The Court of Shadows (Vampyria Saga, Book One) belongs to the historical fantasy genre. As such, I took little-known facts and striking anecdotes from the historical Versailles, where I grew up, and I used them to create my vampiric version of Versailles. Let me share with you five anecdotes, based on five colors.
Red heels
If I tell you that red heels are the ultimate fashion statement, do you think Louboutin? Actually, the first celeb to wear red heels was the king of influencers: Louis XIV himself. After visiting a market in Paris, his shoes became red with cow’s blood. Because everybody wanted to mimic him at the court, all courtiers started to wear red heels overnight. This trend lasted more than one season and became part of the etiquette: in Versailles, eventually, only nobles were allowed to wear red heels.
I took this anecdote from history and translated it to the gothic world of Vampyria. At the Court of Shadows, only noble vampires can show off shoes as red as blood.
Black magic
The time of Louis XIV is full of paradoxes. It’s the time of Descartes, of Pascal, and of the advent of reason, which prefigured the Age of Enlightenment. But paradoxically, it’s also an age of darkness, with an incredible resurgence of superstitions and of the occult. Witchcraft was never more practiced in France than under Louis XIV. The lurid Affair of the Poisons illustrates this: the King’s favorite, Madame de Montespan, was involved in a sordid network of witches, satanic priests and black masses with human sacrifices. She thought it was the only way for her to magically keep the King’s love.
In the Vampyria series, I dig into these dark secrets that proliferate under the gild of Versailles: it’s gothic “à la française”.
Yellow bile
The kind of medicine that was practiced at Versailles was very close to magical thinking and to alchemy. Based on beliefs dating back to antiquity, the doctors of the time thought that the human body was made of four humors based on the four elements: earth was represented by black bile, fire by yellow bile, water by phlegm and air by blood.
In the Vampyria series, I imagine a fifth humor specific to vampires: shadowessence, representing the Shadows. This mystical substance preserves the immortals’ bodies after death, slowly mummifying them form the inside and depriving them from any remainder of their former humanity.
White ceruse
The French cosmetic and perfume industry was born in Versailles under the reign of Louis XIV. Women tried to be as fair as possible. A marmoreal complexion was seen as a sign of nobility because it showed that you did not have to work outside under the sun. As such, courtiers used beauty spots made of dark velvet to reinforce the contrast with their complexion. They also applied ghoulish preparations, for instance a mixture of bat’s wool and lizard’s legs. One of the most infamous and toxic substances was the Venetian ceruse, made with white lead. Repeated usage eventually caused lead poisoning, deep skin scarring, and potentially death.
At the Court of Shadows, many mortal courtiers use and abuse these skin whiteners to appear as pale as the vampires from the high aristocracy. But not everybody succumbs to this toxic trend. Because Vampyria is alternate history, I imagined a court much more diverse than it was historically. In Versailles, my heroine Jeanne will make the acquaintance of courtiers from Japan, from the Ottoman Empire, and from India. One of the most intense characters Jeanne will meet, Zacharie de Grand-Domaine, is a young African-French chevalier from Louisiana. He came to Versailles to fight against the abject consequence of European vampiric colonialism in the Americas: slavery.
Pearlescent stars
Louis XIV was a man of his time: the beginning of modern history. He lived in a world where scientific discoveries revealed that Earth was no longer the center of the universe. This is why he took the nickname of “Sun King.” In his own words, he wanted to be “the king of stars, the star of kings.” His megalomania translated into the mythological figure of the sun-god Apollo that is present everywhere in Versailles. But King Louis also nurtured a genuine interest for astronomy. In 1666, he founded the Royal Academy and the Paris Observatory.
In Vampyria, I imagine that the immortal King Louis spends his nights in his astronomical tower, watching the vastness of the universe. He is fascinated by the fact that remote stars, long after their death, continue to emit light as if they were some kind of giant, cosmic vampires. There is an aspect of Lovecraftian horror here that I will develop in the series.
Victor Dixen is the author of many bestselling French novels, including four series for young adults: THE STRANGE CASE OF JACK SPARK, ANIMALE, PHOBOS and VAMPYRIA; and he is a two-time winner of the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, the most prestigious science-fiction and fantasy award in France. A major international success, the VAMPYRIA series has been widely translated and is available in 9 languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Czech, German, Russian, Dutch, Finnish, and now English).
Born to a French mother and Danish father, Victor grew up in the city of Versailles. As an adult, he has lived in Denver, Dublin, Singapore, and New York City. He now divides his time between Paris and Washington, DC with his family and his two inquisitive cats. Discover more about Victor Dixen on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter: @VictorDixen and at victordixen.com.
