The Devout King: Building a Symbolic Catholic Order at the Time of Religious Coexistence in France

Résumé En

In the seventeenth century, while religious coexistence was organised by the Edict of Nantes, many paintings and prints showed French kings in prayer. They drew a Catholic portrait of them, emphasizing their devotions to the Holy Sacrament, the Virgin Mary and other saints, sometimes in connection with their pilgrimages. Those pictures also associated the sovereigns to several confraternities. Nevertheless, kings did not commission most of them. Their existence depended on other commissioners (clergymen, vestries, confraternities, lay donors), who wished to commemorate the faith of the ruler, or his religious practices, in order to assert the superiority of Catholicism, to promote a cult or a sanctuary, or to celebrate the king. They would also remember crucial gestures and beliefs to the faithful. Then, the king would appear as a guide for his subjects along the path to salvation. These images united the king and his subjects around the Catholic identity, carefully picturing an ideal organised society and overshadowing the religious coexistence.