I have to admit, I was a little alarmed by the intensity of my glee when I found out that Paris Hilton is going to be serving 45 days in jail. And I am not alone.

But I think I’ve figured out why there’s such public rejoicing: Paris Hilton is our modern-age Marie Antoinette.

It’s not just the coincidence of Hilton’s first name. They were born into fortunes. They were fashion trend-setters. They spent obscene amounts of money on their birthday parties. They both liked tiny dogs: Marie Antoinette’s dogs were Papillons, Paris Hilton has those chihuahuas. What was “The Simple Life” if not an extended version of “Let them eat cake?”

Of course, to be fair, those stories about Marie Antoinette’s depraved sexual exploits were almost certainly made up by French pamphleteers. The documentation is rather more solid for Hilton’s.

[Side Story: My friend Tara spent two years in Senegal with the Peace Corps, and when I sent her care packages, I’d try to include some DVDs along with the Visine and PowerBars. These were the lean years of grad school, so I got used ones from Blockbuster. But the most popular one I ever sent was The Simple Life 2, where Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie “worked” on a farm. Tara said her Peace Corps friends always gasped at a scene where a bucket of milk got kicked over, because dude, it was a whole bucket of milk!]