From the warrior king to the peaceful king: Louis XIV’s public image and the Peace of Utrecht

Abstract

These words were addressed by Jean-Baptiste Massillon to the very young King Louis XV in 1718 when the Bishop of Clermont was in charge of preaching the Little Lent before the French court. At the time, this implacable charge against war was nothing but a condemnation of the bellicose foreign policy conducted by Louis XIV during his long reign and an attack against the image of the ‘Warrior King’ as the main basis of the public image of the Sun King. 2 Actually, the sermon of Massillon was preached just a few years after Louis XIV’s death and was not the first charge by Massillon against the correlation made by the Sun King between sovereignty and war. When Louis XIV died in 1715, the Revenue Chamber invited Massillon to pronounce a funeral oration on the Great King in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. The famous pulpit orator condemned the ‘Warrior King’ image in those words:But alas! Sad memory of our victories, what do you recall to us? These superb monuments raised in our public places, in order to immortalize their memories, what will you recall to our nephews, when they will ask you (. . .) the meaning of those pompous and titanic blocks? (. . .)too many inconsolable mothers, who are still mourning their children, deserted fields offering more brambles than the treasure they contained to the small number of ploughmen forced to neglect them, desolated cities, our exhausted people, arts without emulation, depressed trade. You will recall to them your losses, instead of your conquests. You will recall to them (. . .) fire, blood, blaspheme, abominations, and all the horrors of war, you will recall to them our crimes, rather than our victories. O scourge of God! O war! 3Even if that kind of war denunciation was not universally shared by contemporaries of Massillon and even if many of those who pronounced a funeral oration on Louis XIV continued to celebrate him as a ‘Warrior King’, the general attitude towards war and peace seems to have changed with the Peace of Utrecht. 4 All through the seventeenth century, war had stimulated the building of the modern state, particularly in France, and it had become increasingly thought of as the touchstone of sovereignty. 5 Furthermore, war used to be considered positively as a way of restoring a universal order in accordance with the medieval Christian tradition. 6 Nevertheless, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, war was understood not only as a royal and glorious activity but also and above all as a destructive and bloody one. In contrast, peace was valorised by contemporaries of Massillon. Actually, if peace had traditionally been thought of as a synonym of happiness and tranquility, it had more been celebrated as a Christian ideal for sovereigns as well as for peoples than an achievable reality. The Abbe Saint-Pierre even complained in his famous Project on Perpetual Peace written during the Utrecht negotiations, that peace used to be thought only as a ‘truce’ between two wars. Nonetheless, at the beginning of the eighteenth century and especially after 1713 peace was more and more valorised as a synonym of happiness and abundance that could become a lasting reality and which had to be the principal aim of sovereigns. 7Nevertheless, this change did not occur without Louis XIV. The Sun King actively participated in the general aspiration to peace. During the last years of the War of the Spanish Succession the Sun King felt that military defeats challenged not only his public image as a ‘Warrior King’ but also the building of the French state. He attempted to deal with these challenges by significantly transforming his public image, no longer presenting himself as a ‘Warrior King’ but as a Peaceful King, preoccupied only by his people’s happiness and welfare. Massillon himself reported the last words supposedly addressed by Louis XIV to his grandson: ‘Be a pacific Prince: the most glorious conquests are those which gain us hearts.’ 8The aim of this chapter is to analyse the changing public image of Louis XIV before and after the Peace of Utrecht. This treaty was signed thanks to the efforts of negotiators, the work of diplomats and the conces-social process and its valorisation during the last years of the War of the Spanish Succession was a precondition for constructing a lasting peace, not based on state competition but on the balance of power and on commerce. 9The M ercure Galant , a French gazette read by the elegant society in Paris and in French provincial towns, reported in May 1713 that ‘there are festivities and public rejoicings everywhere in France and among the Allies; the joy that peace inspires in peoples is a guarantee of the happiness that it promises.’ 10 Informing the population about the signature of peace treaties by organising public ceremonies was a royal tradition in France; the kings used these occasions to celebrate their own power. 11 In 1713, the Peace of Utrecht seemed to be unanimously celebrated throughout France, but the royal image conveyed by the public peace ceremonies was not the same everywhere, as two examples prove. 12At the reception of the king’s orders to inform the inhabitants of their district about the signing of the Peace of Utrecht, members of the Parliament of Rouen organised ceremonies in honour of the Peace. According to a contemporary summary of the celebration, ‘after a Te Deum was sung, a very beautiful motet about Peace and Victories, composed by the Master in Music Sieur Lamy, was sung by many musical choirs.’ 13 Some pieces of prose and poetry were also composed for the occasion and published. A poem entitled ‘A Monseigneur le duc de Luxembourg’ celebrated French victories:Don’t fear anything faithful people, Everything will meet your desires, The most perfect amongst the kings, Makes the happiness of your Pleasures. LOUIS, this hero full of Glory, Always wise in his projects, Has always used Victory; Only to ensure you Peace. 14In another piece of poetry entitled ‘Sur la Paix’ the author affirmed:Come girls from Heaven, Descend on Earth, LOUIS fights only for you, Go, don’t wait that his just wrath Has overwhelmed its Thunder,Crown this hero when you wish And the Earth is already strewn, By many squadrons defeated by France. He triumphed for you, come divine Peace, Come, hurry down, See everywhere, These mixtures of Dead people, Weapons and Banners, To his mercy finally come and go, Take your most favourable look To the universe that he can reduce in ashes. 15Those poems and the motet produced during the Rouen ceremony give a strange impression to the historian: it seems that nothing had changed with the Peace of Utrecht. Those celebrations look exactly like those of the Treaties of Nijmegen signed in 1678 when France was in a much better situation than in 1713. In Rouen’s festivities, Louis XIV was still idealised as an always victorious ‘Warrior King’. 16Nevertheless, other peace ceremonies prove that such a celebration of the ‘Warrior King’ was challenged by another representation of Louis XIV and that the Treaty of Utrecht coincided with a changing attitude towards peace: from now on, peace – not war – was considered as the normal relationship between states. In Paris, a celebration was organised on 25 May 1713 on the Place de Greve, which was decorated by ephemeral monuments. In a printed explanation of the ceremony, the intentions of the ‘Prevot des Marchands’ and ‘Echevins de la ville de Paris’ are explained: ‘As Peace has just ensured the rest of the peoples and restored on earth Trade, Science and Arts, which are not to be cultivated but in rest and tranquility, we used it as the subject of the decoration of the fireworks.’ 17 The people’s happiness seems to replace the king’s glory as the main subject of the peace celebrations. Moreover, the king was represented not as a victorious king, as in Rouen, but really as a Peaceful King. An obelisk was placed in the centre of the Place de Greve. It represented horns of plenty from which emerged a Caduceus. On the obelisk, the audience could observe two angels holding the king’s arms and olive tree branches. On the obelisk’s pedestal, Minerva was represented with Sciences and Arts. A Cyclops was transforming a scimitar into a sickle. 18Rouen and Paris’ peace ceremonies reveal how difficult it was to break with the traditional celebration of the ‘Warrior King’, even after the Peace of Utrecht. Nevertheless, peace was no longer seen only as the complement of war but as its opposite. According to the Parisian ceremony, only peace could provide for the people’s welfare, and kings had to make every effort to ensure it. Even the French Academicians, responsible for the ‘most important thing’ in the eyes of Louis XIV, i.e. his glory, participated in theFrance and England, the French Academicians heard a discourse written by M. Morant, counsel for the king at the Presidial seat of Soissons, on this topic: ‘It is always glorious to a King to make the first steps for peace.’ 20 The French Academicians seem to have been enchanted by this text since they asked their official publisher to print it.