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NICOLE REINHARDT the King's Confessor: Changing Images NICOLE REINHARDT The King's Confessor: Changing Images in MICHAEL SCHAICH (ed.), Monarchy and Religion: The Transformation of Royal Culture in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) pp. 153–185 ISBN: 978 0 19 921472 3 The following PDF is published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND licence. Anyone may freely read, download, distribute, and make the work available to the public in printed or electronic form provided that appropriate credit is given. However, no commercial use is allowed and the work may not be altered or transformed, or serve as the basis for a derivative work. The publication rights for this volume have formally reverted from Oxford University Press to the German Historical Institute London. All reasonable effort has been made to contact any further copyright holders in this volume. Any objections to this material being published online under open access should be addressed to the German Historical Institute London. DOI: 6 The King's Confessor: Changing Images NICOLE REINHARDT Voltaire, in his famous account of the reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715), makes an interesting statement referring to the last years of the Sun King's reign: 'C'est une chose très remarquable que le public, qui lui pardonna toutes ses maitresses, ne lui pardonna pas son confesseur [Père Le Tellier]. Il perdit, les trois demieres années de sa vie, clans l'esprit de la plupart de ses sujets, tout ce qu'il avait fait de grand et de memorable.'1 Voltaire's remarkable observation sums up the central argument of this essay, namely, that the king and his confessor cannot be regarded separately, but must be seen as reflecting each other's images. These images, however, prove to be shifting in line with their public perception. This implies not only a complex system of mirroring images, but a highly fragile triangular relationship of guilt and pardon that links the king to his confessor and to his subjects. As will become clear in what follows, this relationship underwent a profound change at the beginning of the eighteenth century, partly as a result of the role attributed-or arrogated- to what Voltaire called 'the public'. Historical inquiry into the role and function of the king's confessor developed only after the French Revolution. 2 The king's confessor seemed literally to incorporate everything the enlightened and liberal public had denounced as the most abhorrent traits of the ancien régime: the confessors were among the king's favourites and councillors, whose ascendance had I am grateful to Vincenzo Lavenia for his patience and for putting some truly Jesuit questions. 1 Voltaire, 'Le Siecle de Louis XIV', in Rene Pomeau (ed.), CEWJres hiswriques de Voltaire (Paris, 2000), 957. 2 The first study is by Abbe Gregoire, Histoire des confesseurs des Empereurs, des Rois et d'autres Princes (Paris, 1824). 154 NICOLE REINHARDT been closely linked to the development of an absolute monarchy. Even more than lay councillors, the confessor's relationship with the king was by definition a secret one and thus the most radical incarnation of the arcana characteristic of the ancien régime's art of government. 3 In addition, the confessor could claim the most exclusive access to the king's conscience which-at least in theory-was the focus of absolute power in its direct responsibil- ity to God. Although the act of confession itself was a moment in which the king was as humble a Christian as any of his subjects, the personally appointed confessor was the most tangible embodiment of seemingly uncontrollable church influence on state matters. More than any other topic, the confessor seems to resist the search for historical truth. Whenever rational explanations of royal behaviour seem difficult, the confessor's influence easily comes to hand and seems to explain the inexplicable. 4 The figure of the confessor reminds us that often in history it is impossible to know what one would like to know. I will not be able to come up with any news from the king's confessional, but I hope that by the end of this essay, the right questions will have been asked about the sources: what is known; how is this know- ledge constituted; and what does it make the historian believe? These will be the guiding questions asked in order to shed some light on three main points. After a brief account of the develop- ment of the confessor's function as a court office in France, I shall concentrate on the changes which took place at the begin- ning of the reign of Louis XV (17151 4), and, finally, focus on the public image of the confessor. 3 Antonio Feros, 'Images of Evil, Images of Kings: The Contrasting Faces of the Royal Favourites and the Prime Ministers in Early Modem European Political Literature', in John H. Elliott and Laurence W. B. Brockliss (eds.), The World qf the Favourite /New Haven, 1999), 205-22. According to Abbe Gregoire, Napoleon did not have a confessor. See Gregoire, Histoire des confasseurs, 402. However, there is a plan for the imperial court which contains the post of a confessor, Archives Nationales, Paris (henceforth AN), K 1712. + Georges Minois, I.£ Corifesseur du roi: L£s directeurs de conscience sous la monarchie franfai,se (Paris, 1988), 9-17, who criticizes this attitude, however, is partly the victim of an uncriti- cal narration of anecdotes that surround the confessor. He does not question their nature and emergence. The King's Confessor: Changing Im.ages 155 I The confessor was part of a large group of clerics employed at the court for the king's religious service. Since the thirteenth century the French kings had been granted the papal privilege of appointing a confessor of their own choice, and were thus exempted from episcopal jurisdiction. 5 The first confessors, who also governed the ecclesiastical household, were royal chaplains, but gradually the confesseur attitré was distinguished from the chaplain. During the reign of Francis I (1515-47), who set the pattern for the development of the French court in the early modern period, the ecclesiastical household was reorganized. The grand aumônier was promoted head of the royal ecclesiastical household, and he administered the royal hospitals and almsgiv- ing. From the time of Louis XIII (1610-43) on, the grand aumônier was always of cardinal's rank. He became the superior court clergyman. 6 The new role played by the grand aumônier as the king's most important priest reshaped the confessor's office and liberated him from administrative tasks within the chapel. What at first glance appears to be a decline of influence is better described as a process of differentiation which linked the confes- sor to the king in a more direct and exclusive way. Whereas the royal confessor remained a single individual, the overall number of clerics serving in the royal chapel grew rapidly. The number of aumôniers, in particular, increased to almost 250 before Richelieu (1624-42) reduced their number to roughly eight, that is, two serving each quarter. 7 The ecclesiastical house- 5 Privileges accordis ala Couronne de France par le Sai.nt Siige pubaes d'apres les origina,,x conserves aux Arcluves de /'Empire et a la Bibliotheque imperiale (Paris, 1815), 7, no. IX: papal bull by Innocent N in favour of Louis IX, 5 Dec. 1243; on the medieval development, Xavier de La Selle, Le Service des ames a la Gour: Coefesseurs et Aumoniers des Rois de France du Xllle au XVe siicle (Paris, 1995), 37 ff. 6 Alexandre Maral, La Chapelle Royale de Versailles sous Louis XIV: Ceremonial, liturgie_. musique (Sprimont, 2002), 59; Etienne Oroux, Histoire ecclisiastique de la Gour de France, ou l'on trouve tout ce qui concerne l'histoire de la Chapelle, & des principaux O.fficiers &clisiastiques de nos Rois, 2 vols. (Paris, 1n6), i. 59 and 65-6. 7 Jeroen Duindam, 'The Bourbon and Austrian Habsburg Courts: Numbers, Ordinances, Ceremony-and Nobles', in Ronald G. Asch (ed.), Der europiiische Adel im Ancien R.egime: Von der Krise der stiindischen Monarchie zur Revolulion (1600--1789) (Cologne, 2001), 181-206, at 190. This transition seems to have been slow. In a court list of 1644, apart from the eight 'aurnoniers par quarrier' we still find 'Onze autres aurnoniers n'ayant quartiers' and 'Seize autres aumoniers n'ayant quartiers ni gages.' AN 0 1 751, no. 69: Abrege de l'etat general des officiers de la maison du Roi arrete par Louis XIV en 1644. NICOLE REINHARDT hold was thus hierarchically composed of the grand aumônier de France, the premier aumônier, the eight ordinary aumôniers, one maître de l'oratoire, the king's confessor, two court preachers, a preacher for Lent and Advent, a preacher and confessor for the ordinary members of the court, a chaplain of the oratory, and eight other chaplains, eight chapel clerics, a sacristan, and two sommiers. There was also an additional group of six aumôniers de St Roch, who provided religious services during military campaigns.8 These forty-odd ecclesiastics were by no means the only ones at court. In fact, the queen had her own ecclesiastical household which was similarly composed, but slightly smaller in number.9 In addi- tion, we have to count the clerics in the service of other members of the royal family as soon as they came of age. Thus in 1789 the court budgets list forty-eight members in the King's ecclesiastical household, twenty-one in the Queen's service, two for the educa- tion of the Dauphin, eighteen for Madame Adélaide, eighteen for Madame Victoire, four in the service of the enfants de France, and three in the service of Madame Elisabeth, which gives a total of I 14 clerics employed in the households of the different members of the royal family.
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