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CHAPTER 2<br />

THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT: FACTORS PROMPTING<br />

ROYAL PATRONAGE OF CHURCHES<br />

The regency <strong>of</strong> Queen Maria de’ Medici (1610-1617) <strong>and</strong> the personal reign <strong>of</strong> her son<br />

King Louis XIII (1617-1643) each began on shaky ground: Maria ruled following the<br />

assassination <strong>of</strong> her husb<strong>and</strong> King Henri IV (1589-1610), <strong>and</strong> Louis assumed full control <strong>of</strong> the<br />

throne after a coup d’état exiling his mother. Each change <strong>of</strong> power placed the kingdom <strong>of</strong><br />

France in the h<strong>and</strong>s <strong>of</strong> a relatively inexperienced ruler whose lack <strong>of</strong> governmental control,<br />

combined with the realm’s political uncertainty <strong>and</strong> religious divisions, made the country<br />

vulnerable to civil disorder <strong>and</strong> foreign invasion. As part <strong>of</strong> their efforts to overcome these<br />

obstacles, the queen <strong>and</strong> king required <strong>visual</strong> tools that could communicate their individual<br />

agendas to the public, functioning as symbols <strong>of</strong> the most pressing concerns <strong>of</strong> each <strong>of</strong> their<br />

reigns. Among the methods they both chose was the patronage <strong>of</strong> Parisian churches.<br />

The decision to use ecclesiastical architecture as a means <strong>of</strong> expressing their individual<br />

goals was the outcome <strong>of</strong> certain crucial developments in French history emerging in the halfcentury<br />

before the two reigns—the Wars <strong>of</strong> Religion, the rise <strong>and</strong> reign <strong>of</strong> Henri IV, <strong>and</strong> the<br />

effect <strong>of</strong> the Catholic Reformation in France, especially Paris. 1 The purpose <strong>of</strong> this chapter is to<br />

demonstrate how these issues continued to exert influence on the seventeenth-century monarchs’<br />

reigns, contributing to the king <strong>and</strong> queen’s decisions to provide assistance for churches. By also<br />

examining the monarchs’ approach to foreign affairs <strong>and</strong> religious divisions during the respective<br />

reigns, this chapter will show the manner in which the distinctive h<strong>and</strong>ling by Maria <strong>and</strong> Louis<br />

<strong>of</strong> each issue further led them to support religious institutions. As I will demonstrate in this <strong>and</strong><br />

later chapters, they chose to become patrons <strong>of</strong> new churches to express <strong>visual</strong>ly their personal<br />

monarchical goals, which for Maria was the assertion <strong>of</strong> her own power <strong>and</strong> the promotion <strong>of</strong> a<br />

strong Catholic Europe, while for Louis it was an autonomous <strong>and</strong> loyal <strong>state</strong>.<br />

To show how the religious <strong>and</strong> political issues affecting Maria de’ Medici <strong>and</strong> Louis XIII<br />

drove the monarchs to use churches as tools during each <strong>of</strong> their reigns, I draw from secondary<br />

sources <strong>of</strong> French history. While the scholarship for this period acknowledges the intricate<br />

16

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