal surgeon’s experiments were brutal but they also illustrate how Versailles in the 1780s was spearheading science.
