A lust for virtue : Louis XIV's attack on sin in seventeenth-century France / Philip F. Riley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Riley, Philip F.

Series:

Contributions to the study of world history ; no. 88.

Contributions to the study of world history, 0885-9159 ; no. 88

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Louis XIV, King of France, 1638-1715--Religion.

Louis.

Church and state--France--History--17th century.

Church and state.

Sin--Christianity--History of doctrines--17th century.

Sin.

Counter-Reformation--France.

Counter-Reformation.

France--Moral conditions--History--17th century.

France.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (221 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024

Place of Publication:

Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Midway through his reign, in the critical decade of the 1680s, the lusty image of Louis XIV paled and was replaced by that of a straitlaced monarch committed to locking up blasphemers, debtors, gamblers, and prostitutes in wretched, foul-smelling prisons that dispensed ample doses of Catholic-Reformation virtue. The author demonstrates how this attack on sin expressed the punitive social policy of the French Catholic Reformation and how Louis's actions clarified the legal and moral distinctions between crime and sin. As a hot-blooded young prince, Louis XIV paid little attention to virtue or to sin and, despite his cherished title of God's Most Christian King, violations of God's Sixth and Ninth Commandments never troubled him. Indeed, for the first two decades of his reign, he paraded a stream of royal mistresses before all of Europe and fathered sixteen illegitimate children. Yet, midway through his reign, in the critical decade of the 1680s, the lusty image of Louis XIV paled and was replaced by that of a straitlaced monarch committed to locking up blasphemers, debtors, gamblers, and prostitutes in wretched, foul-smelling prisons that dispensed ample doses of Catholic-Reformation virtue. Using police and prison archives, administrative correspondence, memoirs, and letters, Riley describes the formation of Louis's narrow conscience and his efforts to safeguard his subjects' souls by attacking sin and infusing his kingdom with virtue, especially in Paris and at Versailles. Throughout his attack on sin, women--so-called Soldiers of Satan--were the special targets of the police. By the seventeenth century, fornication and adultery had become exclusively female crimes; men guilty of these sins were rarely punished as severely. Although unsuccessful, Louis's attack on sin clarified the legal and moral distinctions between crime and sin as well as the futility of enforcing a religiously inspired social policy on an irreverent, secular-minded France.

Contents:

Cover

A LUST FOR VIRTUE

CONTENTS

Copyright Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

NOTES

1 A LUST FOR VIRTUE

CORRUPTION, CRIME AND SIN

KINGLY VIRTUE

QUEEN ANNE

CARDINAL MAZARIN

MORAL TUTORS

THE FRONDE

2 WATCHDOG OF PARISIAN SIN

MURDER

A NEW MAGISTRATE

NEIGHBORHOOD POLICE

THE GREAT CONFINEMENT

APOLLO'S POLICE

SINFUL PARIS

OCCASIONS OF SIN

ASYLUMS OF VIRTUE

PRIVATE PRISONS

SAINT-LAZARE

A NEW MODEL?

BON PASTEUR

THE HÔPITAL-GÉNÉRAL

3 SOLDIERS OF SATAN

LAW

LUST

FEMALE CONFESSION

PROSTITUTION

LES GRANDES HORIZONTALES

LOWBORN WOMEN

"BLACK ARTS"

ABORTION, INFANTICIDE, AND SODOMY

CORRUPTING PRIESTS

DOMESTIC PROBLEMS

4 ADULTERY MOST ROYAL

ANNE OF AUSTRIA

ADULTERY

LOUISE DE LA VALLIÈRE

MME DE MONTESPAN

BOSSUET AND LA CHAISE

PHILANDERINGS

POISON

MISTRESS OF VIRTUE

MORAL RIGOR

GOD'S INSTRUMENT

A NEW ESTHER?

5 SAFEGUARDING SOULS

CLERICAL SCANDAL

PRIESTS WHO SIN

THE REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES

GALLEY SLAVES

NEW CONVERTS

SURVEILLANCE

BLASPHEMY

SACRILEGE

KEEPING HOLY THE SABBATH

SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN'S SOULS

MARRIAGE

6 COURTLY SIN

COURT SPYING

ENNUI

BOURBON SIN

DUKE AND DUCHESS OF ORLÉANS

SACRED LITURGY AT COURT

THEATER

END OF THE REIGN

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

UNPUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES

Archives Nationales

Archives de la Préfecture de Police

Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal

Bibliothèque Nationale

PRINTED PRIMARY SOURCES

SECONDARY SOURCES

INDEX

About the Author.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [171]-191) and index.

ISBN:

9798400680984

9780313001062

0313001065

OCLC:

614705149