…You must know that until the time when the monarchy became sedentary, under Louis XIV, tables, chairs, beds were all carried from place to place. They were mobile furnishings; hence naming them “furniture” [mobilier in French].
On this very bed, where probably the regent entertained half the ladies in the court, his wife, seriously ill, lived her last minutes.
Camille Lalande (Agnès Jaoui), one of the main characters in On connaît la chanson, is an historian who leads several guided tours through the movie.
In one of these, she explains the etymology of the word “furniture” (mobile in French).
English is one of the few European languages that does not derive the word from Latin mobile, “movable”: mobile in French, moble in Catalan, møbel in Danish, meubilair in Dutch, möbel in German and Swedish, mueble in Spanish…
