florida state university college of visual arts, theatre and dance ...

CHAPTER 4
SAINT-LOUIS-DES-JÉSUITES: LOUIS XIII’S MOVE TOWARDS ABSOLUTISM
In December 1641 Louis XIII declared Saint-Louis-des-Jésuites, a Parisian church built
for the Society of Jesus’s maison professe, as a royal foundation (fig. 28). 1 Completed after
more than fourteen years of work, the church included many references to the Gallic monarchy
and especially to St. Louis (Louis IX; 1226-1270), the only canonized French ruler and the
church’s patron saint. In addition to depictions of the holy king on the high altar, in the
transepts, and the dome, the artistic program included royal allusions such as fleurs-de-lis,
crowns, and images of other historic French leaders. The references to St. Louis and the French
monarchy paid tribute to the kingdom’s illustrious past and to the church’s major benefactor
Louis XIII, who descended from the holy king and bore his name (fig. 1). The artistic program
was, however, more than a method of thanking the current king for his generosity. Instead it was
a way for the Jesuits to affirm the power of the French monarchy, a much needed statement in
the wake of a controversy sparked by Jesuit publications challenging royal authority.
As the flagship church for the Society of Jesus in France, Saint-Louis-des-Jésuites is a
much-studied royal monument representing the flourishing of the Catholic Reformation in
seventeenth-century Paris. 2 While the scholarship documents the church’s history, its numerous
works of art, and Louis XIII’s role as a benefactor, little effort has been devoted to exploring the
king’s reasons for supporting Saint-Louis-des-Jésuites. The most frequent explanation is that the
king had a life-long affection for the religious group, a hypothetical fondness based on the fact
that Louis XIII always had a Jesuit confessor. 3 The dearth of information is especially evident
for two medals commissioned by Louis XIII to mark the placement of the foundation stone at the
church, a ceremony in which the king personally participated. 4 No study has sought to examine
the king’s actions surrounding these medals, which I argue along with the ceremonial placing of
the first stone were central components of Louis’s patronage. A further component missing from
the scholarship is the manner in which certain seventeenth-century Jesuit publications, which
discussed the legitimacy of regicide, influenced the relationship between the monarchy and the
Society of Jesus and how they affected royal support of Saint-Louis-des-Jésuites.
85