BIBLIO 17 Amphion Orator How the Royal Odes of François de Malherbe Reimagine the French Nation Michael Taormina Amphion Orator BIBLIO 17 Volume 224 ∙ 2021 Suppléments aux Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature Collection fondée par Wolfgang Leiner Directeur: Rainer Zaiser Biblio 17 est une série évaluée par un comité de lecture. Biblio 17 is a peer-reviewed series. Michael Taormina Amphion Orator How the Royal Odes of François de Malherbe Reimagine the French Nation © 2021 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Internet: www.narr.de eMail: info@narr.de CPI books GmbH, Leck ISSN 1434-6397 ISBN 978-3-8233-8464-9 (Print) ISBN 978-3-8233-9464-8 (ePDF) ISBN 978-3-8233-0249-0 (ePub) Cover Image: “Amphion, Builder of Thebes.” Illustration from Michel de Marolles, Temple des Muses (Paris, Nicolas Langlois: 1655). Printed by Cornelis Bloemaert and Theodor Matham, after Abraham van Diepenbeeck, circa 1635. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http: / / dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. www.fsc.org MIX Papier aus verantwortungsvollen Quellen FSC ® C083411 ® www.fsc.org MIX Papier aus verantwortungsvollen Quellen FSC ® C083411 ® 1 All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. movit Amphion lapides canendo [Amphion moved the stones with his singing] Horace, Odes 3.11.2 La migliore fortezza che sia, è non essere odiato dal populo; perché, ancora che tu abbi le fortezze, et il populo ti abbi in odio, le non ti salvono. [The best fortress in the world is not to be hated by the people, because even fortresses will not save you if you are hated.] Machiavelli, Il Principe [The Prince] Ce miel attique, cest à dire une oraison perfaictement elabouree, ornee de graves et sages sentences, embellie de belles paroles, où la raison et la verité, illustrees par leur propre et plus riche ornement, reluisent en une splendeur admirable. [Attic honey, that is, a perfectly composed oration, adorned with grave and wise thoughts, embellished with beautiful diction, where reason and truth, illustrated by the proper and richest ornamentation, radiate with a wondrous splendor.] Du Vair, De l’eloquence françoise [Of French Eloquence] ὥσπερ οὖν ὁ πλωτὴρ εἷς τις τῶν κοινωνῶν ἐστιν, οὕτω καὶ τὸν πολίτην φαμέν. [Just as a sailor is a member of an association, so too is a citizen].  1 Aristotle, Politics 3.4 1276b20, trans. Ernest Barker. To Jennifer my love, my life, my light 11 19 51 52 64 82 84 98 107 127 131 150 1. 150 2. 163 180 1. 181 2. 196 3. 210 220 1. 221 2. 241 3. 249 263 Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part I Praising the Great Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 1. Literary Patronage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 2. The Evolution of Noble Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How the Royal Odes Perform an Accessory Political Function The Political Functions of Wonder and its Rhetorical Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Ciceronian Atticism of the Royal Odes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 4. The Return of Astraea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 5. The Trials of the King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin (1605; 1607) . . . . Ode sur l’attentat en la personne de sa majesté (1605; 1606) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 6. Triumph and Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ode au feu Roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan (1606; 1607) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . À Monseigneur le duc de Bellegarde (1608; 1609) . . . . . Sur la mort de Henri le Grand (1610; 1630) . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . À la Reine sur les heureux succès de sa régence (1610; 1611) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . À la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence (1613; 1621) Pour la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence (unfinished 1613; 1630) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 299 299 302 309 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I. Primary Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II. Secondary Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Contents 1 See Colette Beaune, The Birth of an Ideology: Myths and Symbols of Nation in Late-Me‐ dieval France (Berkeley: UC Press, 1991): 1-5. In Nations and States: An Inquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977), Hugh Seton-Watson declares: “The problems of sovereignty and of nationalism, of states and of nations, are not the same” (1). “I am driven to the conclusion that no ‘scientific definition’ of a nation can be devised; yet the phenomenon has existed and exists” (5). In Figurations of France: Literary Nation-Building in Times of Crisis (1550-1650) (Newark: Delaware Press, 2011), Marcus Keller treats the term ‘nation’ in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as an “undetermined and unstable” signifier (2) and even declines to assert that “France was a nation when Du Bellay or Corneille endeavored in literary nation-building” (5). Preface This is a book about the corpus of encomiastic odes that François de Malherbe composed for the Bourbons between 1600 and 1627. It seeks to make an original contribution to Malherbe studies in showing how this series of poems constitutes a unified sequence whose highest ambition is to reimagine the French nation in the aftermath of the Wars of Religion (1562-1598). The broader political and cultural issues that the argument marshals for support grew organically out of the demands of close-reading such complex masterpieces. It has been necessary to gather critical insights from scholarship in the areas of political history, absolutist theory, literary patronage, noble identity, the history of eloquence, and mythology to reclaim the patriotic voice of a poet reduced to a technician by generations of literary critics. In trying to make sense of these magnificent literary artifacts, I realized that Malherbe was not simply fashioning a positive public image for the monarch and shoring up the symbolic power of the monarchy, but was also revising the myths and symbols of the French nation, whose unifying thread in the odes is no longer the Catholic faith but loyalty and service to king and country. That seemed to me an interesting focus because it upended the formalist approach that has dominated criticism of Malherbe’s poetry. For that reason I have been obliged to investigate the issue of French nationhood, although in retrospect I would have preferred to avoid it since it has proved a rather vexed topic. Historians and critics alike acknowledge that there is no scientific definition of a nation and disagree about the time and conditions of its emergence in France. 1 Accordingly, I feel that I must offer the following caveat right from the start: it has not been my intention to write a chapter in the history of French nationhood, 2 For a persuasive counter-narrative, see Mack P. Holt, ed., Renaissance and Reformation France (Oxford UP, 2002). and this book does not aim to demystify the royal odes’ ideological construction of the French nation. Both projects have already been undertaken by Marcus Keller in Figurations of France: Literary Nation-Building in Times of Crisis (1550-1650). Keller deserves credit for seeing that Malherbe’s odes could easily be placed in the “series of ideological struggles over the meaning and limits of community” that Timothy Hampton so brilliantly charts in Literature and Nation in the Sixteenth Century: Inventing Renaissance France. Despite his avowed chronological limits, Hampton’s powerful theoretical framework and deep historical knowledge suggest several productive points of contact with Malherbe’s royal odes: these latter construct an image of the nation; define the national community in terms of an in-group and various out-groups; search for “a way of expressing new forms of collective experience from within a vocabulary rooted in [waning] institutions” (Hampton 11); mobilize figurative language in the service of cen‐ tralized power to define the limits of the national community; and, to that end, allegorize prior events and stories to insert them in a new history. Keller, freely acknowledging his indebtedness, builds on Hampton’s analysis of the ways in which the figural language of literary texts mediates the historical gestation of the nation-state while it at the same time registers the violent struggle, physical or ideological, over “the identity and constitution of community that accompany the emergence of modern nationhood” (Hampton 28). Hampton and Keller, however, both treat the entwined evolution of the nation and the state in early modern France as a “pre-history” to nationalism and the modern nation-state. In my view, such a long historical arc devalues the creative and imaginative response of artists like Malherbe to the contingent events of their time. Hampton’s and Keller’s analysis performs a great service by unmasking the self-serving teleological and revisionist history of nationalist ideology, and yet their approach does not fully resist the temptation to read early modern texts in light of later socio-political categories and developments. It fits within a standard historical narrative that assumes more political centralization than probably existed in sixteenth-century France, presupposes Renaissance literary culture to be secular and autonomous and, therefore, distinct from rhetoric and ideology, imports from later nationalisms such defining criteria as racial purity and national spirit (Keller 108), and generally emphasizes nationalist concerns with “language, space, and character” (Hampton 9). 2 In particular, I fail to see how the notion of “national character” that appears in 12 Preface the royal odes may be equated with “soul” or “spirit” (Keller 5). While there is allegedly a spirit watching over the king and the French nation, Malherbe’s national character is neither ontological nor metaphysical. It is ethical. The significant interpretive divergences I have with Keller stem from his avowed aim of “charting the ideological grounds on which the modern nation-state takes shape,” which he sees fit to anchor in “Etienne Balibar’s theory of the nation form and some propositions on the idea of nationhood by postcolonial critics” (Keller 5-6). “Fictive ethnicity,” for instance, is much less prominent in the royal odes than the notion of public good, common interest, or commonwealth. Nor does the postcolonial rejection of teleology and transcendence sit well with early modern cultural assumptions. My approach is thus more narrowly historical, more synchronic, and less worried about the “Medusa-like power to fascinate” (Hampton 27) that early modern literature and poetry may exert over readers too willing to accept their ideological claims. I have no stake in Malherbe’s construction of French nationhood, and the complexity of the task I found myself engaged in—discovering the grand tapestry of the royal odes, contextualizing the various threads, and showing how they all seamlessly fit together—was so overwhelming that it precluded the critical distance needed to deconstruct Malherbe’s national ideology. In my view, France in the late sixteenth century was not yet a nation-state, but it was a nation, or at least had achieved sufficient national consciousness to enter a period of dire crisis when, as Mack P. Holt writes in Renaissance and Reformation France, “the advent of Protestantism in the 1540s shattered the unity of religion” and “led to the contesting of the monarchy itself ” (Holt 23). The Catholic faith and the monarchy were the two strongest unifying threads in the national tapestry. Four decades of civil war did not succeed in destroying the French state, although it was teetering on the brink, but the 1580s and 90s did witness the emergence of competing ideas of the nation. By 1600, Catholic orthodoxy could no longer play the role it once did in national identity. Loyalty to the king and to the commonwealth had gained the upper hand. Holt does not dispute the consensus view that the sixteenth century is the crucial period when the transformation of France into a nation-state “first took root” (Holt 2), but he significantly postpones its full-blown emergence until sometime after the Fronde (1648-1652). In 1600, therefore, the monarchy still had major problems to solve before the state could achieve its full strength, and the composition of the French nation was still in abeyance. Malherbe’s reimagining of the French nation, it follows, does not represent a precocious step toward the secular nation-state. Rather, his de-emphasis of religious orthodoxy and his choice of new myths and images for the nation are a 13 Preface 3 See Beaune 17: “Religion lent support to the idea of national unity and made it palpable to all. Nationhood was still a new value that had not yet begun to seek recognition in secular terms.” 4 As early as the eleventh century, the term christianissimus was used to describe the French people and distinguish them for their religious zeal: “from their midst would come martyrs, confessors, and crusaders to deliver the Holy Land” (Beaune 173). “It was around 1300 that writers began to assert that God had given the French kingdom His particular benediction and approval, that He sent visible signs of their selection: the Holy Ampulla, the lily, and the oriflamme” (Beaune 180). creative response to the rich and confusing national tapestry that was inherited from the late Middles Ages and badly damaged in the late sixteenth century. As Colette Beaune amply demonstrates in The Birth of an Ideology: Myths and Symbols of Nation in Late-Medieval France, the consciousness of belonging to a nation was “entwined” with the precarious rise of the House of France (Beaune 311) and fostered by the veneration of saints and kings. Its traces are attested in the liturgies, hagiographies, and histories composed by medieval clerics and royal propagandists responding to the changing political environment. There was nothing accidental about it. A shifting web of shared myths and symbols gradually and deliberately enveloped disparate cities, towns, and regions by fueling a collective sense of exceptionalism for the kings, the kingdom, and the peoples of medieval France. It was propagated from the Paris basin, though “its slow evolution was far from continuous or unrelenting” (Beaune 314). “Different areas of France were moved by national ideology at different times” (Beaune 323). Unlike most modern nation-states, the sacred was the basis for this collective identity, which may be encapsulated by the term Most Christian, “applied without distinction to the French king, the people, and the territory” (Beaune 192). The emergence of an imagined community in France, with some of the basic features of a nation, did not have to wait for the waning of religious belief. 3 There are several characteristics of nations recognizable in the wealth of material that Beaune mines from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries. First, the French nation was thought to be chosen by God. 4 Such a notion stresses the continuity of the past with the present and posits a destiny to be realized in the future. Saint Remigius was alleged to have promised that the kingdom of Clovis would triumph over all other rival nations as long as it adhered to the true faith (Beaune 181), while successive generations of commentators elided the kingdom’s ethnic and cultural diversity as well as prior political differences to forge the vision of a unified chosen people, a New Israel, “the people of the New Alliance” (Beaune 180). Second, the French nation claimed autonomy. The mythical continuity of the royal bloodline (single, pure, 14 Preface 5 Beaune 180: “The concept of the most Christian king was built on a platform of religious purity that depended on strong undercurrents of anti-Semitism and xenophobia.” sacred, perpetual) from Clovis onward set the kings and the kingdom of France “above the claims of the Church and the Imperium” (Beaune 172). Third, it inspired acts of patriotism and xenophobia. As early as 1124 something akin to national sentiment was responsible for the spontaneous and unexpected baronial support of Louis VI against Henry V, the Holy Roman Emperor. In the fifteenth century, a surge of collective identity swept over parts of France that was tied to the veneration of Saint Michael. Charles VII had turned from Saint Denis to venerate the warrior angel as early as 1418, while royalist armies after the “miraculous” victory at Orleans in 1429 reported sightings of a rider holding an unsheathed sword in the sky and took to processing “behind the banner of Michael’s white cross, like masses of reverent pilgrims” (Beaune 158-159, 18). The crusades to the Holy Land and the persecution of Jews and heretics were the negative flipside to this growing consciousness of French exceptionalism. 5 Fourth, the net result of various medieval stories tracing the origins of the Gauls and Franks to the mythical city of Troy was to create a common ancestry, “to root national solidarity in a thick soil of blood ties” (Beaune 226). Such myths promoted the unity of north and south, the three estates, noble and commoner, kings and subjects. They made of the peoples of France a vast clan whose shared and ancient lineage ennobled them, argued for their moral and cultural superiority, and justified their political independence from England, Rome, and the Germanic Empire. Finally, the resistance of nobles and commoners to royal taxation and administrative centralization beginning in the mid-fourteenth century presupposes a developed consciousness of solidarity independent of loyalty to the monarchy. In the War of the Public Weal (1465), the question was whether the king and the centralized state were the sole protectors of the public good: great nobles asserted that “the commonwealth stood above the king” and that they shared responsibility for its protection (Collins, “State Building” 612). Theoretically, the king defended the public good, and when one fought for the king, one fought for both. Occasionally, however, the public good could be evoked against private interests, even those of the king, especially if the king’s policy were perceived to be unjust (Collins, “State Building” 617). The good of the French nation was then identifiable with the commonwealth, “those interests common to all households living in a given polity” (Collins, “State Building” 608). The issue, therefore, is not whether a French nation existed in the early modern period, but whether a sufficient number of people believed that it did 15 Preface 6 Hugh Seton-Watson, Nations and States: “All that I can find to say is that a nation exists when a significant number of people in a community consider themselves to form a nation, or behave as if they formed one. It is not necessary that the whole of the population should so feel, or so behave, and it is not possible to lay down dogmatically a minimum percentage of the population which must be so affected. When a significant group holds this belief, it possesses ‘national consciousness’ (5). and behaved as if it did. 6 We know that it was not a pure fiction because material traces of the conditions of its existence persist, but there were indeed phantasmic components that made it, in Benedict Anderson’s phrase, an imag‐ ined community. One of the primary tasks of this book has been to historicize and to analyze the myths and images contained in Malherbe’s royal odes which would have contributed to the reimagining of the national community—if contemporary readers had been up to the task and bought into them. I take no firm position on whether they did, although I suspect that most did not. By all appearances Malherbe’s vision for the French nation was overtaken by events and swept aside for other more compelling imagined communities. If the particulars of medieval French nationhood constitute the symbolic strata against which to compare and to appreciate the imagined community of the royal odes, it is because Malherbe was uprooting and planting in the same medieval soil as his sixteenth-century predecessors. The significant social and political developments that separate Malherbe from his Renaissance counterparts are what account for the noticeable differences in their political and esthetic commitments. One must remember that Malherbe was writing from the other side of the religious wars. Henri IV had managed to tamp down the violence and to win the peace by 1600. The first royal odes were thus composed not only against the backdrop of the crisis of national identity, but also in the afterglow of the patriotic feeling that surged through France in the 1580s and 90s, a phenomenon that echoes previous waves of national pride, notably Bouvines (1214) and Orleans (1429). In addition, the support that Henri IV enjoyed among noble elites and the people, and the profound lassitude with the destruction caused by civil conflict, created a reservoir of goodwill and fostered a general spirit of reconciliation. Pockets of resistance and mistrust were the exception that proved the rule. Therefore, in their inception, the royal odes partake of this eagerness to bury the past and to move forward, striving to erect a linguistic monument whose universal eloquence will move, with persuasive arguments and powerful emotions, the hearts and minds of French subjects of every ideological stripe to rejoin the national fabric. Malherbe’s royal odes reflect the blurring of the boundaries between rhetoric and poetry, or between literature and propaganda, that occurred during the Wars of Religion, 16 Preface 7 Copious citations from this pamphlet literature are found in Myriam Yardeni, La Conscience nationale en France pendant les guerres de religion (1559-1598) (Paris: Béa‐ trice-Nauwelaerts, 1971). and they echo arguments, opinions, affects, and images found in the polemical pamphlet literature that arose to spread the ideology and propaganda of the competing religious factions. 7 An important difference between these pamphlets and the odes, however, is that the latter are less concerned with an ontology of Frenchness. Rather, what they seek to instill is an ethical commitment to king and commonwealth. While they crucially offer up alternative images of the king, the monarchy, and the nation, it is less a question of representation than persuasion. The national ethos they propose for the nation is not the result of blood, soil, or climate, but is the product of consent and choice. Their figural language is not about resisting a collective identity or critiquing the claims of a centralized monarchy. On the contrary, it seeks to inspire subjects with the sense of belonging to a new national community, with a sense of loyalty to the crown and to fellow subjects, and with hatred for enemies of the state. The Other in the royal odes is less an object of fear than of hatred and anger—it is an enemy, domestic or foreign, that must be expelled from the body politic for the return of the Golden Age to begin. The royal odes are thus about closing ranks, consolidating gains, and questing for greatness. If in the sixteenth century, as Timothy Hampton notes, generic and rhetorical multiplicity is the imaginative response to “the breakdown of community” (Hampton ix, 28-29), the royal odes respond in contrary fashion with an elaborate and intricate unity—a “higher, hidden order,” to borrow the phrase from David Lee Rubin, one of Malherbe’s most perceptive readers. The rhetorical and esthetic unity of the odes prefigures, if only in the symbolic order, the national unity they seek to bring about. Such are the reasons why the arguments of this book do not constitute a chapter in the deconstruction of French nationhood. Rather than critique Malherbe’s ideology of the nation, or tease out its puzzles and contradictions, I have tried to assemble all the threads of the imaginary national tapestry composed by the royal odes and to describe the grand tableau without losing sight of the details and their proper contexts. It follows that the construction of the French nation by the royal odes has been analyzed using their own terms for the sake of demonstrating the sequence’s amazing unity. The primary intention has been to share with contemporary readers my sincere and profound admiration for Malherbe’s poetic artistry. In the process, however, I believe this book has uncovered surprising and significant connections to the most contested notions of early modern France (i.e. national and religious identity, nobiliary identity, absolutism, female kingship, literary autonomy, etc.), which 17 Preface receive novel and, in some cases, prescient formulations in the royal odes. The highest compliment this book could be paid would be for its historical and rhetorical analyses to inform future critiques of French national ideology. 18 Preface 1 See Guillaume Peureux, “Éléments pour une histoire de l’invention d’une figure de poète: Malherbe,” Pour des Malherbe, Actes publiés sous la direction de Laure Himy-Piéri et Chantal Liaroutzos, Centre de Recherche “Textes / Histoire / Langages,” Université de Caen, Basse-Normandie (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2008) 23. 2 See Marc Fumaroli, L’Age de l’éloquence: Rhétorique et 'res literaria,' de la Renaissance au seuil de l'époque classique (Paris: Albin Michel, 1994) 29 & 649. 3 See Pour des Malherbe, op. cit. This collection rethinks the dogmas of Malherbian criticism. Introduction François de Malherbe (1555-1628) is one of France’s greatest poets. Between 1600 and 1627, he published a series of encomiastic odes whose grandeur and complexity are unmatched in the history of French literature. Although Malherbe is arguably the most influential lyric poet of seventeenth-century France, his legacy is puzzling for a twenty-first-century reader. A poetic doctrine bears his name, yet he never wrote it down. He is renowned for his strict rules of versification, yet one of his mentors, Du Perron, a lesser poet, more skillfully composes meters. 1 He supposedly rejected far-fetched metaphors, dense and convoluted syntax, and obscure mythological allusions, yet these pervade his poetry. The royal odes have been praised for their harmony, logic, and majesty, and disparaged for their disorder, formalism, and dullness. Their loftiest ambition is to forge a new nation after the Wars of Religion; yet Malherbe allegedly scoffed at poets in private conversation, famously ridiculing himself and his peers as “excellent arrangers of syllables” (Racan, Malherbe 34). His celebrated translation of the letters of Seneca between 1601 and 1605 reflects the shift in French eloquence toward the “classical compromise,” which balances judgment and invention, citation and imitation, argument and style. 2 Yet Malherbe’s mature poetic style embodies the Ciceronian Atticism described by Du Vair in De l’éloquence françoise [On French Eloquence] (1594), albeit tinged with the plainer variety of Hellenistic grandeur that was flourishing in contemporary sacred oratory. Malherbe was a provincial noble educated for a career in the magistracy, yet his odes aspire to achieve a universal eloquence that transcends the idioms of caste and region and surmounts the vicissitudes of history. This book does not propose to unravel such a Gordian knot. Rather, it by-passes the circular dead end in which Malherbe studies languished until fairly recently. 3 The formalist impulses of twentieth-century criticism, bolstered by testimony cherry-picked from Malherbe and his contemporaries, encouraged 4 See John D. Lyons, “The Age of the Technician,” A New History of French Literature, ed. Denis Hollier (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989) 262-267. 5 See Emmanuelle Mortgat-Longuet, “Fabriques de Malherbe dans l’historiographie des lettres françaises (1630-1750),” Pour des Malherbe 48. successive generations of literary historians to reduce the poet to a technician. 4 This assessment must have had the appearance of self-evidence, echoing as it does early criticism of Malherbe’s poetry. Chapelain famously wrote that it lacked genius and inspiration, an opinion which gained wider acceptance as the seventeenth century progressed. 5 The view of Malherbe as a fastidious versifier also confirmed the modern prejudice that early seventeenth-century poetry was merely a game, while a poet was, in Malherbe’s own words, “‘pas plus utile à l’État qu’un bon joueur de quilles’” [no more useful to the State than a good player of skittles] (Racan, Malherbe 37). This book, however, rejects the view of the royal odes as mere sophistical argument or playfulness. Instead, it recognizes them as an earnest response to the political challenges facing the new Bourbon dynasty, and thus it takes seriously their ideological mission, attending to their rational persuasion and emotional power. What pulls them more toward oratory and away from sophistry is the way they subordinate their esthetic achievement, and their desire for glory and applause, to the general welfare of the monarchy and the nation. The present reexamination of Malherbe’s royal odes has been made possible in large part by the scholarly recovery of the rhetorical tradition in early modern France. As Marc Fumaroli writes in the preface to his magisterial L’Âge de l’éloquence: Rhétorique et ‘res literataria’ de la Renaissance au seuil de l’époque classique: “Rhetoric, or the art of persuasion, traverses social, political, and religious spheres, embracing and capturing all human experience without sacrificing its connections to philosophy, law, ethics, and theology” (Fumaroli, L’Âge x). “Evolving with the passage of time, this mother of all structures presents the historian with the advantage of accounting for tradition, recurrence, and re-use” (Fumaroli, L’Âge ii). Although poetry was classified, taught, and practiced as a branch of rhetoric, literary critics have yet to think systematically about the rhetorical strategies and tactics of Malherbe’s royal odes. Even Fumaroli’s history of French eloquence overlooks these magnificent poems, reducing Malherbe to the influence of his celebrated stylistic reforms. In Fumaroli’s eyes, French poetry in the age of eloquence is an ornament of power, a benign form of sophistry, removed from the real battles of public life. Following the success of Ronsard, it had only just hoisted itself to cultural and political prominence through emulation of Greek and Latin models (Italian models played a significant role as well), and even so, the membership and 20 Introduction 6 For artistic persuasion, see Aristotle, Rhetoric (1.2.3-6). In Sacred Rhetoric: The Christian Grand Style in the English Renaissance (Princeton UP, 1988), Debora K. Shuger notes that “Aristotelian rhetoric survives only in Rome” (35). This tradition consists of Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian, despite the Romans’ anti-Aristotelian accommodation of power and polish. On the relation of rhetoric to practical reason, see Eugene Garver, Aristotle’s ‘Rhetoric’: An Art of Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994): “[Aristotle’s] Rhetoric offers a rich articulation of the complexities of practical reason” (4). “The good practical use of reason has a history. The Greek word for the power of good practical thinking is phronēsis; its Latin translation was prudentia” (5). “[Aristotle’s] practical, civic art of rhetoric lies between the activities of practical reason, for which moral character is enough, and instrumental activities that can be bought, sold, and taught” (6). prestige of ancient poets in the res literaria [literary canon] depended entirely on their eloquence, that is, their poetry’s perceived stylistic power and beauty, especially to the extent that these were invested with social, political, or religious value. Fumaroli’s point is well taken, but Malherbe’s royal odes aspire to much more. Although encomiastic in nature, they stake out clear positions in political matters. Their debt to artistic persuasion (pisteis: logos, ēthos, pathos) situates them in the Aristotelian tradition, where rhetoric has always maintained a close relationship to practical reason (phronēsis). 6 When we take seriously the idea that Malherbe’s royal odes partake of both rhetoric and poetry, it becomes possible to ascertain how much these poems share in common with “ethical and political activities that are matters of virtue” (Garver 7). Although eloquence, the highest accomplishment of rhetoric, is often, and erroneously, reduced to questions of style (Gr. lexis, L. elocutio), it has in fact always depended on broader and more fundamental principles: 1. an external purpose given by the social context in which public speaking is practiced; 2. expert knowledge of the artistic means to achieve the goals of the speech; and 3. the speaker’s close attention to the historical particulars of the occasion. Again, to cite Fumaroli: “All rhetoric implies a sociology of social roles and of the institutions in which these roles acquire meaning” (Fumaroli, L’Âge iii). Therefore, when one examines Malherbe’s royal odes through the prism of their eloquence, one is forced to treat them as more than well-wrought urns whose classical allusions are purely decorative. To reexamine the odes from this perspective is to insist that any historically grounded reading of them must also take into account—besides their noteworthy style—their purpose and goals, the substance and modes of their argumentation, their emotional force, and their conception of audience, real or imagined. Such is the undertaking of this book. 21 Introduction 7 This book retains the French spelling of the Italian queen’s name. 8 See James Biester, Lyric Wonder: Rhetoric and Wit in Renaissance English Poetry (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997) 8-11. I. The first and most apparent goal of Malherbe’s royal odes was to inspire literate contemporaries with admiration for the early Bourbon monarchs: Henri IV, “Qui ne confesse qu’Hercule / Fut moins Hercule que toi” [Who does not admit that Hercules / Was less Hercules than you] (“Ode au feu Roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan,” vv. 99-100); Marie de Médicis, 7 “C’est Pallas que cette Marie, / Par qui nous sommes gouvernés” [She is Pallas Athena, this Marie / By whom we are governed] (“Pour la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence,” vv. 179-180); and Louis XIII, “Prends ta foudre, Louis, et va comme un lion / Donner le dernier coup à la dernière tête / De la rébellion” [Take your thunderbolt, Louis, and like a lion, / Deliver the last blow to the last head / Of the rebellion] (“Pour le Roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois,” vv. 2-4). Such mythic heroization, more than mere exaggeration and flattery, aimed to produce awe and reverence. These were the proper feelings for a subject to have toward his or her monarch, and they were weakened, if not destroyed, during the religious wars. Catholics and Protestants, in their zeal to prevail ideologically and militarily over their adversaries, flouted royal authority and developed theories of sovereignty exploring justifications of principled disobedience and even regicide (especially on two occasions, after the Saint-Bartholomew massacre in 1572, and following Henri III’s assassination of the Guise brothers in 1588). This change of attitude could be characterized as a prerevolutionary desacralization, that is, the effacement of the divine aura attaching to Henri III and the unintended abdication of his role as leader of the French Church and defender of Catholic orthodoxy. Henri IV, a newcomer to the throne, publicly reviled as a relapsed heretic, would have wanted to reclaim this aura of sacrality for himself and his kingship, however problematic that may have appeared to contemporaries. When he abjured his Protestantism in 1593, he could have been heeding the dictates of his conscience, or he could have been heeding Machiavelli’s well-known advice to a ruler who wished to consolidate his power. In any event, the new king would have wanted not to be hated, but rather to be feared and loved. Thus the first relationship which the odes seek to repair, between monarch and subject, rests on a complex network of ambivalent feelings: fear and love, but also dread, awe, and reverence. Such affects informed the early modern experience of admiration, that is to say, wonder. 8 The emotions inspired by divinity, miracles, unknown peoples and 22 Introduction nations, and powerful natural phenomena were also provoked by royal majesty. A monarch’s ability to astonish reinforced this power (Biester 10). Because the prestige of wonder extended “throughout Europe, in disciplines and activities ranging from rhetoric and poetry to philosophy and theology, from outward colonial enterprise to internal competition for power and patronage” (Biester 9), the textual and cultural genealogy developed by Biester, set against the sociology of Marc Fumaroli’s L’Âge de l’éloquence, sheds valuable light on the political functions of wonder in early seventeenth-century France and its rhetorical production in Malherbe’s royal odes, allowances made, of course, for changed sociopolitical circumstances and, therefore, distinct purposes and artistic means. Every one of Malherbe’s odes contains at least one term related to wonder (merveille, miracle, étonnement), while the events and the deeds they describe, not to mention the rhetorical devices they use, are deeply infused with this protean emotion. Aligned with Henri’s broader ideological program, this poetic production of wonder has two purposes. The first is to demobilize political resistance to the Bourbons. Contemplative feelings inspired by the miraculous turn of events, by the extraordinary virtue of the historical actors, or by the inscrutable destiny of France, transform both greater and lesser subjects into spectators whose fear and reverence encourage them to accept forces beyond their control. The second purpose, more active, is to transport the subject “beyond logical demonstration” (Biester 44). Such emotional force serves the loftier ambitions of the royal odes, namely to renovate the monarchy and to instill a sense of unity in a fractured nation. The goal of inspiring subjects with feelings of wonder for the Bourbons is indeed an attempt to sacralize, or re-sacralize, the new monarchs. However, such sacralization was filtered through a reinvigorated national sentiment in the early seventeenth century, and to that end, the royal odes aimed to restore the prestige and authority of the monarchy itself: Le fameux Amphion, dont la voix nonpareille, Bâtissant une ville étonna l’univers, Quelque bruit qu’il ait eu, n’a point fait de merveille Que ne fassent mes vers. (vv. 149-156) [The famous Amphion, whose incomparable voice / Astonished the universe by building a city, / Whatever fame he may have had, has not accomplished any greater wonder / Than my own verse.] 23 Introduction 9 See E.H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies (Princeton UP, 2016 reprint) 259: “What Nogaret meant is obvious: as a miles, a knight, he was bound to defend his feudal lord, and as a member of the body politic of France he, like every other Frenchman, was obliged to defend this very body, the patria. [] The formula pro rege et patria, ‘for king and fatherland,’ survived until modern times; normally, it would not have been felt—in the twentieth century as little as in the thirteenth—that in fact two different strata overlapped and two different obligations coincided.” 10 Shuger 196. The phrase cited by Shuger is from Wesley Trimpi, Muses of One Mind (Princeton UP, 1983) 87-129. Taken from the final ode of the sequence, “Ode pour le roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois” (1627; 1635), this stanza looks back on Malherbe’s career and asks the reader to rate his achievement as no less marvelous than Amphion building the walls of Thebes. By grounding the unity of the nation in something other than the Catholic faith, the royal odes claim they have erected ideological ramparts around the monarchy more effective than any physical wall. The stones, as it were, are the hearts of the French people moved by the odes’ eloquence and henceforth united in support of an ethnically French monarchy, as required by the Salic Law. The mythical city that the odes claim to have built represents the new nation. Of course, it is less a place or a territory than an imagined community expressed in the form of a patriotic ethos modeled on the monarch, the nation’s protector and embodiment, and defined as loyalty and service pro rege et patria [for king and fatherland]. 9 The creation of this new national community bound by affective ties between monarch and subject, as well as among subjects, is the highest purpose and final end at which the royal odes take aim. King, monarchy, nation: the odes indeed reimagine all three. A new image for the monarch presupposes a new image of the monarchy, and this in turn rests on a new image of the nation. The first two are evident in the odes; the last is more difficult to perceive. Nowhere do the odes use the term patrie [fatherland; nation; country], a neologism in sixteenth-century France. Instead, they use the collective “nous” [we, us], sometimes refer to “France” and “les Français” [the French], and mention recognizable enemies of the monarchy and the French: “Espagne” [Spain], “les Anglais” [the English], the Holy Roman Empire (“l’aigle”), the Ottoman Empire (“l’infidèle Croissant” [infidel Crescent]), and a few minor antagonists. However, the concept is always there, lurking like a noumenal ground requiring close reading, logical inference, and affective sensibility to be apprehended. The excellence, remoteness, and knowability of the nation in the royal odes belongs to the same “‘ancient dilemma of knowledge and representation’” affecting the objects of faith in sacred oratory. 10 Similar to a Christian orator charged with bringing the objects of faith, the 24 Introduction most remote and the most worth knowing, into some kind of relationship with what human beings are able to grasp, Malherbe uses mythology and figures of thought to strike the imagination of his contemporaries and fill their hearts with emotions attaching them to the new national community. The words “étonner” (to astonish) and “merveille” (marvel, wonder) of the somewhat obscure analogy in the stanza above (Malherbe : nation : : Amphion : Thebes) indicate which feelings contemporary readers—including a young Louis XIII—were supposed to experience once they had solved the stanza’s riddle and—only then—accurately reckoned the central role that the royal odes allege to have played in the rebirth of France following the Wars of Religion. The Malherbe that emerges from this interpretation of the odes is still the consummate craftsman, but one who also dared to claim a political voice for himself. The mythological figure of Amphion symbolically reunites the disunion that Cicero lamented in De Oratore (1.8.33-44), the divorce of phronēsis from eloquence, of the man of action from the man of words. What substitutes for this lost unity is the dyad of monarch and poet, which the royal odes recoup from the social practice of literary patronage. When Henri IV selected Malherbe, in his capacity as poet, to speak for the new dynasty, he did so knowingly and purposely. This alliance of king and poet marked a return to a normal state of affairs following the religious wars. One must recall that poetry at this time had not yet achieved literary autonomy. Poets relied on royal and aristocratic patrons for financial and political protection, and this dependence forced poets to straddle conceptually distinct categories: poetry and politics, eloquence and virtue, and two kinds of ethos—the rhetorical and the moral. How did these arrangements work? As Peter W. Shoemaker so beautifully explains in Powerful Connections: The Poetics of Patronage in the Age of Louis XIII, the monarch, members of the royal family, powerful nobles and prelates, and upwardly mobile bourgeois, all seeking the prestige conferred by belles-lettres, collaborated with poets to use poetry in the service of social standing and political influence. They looked to poetry to craft idealized representations of their character—a kind of public image destined for their literate peers—while poets did not miss the opportunity to use such alliances to promote their own work, often portraying themselves in similarly idealized terms. No longer mystics, prophets, or religious militants, early seventeenth-century poets became spokespersons addressing elites on behalf of elites. Malherbe was not the first but certainly the most visible to turn away from the humanist audience of Ronsard toward courtly elites, which by default included in their numbers some erudite Gallicans and Jesuits but 25 Introduction 11 See Robin Briggs, Early Modern France: 1650-1715 (Oxford UP, 1998) 31, and J. Russell Major, “Henri IV and Guyenne: A Study concerning the Origins of Royal Absolutism,” French Historical Studies 4.4 (1966) 363-383. 12 For a strictly sacral reading of these images in Avignon, see Denis Crouzet, “Henri IV, King of Reason? ” From Valois to Bourbon: Dynasty, State, and Society in Early Modern France, ed. Keith Cameron (Exeter: Short Run Press, 1989) 94-97. were composed mostly of relatively uneducated aristocratic connoisseurs of belles-lettres. In the first decade of the seventeenth century, literary patronage was only beginning to get back on its feet. Prolonged military conflict had suppressed the normal levels of literary and cultural production. In his monumental Histoire de la littérature française au XVIIe siècle, Antoine Adam sneeringly asserts that Henri IV was “profoundly indifferent to literature, concerned only with repairing the country’s finances” (Adam, Histoire vol. 1, 24). But royal finances were in genuine disarray after more than three decades of civil war, and Henri had promised large sums to Leaguer governors to secure their submission to his authority. Real financial worries motivated Henri IV’s placement of Malherbe not in his own clientele, but that of the duke de Bellegarde. However, without a political use for the poet, such a shrewd politician as Henri IV would not have bothered at all. The first odes, enhancing Henri IV’s personal image, were meant to play a part in the king’s broad and on-going public relations campaign. It was understood that Malherbe was the king’s man. Henri had acceded to the throne a weak king, mistrusted by political enemies on both sides of the sectarian divide. In his new role, therefore, he took a variety of steps to strengthen his personal authority. Some of these were aggressive policies that fostered state-building and administrative centralization. 11 Others involved a drive to remake his public image: he made a point to be seen praying in every church in Paris; he undertook extensive public building projects; he welcomed the Jesuits back to France; he encouraged royal panegyric. He also took the crucial step of renegotiating his conjugal alliance. Henri had his marriage to Marguerite de Valois annulled, and he wed the ultra-Catholic and fabulously rich Marie de Médicis. Receptions of the new queen in Avignon and in Paris were carefully choreographed events whose idealized images portrayed the sovereign couple as Olympian gods. Similar imagery, though with a different meaning, occurs in Malherbe’s odes. 12 After the untimely death of Henri, with Marie de Médicis serving as regent, the particulars of Malherbe’s project changed in a significant way, but the immediate purpose of the odes, as well as their lofty ambition, remained fundamentally unaltered, as the poet now worked to bolster her authority 26 Introduction amid noble discontent and rebellion. If Malherbe’s panegyrics lapsed into silence after 1613, it was almost certainly due to the delicate task of navigating the dangerous waters of court patronage during a time of growing political instability. The insurrection of Condé in 1614, and the young Louis XIII’s coup d’état in 1617, followed by the exile of Marie de Médicis to Blois, could not have been encouraging signs for the poet, who had published strong support for the queen mother. The difficulty that Malherbe had in getting the royal treasury to pay his stipend could not have helped. Then, after more than a decade, following a tentative rapprochement signaled by a few sonnets, an aging Malherbe composed an ode for Louis XIII, who in 1627 was still consolidating the bases of royal power when he launched the final siege against the last Protestant stronghold at La Rochelle. That ode would be Malherbe’s last. The loftier ambitions of Malherbe’s poetic sequence, namely renovating the monarchy and uniting the national community, become visible only when the odes are set against the crisis of national identity precipitated by the Wars of Religion. This sectarian civil war in the second half of the sixteenth century nearly unraveled the tapestry of the French nation. In Renaissance and Reformation France, Mack P. Holt observes that the rapid growth of Calvinism in the 1550s and 60s forced the national community of subjects to question the nature of their ties to the king. The traditional sacred oath sworn by the monarch to protect the kingdom from heresy created a destructive double-bind during the Reformation. If the king honored his oath, he was bound to persecute Protestants who nevertheless considered themselves to be “good Frenchmen,” that is, loyal to the king and, therefore, still belonging to the national community. For most Huguenots, religious differences were a question of conscience, not of disloyalty. But if the crown appeared to accept peaceful coexistence with them, “then it was very easy for the Huguenots to remain loyal to a king who recognized their legal rights and protected them, while French Catholics’ links to the crown were thus jeopardized by the monarch’s own straying from his constitutional and sacred duty to defend the Catholic religion of his subjects” (Holt, Renaissance 26). The Holy League in the 1590s, formed by Catholics wishing to enforce the Catholicity of France, both the crown and the nation, grew out of deeply held religious conviction and a genuine “spiritual panic” that unchecked heresy and the evils of civil war presaged God’s disfavor and imminent judgment (Crouzet 75). Hard-line French Catholics, led by the Guises, were genuinely prepared to scrap the Salic Law and accept a Spanish monarch. The importance of this historical backdrop for Malherbe’s royal odes has not gone unnoticed. Jean-Pierre Chauveau, in Poètes et poésie au XVIIè siècle, acknowledges their participation in the wider artistic and literary effort to 27 Introduction 13 See Denis Crouzet, “Henri IV, King of Reason? ” From Valois to Bourbon: “The struggle embarked on against the League by royalist intellectuals, for the most part Catholic members of the Parlement, is rapidly constructed on the fundamental precepts of the [neo-]Stoic philosophy, the ideology of which is the reconstruction of society, shaken by regicide, and which can be seen as a coherent system of de-dramatisation of eschatalogical angst” (78). “In royalist pamphlets, accusations against enemies return constantly to accusations of ‘frenzy’ and abandon, to ‘the unbridled passions and affections of your souls’ and of loss of ‘judgment.’ Obedience to the rightful king is defined according to a distinction inspired by the Stoic philosophy which counters the passions with reason” (80). “Obedience governs the universe: to obey is to act according to God, according to the order that He has given to the Cosmos, to put oneself in harmony with and participate in the Universal” (81). restore the unity of the French nation in the early decades of the seventeenth century, while in Figurations of France: Literary Nation-Building in Times of Crisis (1550-1650), Marcus Keller analyzes their construction of French nationhood and offers an insightful, though somewhat anachronistic critique, focusing on the composition of a national “nous” [we] and the key figures that define it. But neither critic examines in a comprehensive way the odes’ rhetorical constitution of the nation. The ideological make-over which the royal odes propose for the monarch and the monarchy, in addition to repairing the vertical relationship between subject and sovereign, also requires that they redefine the complex network of horizontal relationships, among subjects, that constitute the basis of any national community. This unity, while remaining focused on the monarch as protector and embodiment of the nation, proceeds from a complex mode of address (ēthos), Keller’s national “nous” [we], but the analysis of this ethos must push beyond the level of figuration to include the constitutive roles played by argument (logos) and emotion (pathos). Representation is important to the extent that the odes consistently offer a choice between alternatives: the chaos and destruction of civil war versus the political utopia of Bourbon rule. But that means persuasion is even more crucial. The royal odes propose to unite the diverse subjects of France by moving them both cognitively and emotionally to make the right choice. The importance to the royal odes of the stoic revival of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries has also been noted. One might think that Malherbe’s sustained engagement with stoic philosophy, or the image of Henri IV as Hercules, would confirm Denis Crouzet’s sweeping historical argument that the propaganda campaign of royalist Politiques, infused with the tenets of Christian stoicism, enabled an ethnically French absolutism to triumph over Leaguer demands for European Catholicity. 13 But the royal odes do not make a good fit. Besides the fact that they fall back on stoicism only when 28 Introduction 14 On the Politiques, see Mack P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion 128-129. disaster strikes, their stoicism is far from orthodox. Their imagery and argument certainly echo royalist pamphlets of the 1580s and 90s and, in a limited sense, arise from them. Like those Politiques who condemned religiously motivated violence as the surest way to undermine the state, Malherbe clearly places the general welfare of the nation above confessional loyalties. 14 However, contrary to stoic fatality, the heroism of the royal odes underscores the monarch’s power to shape the outcome of events, while their patriotism, contrary to the stoic condemnation of the passions, seeks to move the French subject with an array of powerful feelings, including anger and hatred. Even in their darkest moments, the royal odes still offer a moral choice, using both rational and irrational means of persuasion to produce the consensual allegiance to king and commonwealth that is at the core of the new national community. What has escaped the attention of critics is the allegory of the ship of state that joins the royal odes into a unified sequence. Like the word “patrie” [fatherland, nation, country], one cannot find anywhere in the odes such a phrase as “le navire de l’État” or “le vaisseau de l’État” [the ship of state]. Even today it is not a common syntagm in French. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, however, the analogy was commonplace (see Quintilian 8.6.44). The figurative variants of this suppressed semantic nucleus appear in every ode. Such ubiquity raises the reader’s suspicion that the imagery means more than it says, a figure of thought known as emphasis or significatio (Quintilian 8.3.83; 9.2.64; Rhet. ad Heren. 4.53.67 ff.). Provoked by the ship of state motif, the reader’s active understanding is able to weave a series of odes with loose thematic connections into a fully integrated grand tableau. The classical allegory, more significantly, constitutes a substantive revision of the traditional myths and symbols of the nation. The replacement of the myth of Troy with the Argo myth redefines the basis for political association in France. It is no longer blood and soil but the collective good that binds the head and members of the body politic. Such a motif also reflects a de-emphasis of religion. If Henri IV is treated as quasi-divine, it is due to his superlative virtue, which participates in the virtue that orders the universe. It is no longer the Church that confers the aura of sacrality, but rather the monarch himself that inflects the sacrality of his mystical body, the patria, the nation. In the new imagined community, modeled on the Bourbons and guided by them, the unforgiveable crime is therefore no longer heresy but sedition. Continued rebellion against the crown is seen as threatening the safety of the ship, that is, the state, whose wreck will undermine the monarchy, the last unifying thread of the nation. It is 29 Introduction 15 E. Mortgat-Longuet, “Fabriques de Malherbe dans l’historiographie des lettres frança‐ ises (1630-1750),” Pour des Malherbe 44. By 1751, the date of Voltaire’s Le Siècle de Louis XIV, Malherbe’s poetic reputation and historical value were totally eclipsed by Pierre Corneille’s. noteworthy that the royal odes appropriate the all-important task of forging a national identity which traditionally belongs to epic poetry. Yet they accomplish it with images and argument rather than narrative, replacing the plot of epic fiction with metaphor and example, but creating a no less powerful national mythology. II. There are several good reasons why these complex poems deserve to be the focus of a book-length study. First, both supporters and detractors of Malherbe’s reputation as the father of French poetry, reformer of the French language, and founder of the Grand Siècle, have looked to the odes time and again to bolster their diametrically opposed arguments. While it is true that Malherbe’s literary preeminence was beginning to wane by mid-century, particular odes would nevertheless remain for many seventeenth-century critics unquestion‐ able models of eloquence, nobility, and finesse. 15 Second, as I mentioned, the odes form a unified sequence composed over the course of a quarter century. David Lee Rubin asserted the thematic unity of the odes, but he never posited that the odes form a unified sequence based on a recurrent intertext, a common ideological goal, and shared rhetorical tools. This books does so. It shows that the sequence as a whole fashions an overarching national myth that imagines the Bourbons as quasi-divine heroes commanding the ship of state and steering it through the storms of political discord to a new Golden Age, where peace, justice, and prosperity at home are matched by French hegemony abroad. The major odes in the sequence are well over a hundred lines, and they were, by all accounts, difficult to write and long in the making. Odes were often an easy way to make a splash in the literary world, but Malherbe did not write them simply to get noticed. Rather, the odes themselves, here and there, suggest that they aspire to outdo not just contemporary rivals but ancient models as well. Indeed, and this is the third point, their public occasions, their royal addressees, and their illustrious association with Horace and Pindar (two of the great models of eloquence handed down from antiquity) make the odes a privileged vehicle for the demonstration of la grande éloquence [the grand style], the most elevated and powerful genus dicendi [kind of speaking]. This style was so prized by both ancients and early moderns, it was endlessly reinvented by them. Malherbe’s own formulation of the grand style would certainly have been credited to the 30 Introduction 16 See Marc Fumaroli, Précis de la littérature française du XVIIe siècle, ed. Jean Mesnard (PUF, 1990): “The debate over the ‘best style’ is also, during the reign of the first Bourbons, a debate over what style best corresponds to royal majesty” (81); “Fixing the language wrests it from the unpredictable changes of time and the passions and, consequently, establishes royal authority, the image of God, above political faction and disorder, in the sphere of ‘eternal’ glory” (93). 17 On the universality of the Tullianus stylus, see Fumaroli, L’Âge de l’éloquence 80-82. poet’s genius, but showing off the potentialities of the French language would have been even more valuable to the fledgling Bourbon dynasty. The vernacular brought to the height of esthetic perfection in poetry offered an image of the political and moral excellence, and therefore the permanence, to which the French monarchy aspired. Malherbe’s odes strove to set the standard for royal eloquence in a political and cultural climate where the exact formulation of the style best suited to royal majesty was passionately disputed. 16 What is more, the royal odes’ attempt to erect a linguistic norm perceived as the perfection of the French language accords with their ambition to foster national coherence and unity. Fumaroli justly sees Malherbe’s role at the Bourbon court as “the magistrate of the royal language, dictating its grammat‐ ical, lexical, and rhetorical use, and crystallizing its laws in the example of his verse” (Fumaroli, Précis 95). What Fumaroli calls “the only true mission of the poet,” namely “to accord the language with royal grandeur” (Fumaroli, Précis 95), simultaneously serves the ambition to unite the French nation. In La conscience nationale en France pendant les guerres de religion, Myriam Yardeni stresses that the French language was a crucial vector of national consciousness: “the language was seen as a basic element of one’s love of country [patrie]. Any effort that aimed at its diffusion, its implantation, or its embellishment becomes an act of patriotism. This sentiment is not limited to the narrow milieu of the educated and extends far beyond the ivory-tower patriotism of scholars and poets. All understand that the language is their national heritage [patrimoine]” (Yardeni 43). Malherbe’s proverbial obsession with purity of diction, grammatical correctness, and polished sonorousness, criteria borrowed from Ciceronian Atticism (Cicero, De Or. 3.38. 53-54; Brutus 252; Orator 24-25), parlays the perceived universality of the Tullianus stylus [Ciceronian style] into a national language that seeks to transcend dialects of region, caste, and profession. 17 By far the most compelling reason to reexamine the royal odes, however, is to retrieve their impassioned patriotism. To anyone familiar with the prosodic and philological niggling that still surrounds Malherbe’s poetry, the focus on patriotic sentiment should be a welcome breath of fresh air. Close inspection 31 Introduction of the odes invariably reveals a speaker who raises up his voice at a crucial political juncture. The future of France always seems to hang in the balance, and the general welfare of the nation rides on his utterance. Such public and political speech grew out of the political turmoil that prevailed during the Wars of Religion. “Deliberative, that is, political eloquence,” writes Fumaroli, “crept through the whole kingdom, no longer in its discreet form, appropriate to the spirit of court, or the ‘Council of the Prince,’ but as public harangues in the ‘republican’ style which could claim direct descent from Cicero and Demosthenes” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 492). “In the midst of a civil war recalling the Rome of Cicero, Caesar, Octavian, and Antony, the clergy and the magistracy, by turns, shifted toward a deliberative eloquence foreign to the character and the tradition of the French monarchy” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 493). A vigorous pamphlet literature amplified these orations, publicizing the competing ideological claims of Protestants and Catholics and politicizing the rhetorical climate. When Henri IV acceded to the throne and political eloquence was no longer welcome, epideictic oratory took up the slack (Fumaroli, L’Âge 238). As orators and poets competed “to remake and to perfect national unity around the king, and to secure a dearly won peace” (Chauveau 63), “the art of royal praise became the crucible of a literary language transcending provincial particularisms and caste idioms. Remaining the privileged route for poets to obtain honors, titles, pensions or commissions, this prime vector of literary change between 1600 and 1630 mingled eloquence and poetry” (Fumaroli, Précis 98). Catapulted to the forefront of emerging literary trends, encomiastic poetry became a natural outlet for the expression of political aspirations. Jacques Morel has documented the poetic climate of Malherbe’s early years, finding almost identical rhetorical strategies and political imagery in the work of Bertaut, Du Perron, Laugier de Porchères, Rosset, and Vauquelin des Yveteaux. Malherbe shares their use of a current event as a pretext for praising the virtues of Henri IV, their recourse to amplification, their heroic idealization of the king, and their occasional remonstration (Morel, “Henri IV et ses poètes” 214). But Malherbe sets himself apart from this crowded field in several important ways. First, if it need be said, Malherbe distills and clarifies the poetic tendencies of his contemporaries. He does what they do, only better. The prominence given to Malherbe’s poetry in Toussaint du Bray’s anthologies suggests the dominant reputation for eloquence that Malherbe enjoyed in poetic circles, while the poet’s love letters and letters of consolation were coveted models of epistolary 32 Introduction 18 See Laure Himy-Piéri, “Figure de Malherbe dans Les Délices de la poésie française de Toussaint du Bray (1620)” in Pour des Malherbe 125: “Toussaint has the unusual habit of organizing texts by the author’s name (whereas scattering an author throughout an anthology was the norm), and of ranking authors in the order of their notoriety.” Guillaume Peureux cautions that Malherbe’s prominence in Toussaint du Bray’s anthologies could be due to the editor’s personal preference. See G. Peureux, “Éléments pour une histoire de l’invention d’une figure de poète: Malherbe” in Pour des Malherbe (24). eloquence. 18 In Le Secrétaire de la Cour (1625), dedicated to Malherbe, Puget de La Serre declared: “you are the most eloquent of men” (ctd. in Winegarten, p. 18). Second, building on Ronsard’s ennoblement of poetry in the 1550 Odes and the political engagement of Les Discours (1560-1584), Malherbe’s royal odes boldly chart a new political course. The kingdom’s leading orators preserved, even cultivated, a sacerdotal aura (Fumaroli, L’Âge 489), and this includes a royal magistrate like Guillaume Du Vair, one of Malherbe’s early mentors. However, despite typical commonplaces invoking Apollo, the Malherbian speaker is less a prophet than a statesman. The reimagination of the national community in the royal odes depends on the construction of a primarily civic relation between the poet and the reader as the crucial step toward reestablishing trust among subjects of the French king. That is why the notion of ethos, both moral and rhetorical, is so important. It is not simply a tool of persuasion; rather, its power to produce trust in an audience makes it a cornerstone of political community. The royal odes define it neither by poetic inspiration, nor by some transcendent link to God, but by practical reason (phronēsis), the moral virtues and, paradoxically, superior craftsmanship. This latter is not as formalist as it might at first appear. If we understand craft to mean artistic persuasion, induced by argument or style, then it has a causal relationship with eunoia [goodwill], a quality perceived in the speaker but obtained through the production of pleasure and emotion in the audience (Garver 110; Aristotle, Rhet. 2.1.5). In the royal odes, feelings of wonder produced by elevated diction, metaphor, hyperbole, significatio [suggestion, allusion], emphasis [hinting], ratiocinatio [inference], etc., and the pleasure afforded by figures of speech, smooth rhythms and rhyme, work in tandem with the emotions inherent to civic relations: friendliness, confidence, and kindliness, but also anger, shame, and hatred (Aristotle, Rhet. 2.2-11). “The emotions can be constitutive of particular judgments,” observes Garver, “because they are constitutive of the enterprise of judging and deliberating” (Garver 109). If the royal odes do not primarily judge or deliberate, they nevertheless lead the reader to affirm the values and beliefs, and to feel the appropriate emotions, that create and support the imagined national community. Taking a page from Renaissance sacred rhetorics, they use 33 Introduction emotion to reaffirm the affective ties that bind monarch and subject and link subjects to one another. Their grand style, in a manner similar to what Augustine advises, stirs up the full array of emotions (admiration, joy, indignation, hatred, fear, anger, etc.), with the goal of transforming “will and heart” (Shuger 48), not with love of God and of neighbor, but with love of king and of country. This is the third way in which Malherbe’s royal odes distinguish themselves from contemporary poetic production: their reimagining of the national com‐ munity according to loyalty and service pro rege et patria [for king and fatherland]. This emotionally-charged commitment echoes the quasi-secular patriotism that arose in the 1590s, when France overcame the threat of dis‐ solution and Henri went on the offensive against Spain. In La conscience nationale en France pendant les guerres de religion, Myriam Yardeni painstakingly shows how Catholicity, indeed, religion itself, lost its privileged position as the unifying thread of the national tapestry. The royal odes reflect this development, exhibiting a stance in diametrical opposition to Leaguer propagandists who subordinated the French state to the Catholic faith and would have preferred the dissolution of the monarchy to religious plurality—going so far as to strip the Huguenots of their national identity by treating them as foreigners. In a way similar to what one finds in Protestant tracts predating Henri’s accession to the throne, the royal odes decouple religion and nation, while the implicit freedom of conscience that they grant to the Protestant minority presupposes the arguments for tolerance staked out early on in the conflict by royalist Politiques concerned with national unity. Patriotism, that is, one’s commitment and service pro rege et patria, subordinating one’s private and partisan interest to the collective good, is henceforth to constitute the unifying thread of the nation. Malherbe has equally harsh words for Protestants and Catholics whenever powerful nobles from either group revolt against the new regime. Similar to royalist pamphlet propaganda from the 1590s, the royal odes treat all political adversaries as traitors, bad Frenchmen, and propose instead that the nation prefer the legitimate monarch and choose the public good. The same gamut of patriotic feelings, or national sentiment, which burst forth in the 1590s, animates the odes: wonder, pride and gratitude inspired by the monarch; hatred, fear, and indignation directed at the rebels; joy, hope, and emulation shared by all good Frenchmen. If such patriotism is always mediated by loyalty to the monarch, this is certainly because the monarchy is the only remaining symbol of national unity, but also because the Bourbons have demonstrably, or so Malherbe contends, put the general welfare of the nation ahead of every other consideration, thereby proving that they deserve to rule. Working from ideological assumptions that emerged only toward the end of the Wars of 34 Introduction Religion, the royal odes propose to complete what has been only imperfectly accomplished. What is noteworthy, moreover, about their subordination of religion to the state is that the monarch and the patrie [nation] occupy a transcendent position usually reserved for divine things eliciting love, joy, awe, and reverence. The Wars of Religion disrupted the coincidence of two separate obligations, rex [king] and patria [fatherland; nation; country], and the odes attempt to make them coincide once again, with the difference that the Church is henceforth subordinate to patria. In Kantorowicz’s terms, amor patriae [love for the nation] has not simply been set against the corpus mysticum [mystical body] of the Church, but raised above it. The king’s virtue, so superlative as to be quasi-divine, should be seen as a reflection of the nation, that is, collective qualities inflected through this particular individual. To say that the king is the embodiment of the nation is to point to the king’s two bodies, the one collective (the body politic) and the other personal (the physical body). But it is this latter that serves as the concrete, sensuous representation of what cannot be otherwise directly perceived. The obscure forces operating behind the opportune arrival of this savior of the nation at this juncture in history, as well as behind the king’s extraordinary feat of turning back the tides of destruction that threatened to engulf the nation, are causes that one cannot fathom—although they go by various names in the odes: Dieu [God], le grand démon de France [the great daemon of France], les destins [destiny]—and they constitute the imperceptible grounds of wonder. Because the king’s will is the expression of the divine will, his person mediates the special relationship that allegedly exists between God and the French nation. As Christ is where God and humanity intersect, so the king is where transcendent forces and the French nation meet. The odes’ patriotism is not a religion, but their God is a national God. Only in the case of Marie de Médicis does the image of the French monarch begin to approach something like a world redeemer. Numinous feelings of awe, reverence, hope, and fear projected onto the monarch reflect back on the patrie [nation]. Thus the patriotism of the odes and their project of sacralization are related: sacralization demobilizes resistance to the new dynasty even as it elevates the monarch as the pattern of amor patriae [love of country], the proper affective commitment to the public good. Such a model is charged with powerful emotions but also redirects them toward the nation. Instrumental to this affective reorientation is the overarching myth that unifies the sequence of royal odes. The grand tableau that must be inferred from their classical and biblical examples and imagery is a subtle but powerful source of the civic unity which the odes seek to instill. Malherbe’s recourse to 35 Introduction the classical commonplace of the ship of state to unify his poetic sequence and to model the new unity of the nation distances the royal odes from the neo-Stoic political ideology which was the “philosophico-ethical union at the root of the union between the Huguenots and the politicians for the defense of the state” (Crouzet 84). The odes share with royalist pamphlets the intention to integrate the new dynasty into the “mystico-prophetic legend of the French monarchy” (Crouzet 90), but the royalists’ “temporal messianism” (Crouzet 93) differs from Malherbe’s in significant ways. Such royalist pamphlets as Declaration du Roy de Navarre sur les calomnies publiées contre luy (1585), Panegyric Au très chrestien Henry IIII (1590), or Le Labyrinthe de l’Hercule gaulois triomphant (1601) depict Henri IV as a Christ-like stoic Hercules whose reign is founded on “eternal Reason” (Crouzet 93), that is, “a historical necessity dictated by the order of the universe” (Crouzet 90), “a cosmic force acting through the royal figure” (Crouzet 90). Malherbe’s royal odes also acknowledge the special relationship that must exist between God and Henri given the miraculous arrival of this leader to perpetuate the providential history of France, but they underscore Henri’s virtue more, assign human actions more credit for victory or defeat, and so portray Henri rather as a classical hero whose magnanimity is so great as to make him a demi-god. The relationship of husband and wife (“one flesh”), and then of father and son (“one blood”), promote Marie and Louis to the level of co-equals. If the Bourbons are the captains and/ or pilots of the ship of state, then their subjects are the crew, and all have embarked on a political adventure to restore peace, justice and prosperity at home while returning France to imperial greatness abroad. The odes thank God for Henri, see his leadership as indispensable to the general welfare and thus advocate for his unconditional acceptance by all good Frenchmen, but they also call for civic engagement by subjects of the new nation according to the portion of virtue allotted to each. While the accentuation of this national myth is somewhat more secular, it is no less deeply spiritual. This is not simply because the odes endow the monarch and the nation with numinous feelings. Rather, the quest-like structure of the political adventure recalls the “hero cycle” of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the pattern of departure-trial-return that underlies stories of adventure and/ or spiritual illumination and describes the process of spiritual rebirth, whether personal, societal, or cosmic. “The hero is symbolical,” writes Campbell, “of that divine creative and redemptive image which is hidden within us all” (Campbell 31). The royal odes’ portrayal of the Bourbons as mythical heroes, and the representation of the nation’s rebirth as the return of the Golden Age, attest to the national myth’s spiritual objective, namely to move French subjects with love for monarch and nation. Such a universal change would 36 Introduction 19 See Debora Shuger, Sacred Rhetoric: “rhetorics in the Christian grand style lay partic‐ ular weight on visual, dramatic, and expressive techniques, especially hypotyposis, prosopopoeia, apostrophe, dialogue, and the other powerful figures of thought” (93). “Neither Ciceronian practice nor theory allowed for a prose based on the Bible and be the national rebirth which the odes herald, and it has two aspects. On the one hand, the hero saves the nation by action and example: the loyalty and service to the patrie exhibited by the monarch models the same commitment for the nation’s subjects and, through emulation, inspires it in them. On the other hand, the return of the Golden Age announced by the odes imagines a spiritual transformation on the grandest scale. The symbolic death of France during the armed struggle of the civil war and its symbolic rebirth under the heroic leadership of Henri, Marie, and Louis reproduces the cosmogonic cycle of dissolution and renewal (Campbell 224). Such a transformation is total and presupposes the harmonious reintegration of the individual in society and the cosmos. For this reason, it is correct to call the national myth of the royal odes universal, that is, all-encompassing. Whether or not the Golden Age returns in fact, the odes present the quest as both collective and individual, requiring not just the goodwill and cooperation of the nation’s subjects, but the watchfulness of God, the action of the king, and the service of the great nobility in particular. The new Golden Age is a “second coming,” so to speak, and most important, its imminent arrival demands a change in the reader to bring it about: the move from a partisan point of view to a collective national sentiment. In a nation fractured by religious dispute, the odes’ mythological allusions serve as a kind of substitute liturgy. Echoes from classical poetry, the Psalms, and the Prophets become the common glue to hold together the various constituencies of the nation, but also the means by which the reader will undergo the necessary change. “It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those human fantasies that tend to hold it back” (Campbell 7). The odes certainly set out to persuade with argument, to move the reader with admiration, with fear, with emulation, etc., but their highly allusive composition also requires the reader’s active understanding. Most fascinating in this regard is Malherbe’s use of figures of thought—significatio [suggestion, allusion], emphasis [hinting], and ratiocinatio [inference]—which early modern rhetorical theorists, Catholic and Protestant, developed from their reading of Hellenistic rhetorical treatises to create an alternative conception of the grand style that could include the Bible as one of its models. 19 Such figures occur in the odes primarily with reference to 37 Introduction the Church Fathers, with their celebratory grandeur, their fusion of sublimity and ordinariness, their figurative density, or their unclassical syntax” (155). 20 See Fumaroli, L’Âge de l’éloquence, citing the preface of the Jesuit Richeome’s Tableaux sacrés des figures mystiques (1601): “a sacred picture [peinture], not of colors or words, but of signification. This figure is otherwise known as sacred allegory, painting [peinture], or exposition, containing within itself a spiritual meaning known to the spiritual, and hidden from the vulgar” (258). 21 Jean de Serres, Voeu pour la prospérité du Roy et du Royaume (1597), ctd. in Myriam Yardeni, La consciene nationale en France pendant les guerres de religion: 1559-1598 (Paris: Béatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1971) 329. classical myth, but also encompass biblical allusions, suggesting that a “veiled spiritual meaning” attaches to specific images, a reading practice that one also finds in contemporary books of Ignatian spirituality. 20 The literate constituen‐ cies targeted by the odes are implicated in the imaginary political adventure by having to work out the meaning of the odes for themselves, thereby undergoing the desired cognitive and affective modifications. Malherbe’s odes work with the reader to bring about the change of heart and motivation of will necessary to unite the nation on a new mythical foundation, the ship of state en route to utopia (cf. Horace, “Epode 16”). Reworking the famous slogan of Guillaume Postel (“one faith, one law, one king”), the royal odes propose what Jean de Serres could write in 1597: “one king, one law, one nation [patrie].” 21 Their aim is to propagate and to eternalize the ideology of this new national community. The pillar of Malherbe’s patriotism is magnanimity, the virtue for which the odes so highly praise the Bourbons. According to Aristotle, magnanimity is the greatest of the virtues, implying the presence and perfection of all the others (NE 4.3 1123b30-1124a). For the generations of Frenchmen born and raised in civil strife, the idea of virtue was key in the justification of power and privilege. Political elites wanted to believe that virtue entitled them to rule. But magnanimity was especially appropriate to the Bourbons because the new regime needed its subjects, both greater and lesser, to believe that Bourbon authority was deserved as well as legitimate. Malherbe consistently asserts that Henri IV and Louis XIII deserve to be king—and Marie de Médicis, to be regent—thanks to their extraordinary achievements, but most of all, because they have the right concern with honor, putting the general welfare of the nation ahead of all else. On that basis, the odes un-self-consciously celebrate Henri IV and Louis XIII as quasi-divine heroes of superlative virtue (or in Marie de Médicis’ case, a great-souled goddess), anticipating the vogue for the idealized 38 Introduction 22 See Mark Bannister, Privileged Mortals: The French Heroic Novel, 1630-1660 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1983). 23 Michel de Montaigne, Les Essais I.26, ed. Villey-Saulnier (PUF, 2004, nouvelle édition en un volume) 156: “En cette pratique des hommes, j’entends y comprendre, et principalement, ceux qui ne vivent qu’en la mémoire des livres. Il pratiquera, par le moyen des histoires, ces grandes âmes des meilleurs siècles.” [In this intimate acquaintance with men, I mean to include, first and foremost, those who live only in the memory of books. The student will frequent, by means of stories, those great souls of the best centuries.] aspirations and superhuman individuals observed in theater and the heroic novel after 1630. 22 But the odes do not just point to magnanimity and the other virtues. They also illustrate them, exemplifying what they assert. The odes assume, as does Aristotle, that virtue is learned by the imitation of example, and similar to Montaigne’s “De l’institution des enfans” [On the Education of Children] (Essais 1.26), they presuppose that intimate acquaintance with examples of magnanimity, by exercising the reader’s judgment, inculcates the same virtue. 23 If their praise of magnanimity aims to elicit, on behalf of the Bourbons, the admiration of the nation’s subjects, the royal odes also model the acts of loyalty, service, and emulation which they seek to inspire. As paradoxical as it might sound to anyone familiar with Aristotle’s discussion of monarchy in the Politics, it is the virtue of magnanimity in the royal odes that fosters the creation of a civic community under a monarch. Malherbe’s praise for the magnanimous monarch whose patriotism is a model for his subjects evokes a monarchy that mixes aristocratic and democratic elements in a manner that recalls the “harmonic justice” of the perfect polity that Bodin envisions in Les Six Livres de la République (1576). Such praise and inculcation of magnanimity are supposed to foster in French subjects the corresponding moral ethos, the kind of person defined by this all-important virtue. Modeled on the Bourbon commitment to the nation, this moral character becomes the patriotic ideal for the greater and lesser subjects of the new national community. Aimed at the nobility and, indeed, offered to the whole nation, it is embodied and performed by the odes’ rational modes of argument, particularly example. By contrast, the sequence’s overarching myth and recurrent mythological motifs perform a different function, transporting these magnanimous subjects “beyond logical demonstration” to implicate them in a political adventure bigger than themselves. The unstated premise that allows the odes to exemplify the virtues they praise is the conception of action and eloquence as complementary activities 39 Introduction 24 See Garver 11: “When it is a question of rhetorical ability concerning practical matters, that ability seems to be some sign, albeit highly fallible, of valuable moral qualities. After all, the ability to formulate alternative recommendations for actions, to foresee possible consequences, to organize data to bear on an issue, to explore the probabilities of different sorts of evidence—these are abilities that both the able rhetorician and the person of practical wisdom seem to display.” See Cicero, De Oratore 3.58: “In the old days at all events the same system of instruction seems to have imparted education both in right conduct and in good speech; nor were the professors in two separate groups, but the same masters gave instruction both in ethics and in rhetoric, for instance the great Phoenix in Homer, who says that he was assigned to the young Achilles by his father Peleus to accompany him to the wars in order to make him ‘an orator and a man of action too.’” 25 Aristotle considers the citizen of a republic (“politeia”) different from the subject of a monarchy, but Jean Bodin, in Chapter 6, Book 1, of Les Six Livres de la République (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1991), considers the subject of a monarchy a citizen because he is sovereign in his own household: “when the head of the family leaves the domicile where he commands, to discourse and negotiate with other heads of the family, then he puts off the title of master, of head, and of lord [] and is called citizen, which, properly speaking, is simply the free subject holding sovereignty from another” (91-92). See Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France 69. In addition, Malherbe’s royal odes owe much to Parlementarian oratory whose tools and assumptions, borrowed from Cicero of practical wisdom (phronēsis). 24 Such a premise rescues the odes from being no more than sophistical mystifications of power. Although Malherbe was literally a “poète à gages” [salaried poet], the royal odes aspire to do more than simply satisfy the poet’s professional obligation or merely persuade their target audience. The emphasis they place on virtue, and the rhetorical effort they make to establish a close relation between poet and reader, in other words, subjects of the Bourbons, suggest that they partake of what Eugene Garver calls a civic rhetoric, “one in which more than the external goal is at stake. The audience is not an enemy, and the civic rhetorician must construct a civic relation between himself and his audience” (Garver 46; see also 6-12). “Civic rhetoric aims at an identity between the speaker making the arguments and the audience receiving them” (Garver 47). Although the royal odes, being a species of poetry, approach the delicate balance of civic rhetoric from the side of pure craft, that is, a skill or knack in which there is no guiding end, their integration of argumentative reasoning (logos, Rhet. 1.2.3) makes them a technē in the full sense of the term, while their celebration of virtue assimilates them to a civic activity, orienting them toward the good (Garver 7). Although a highly ornamented and emotionally charged discourse like encomiastic poetry, consigned to a professional poet, would seem to be incompatible with, or at least irrelevant to, the speaker’s virtue, the quality most essential for a good citizen (Garver 6-7), 25 it is my contention that the odes partake of rhetoric in the noblest 40 Introduction and Demosthenes, reflect the Robe’s desire to exercise an active role as a kind of senate in the affairs of state. See Fumaroli, L’Âge 498-501. Chapters 1 and 2 of my book show how the royal odes propose, paradoxically, to bring about a civic body in a monarchal regime. sense of the term, integrating “the apparently opposed properties of citizenship and artfulness” and exhibiting “a harmony between reason and character, logos and ēthos” (Garver 12). The capacity to reconcile the potential conflicts between craft and virtue, or the contradictions between tools and technē, makes ethos central to Malherbe’s royal odes. Its function is to maintain such contraries in a causal relationship, bringing tools under technē, and technē under virtue. The scholarship on Malherbe has yet to recognize the value of ethos and virtue as concepts critical to correctly grasping the ideological purpose of the odes. The rhetorical education that writers and poets received in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, not to mention the politicized atmosphere created by civil strife and pamphlet propaganda, suggest that Malherbe intentionally engaged the political arena. It was understood that epideictic eloquence, to which poetry belonged, could have political consequences. Stella P. Revard, a classical scholar of the Pindaric ode, puts it best when she observes that “the poetry of praise always has an agenda” (Revard xiii). For the sake of their ideological purpose, the odes have been invested with the assumptions and the tools of political rhetoric. Ethos is the most important persuasive technique they employ, and virtue, a quality of character, is what they most single out for praise. But this is where things get interesting. Malherbe’s odes clearly invite the confusion of actions and texts, persons and speech, doing and making. Their confusion of rhetorical ethos with moral ethos, I believe, is deliberate. The odes are designed to make their readers believe that the character portrayed in and through discourse—whether of the poet himself or one of his patrons—is the actual person. The immortal glory offered by this poetry was very much intended for the living. III. Whether Malherbe’s royal odes belong to the paradigm of the Renaissance, Classicism, or the Baroque, twentieth-century critics have disagreed. Although Malherbe famously rejected the late-Renaissance esthetic of Desportes, leader of the school of Ronsard, it can be shown that the royal odes share many of the same rhetorical and poetic devices. Following Boileau’s lead in the L’Art poétique 1.131-162 (1674), most critics, like Fumaroli, continue to see in Malherbe a precursor of the French classical esthetic. Others, taking their cue from Jean Rousset, have preferred to classify Malherbe’s poetry as baroque, and with good 41 Introduction 26 See Jean Rousset, Littérature de l’âge baroque en France: Circé et le paon ( José Corti, 1953); L’Intérieur et l’extérieur: Essai sur la poésie et le théâtre au XVIIe siècle ( José Corti, 1968); Anthologie de la poésie baroque française 2 vol. ( José Corti, 1988); Dernier regard sur le baroque ( José Corti, 1998). 27 See Robert N. Nicolich, “Mannerism and Baroque: Further Notes on Problems in the Transfer of These Concepts from the Visual Arts to Literature,” PFSCL 10.19 (1983) 441-457. Also Marc Fumaroli, “Baroque et Classicisme,” Questionnement du Baroque, ed. Alphonse Vermeylen (Bruxelles: Editions Nauwelaerts, 1986). The first contradiction is chronological in nature. In the fine arts, the Classicism of the Italian High Renaissance is followed by Mannerism and then the Baroque. In French literature, Mannerism and the Baroque precede Classicism. The second contradiction has to do with the vagueness of the concept’s esthetic criteria. Fumaroli faults the Baroque for being so general a category that it becomes a hindrance when one attempts to interpret particular works in their light. One can always find an exception to the rule. Or one keeps extending the definition. Rousset himself lamented: “the word ‘baroque,’ like a magic spell, has ruptured every semantic barrier” (L’Intérieur et l’extérieur 249). reason: the royal odes exhibit the goal, the broad themes, and many of the rhetorical features of baroque poetry. 26 Rousset must be credited with providing scholars with a powerful framework to investigate the mentality, culture, and literature of early seventeenth-century France, even if the category suffers from internal contradictions, with respect to France, that are difficult to resolve. 27 In this book, however, none of these literary and historical paradigms has been used to unpack the form and function of Malherbe’s royal odes. My concern was simply that the theoretical challenges involved in engaging the vexed questions they raise would divert too much attention from analysis of the poetry and its historical context. Instead, this book’s reconsideration of Malherbe’s royal odes in terms of ideology and eloquence has been nourished by several overlapping areas of historical research. My thesis director, Pierre Force, an unfailing source of erudition and encouragement, first set me on this path many years ago when he urged me to read Marc Fumaroli’s L’Âge de l’éloquence. Since then, the work of many other scholars, Jean-Pierre Chauveau, James Biester, Debora K. Shuger, Eugene Garver, Mark Bannister, Peter W. Shoemaker, Mack P. Holt, Myriam Yardeni, Marcus Keller, and David Lee Rubin, have immeasurably contributed to casting the odes in their proper historical and rhetorical light. But I owe a special debt of gratitude to Kathy Eden, whose analysis of Ciceronian decorum as it relates to literary hermeneutics suggested how I could legitimately link close textual analysis to historical context, especially for odes composed in an eminently oratorical age: Cicero defines eloquence as the ability to practice decorum, defined in turn as the ability to accommodate the occasion, taking account of times, places, and persons: 42 Introduction 28 Perelman and Olbrects-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric (Notre Dame Press, 1969) 20-21: “Every social circle or milieu is distinguishable in terms of its dominant opinions and unquestioned beliefs, of the premises that it takes for granted without hesitation: these views form an integral part of its culture, and an orator wishing to persuade a particular audience must of necessity adapt himself to it. Thus the particular culture of a given audience shows so strongly through the speeches addressed to it that we feel we can rely on them to a considerable extent for our knowledge of the character of past civilizations.” 29 Antoine Adam, Histoire de la littérature française au XVIIe siècle, vol. 1 (Paris: Editions mondiales, 1962) 32: “In seventeenth-century society, a world where the king alone governs the country, and where the Church has the exclusive right to direct souls, the poet can only be an organizer of syllables, no more useful to society than a good player of skittles [quilles]. Poetry is only a game. A society game.” Marc Fumaroli, L’Age de l’éloquence 23: “Such ‘authors’ as write for the entertainment of an ‘uneducated’ and ‘profane’ audience have the air of ‘sophists’ among orators, functioning in a sphere of play that contributes nothing to salvation, adds little to knowledge, and offers power merely an ornament.” ‘This, indeed, is the form of wisdom that the orator must especially employ—to adapt himself to occasions and persons.’ As it affects poetry, he continues, decorum comes under the careful consideration of the grammaticus (Orator 72). For the interpretation of poetry, as the grammarian’s chief function, depends in large part on the very same set of questions asked by the orator in the interests of decorum: who, to whom, when, where, why, and so on. [] Interpreting poetry, in other words, is fundamentally a historical investigation, one grounded in the very questions that constitute the principle of decorum (Eden, Hermeneutics 26-27). Accordingly, Malherbe’s practicing of decorum in the composition of his royal odes not only requires that readers look beyond the text to the historical particulars of time, place, and persons, but actually justifies seeing these as already embedded in the fabric of the text. This is not to say that the odes are only mirrors of their context, but rather that an immanent reading of the odes reveals the dominant values, beliefs, and assumptions that Malherbe’s intended audience took for granted 28 —provided we keep in mind what the composition of such an audience owes to the poet’s own creative imagination. A merely positivist reading would risk overlooking how the poet-orator constructs an adequate concept of his audience (Perelman 33)—adequate to the historical particulars, certainly, but also to the poet’s own poetic imagination. Malherbe’s royal odes address the monarch and the subjects of France, but they also aim to create a new national community out of the existent constituencies they address. By attending to the odes’ rhetorical tactics and strategies, this book restores the sociopolitical dimensions to a poetic form—the royal encomium—too quickly dismissed by critics as “a game” or “merely an ornament of power.” 29 Poetry 43 Introduction 30 See Fumaroli, L’Âge 495: “This is the justification of worldly Belles Lettres in the eyes of Christian morality, provided that this enjoyment does not go beyond the bounds of reason and allies itself to what is natural, verisimilar, and to some ‘instruction.’” may not have been the divine discourse of the humanities, with special access to wisdom, as the Pléiade contended. But it was more than mere honnête divertissement (noble diversion). 30 Poetry was a minor art in a variety of ways, but major political elites nevertheless made use of it for their own purposes. This fact alone would have sufficed to assign poetry a sociopolitical function even if Malherbe were not aspiring to be more than a bon joueur de quilles [good player of skittles]. The extra-literary function of the royal odes is not merely suggested by their conditions of production: such a purpose is sometimes explicitly stated in the poems. Only when severed from any meaningful external purpose does early seventeenth-century poetry, and the royal encomium in particular, look like an ornament or a game. Is it any surprise, then, that twentieth-century criticism, with its formalist bias, has paid such excessive attention to word usage, grammar, versification, logical coherence, or semantics in early seventeenth-century poetry? Even the more seductive theoretical approaches inspired by Bachelard or Genette miss the mark, as they mistakenly assume poetry’s full-fledged emancipation from patronage, when in fact it was taking its first steps toward literary autonomy only at the end of the seventeenth century. Norbert Elias in The Court Society does well to remind us that what modern readers too often take to be purely esthetic values were perceived by early moderns also as “the finely shaded expressions of social qualities” (Elias 58). The pleasure of the esthetic, of play, simultaneously served other ends—social and political ends. If poetry in the early seventeenth century was a game, it was a dangerous one. The claim that poets were minor rhetoricians, or that poetry occupied a minor place in the res literaria [literary canon], is belied by the political persecution of Théophile de Viau for a sonnet. If nothing was really at stake in the writing of poetry, then why did anyone take the trouble to notice? By the same token, the stark contrast between the high ambition sounded in Malherbe’s odes and his deprecating remarks about poets and poetry needs to be taken in context. As Racan himself observes of the master: “His greatest happiness was to entertain his friends Racan, Colmby, Yvrande and others, with his contempt for all those things which the world most esteems” (Racan, Malherbe 33). Such disdain for poetry and poets was surely ironic, an aristocratic pose meant to shock and to delight close friends. Malherbe’s sardonic sense of humor is not a reliable indication of his true feelings, or, if it is, must be read in reverse. He was likely parodying the reductive view of the poet’s role in French society, one which neither he nor his friends shared—at least, that is, before 44 Introduction Racan became devout. So, while trying to avoid the mistake of giving poetry too central a place in early seventeenth-century France, this book nevertheless rests on the claim that poetry was an important ornament wielded by the powerful for social and political ends. Part I, “Praising the Great Soul,” sets up the social, political, and rhetorical framework for the close reading of the odes in Part II. Chapter 1, “Literary Patronage,” shows how the magnanimity of Malherbe’s royal patron, Henri IV, influences the entire sequence’s conception of audience. Ethos is the rhetorical tool that allows the poet to adapt himself and his poetic discourse to the monarch, whose two bodies, personal and collective, determine the royal odes’ construction of a new national community. Chapter 2, “The Evolution of Noble Identity,” looks to the changes affecting noble identity in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries to explain the centrality of virtue in the royal odes. The analysis of Aristotelian magnanimity in particular reveals an unsuspected logical consistency and political ground underlying these encomiastic poems. The praise for Henri IV’s magnanimity justifies his accession to the throne but also transforms the king into a quasi-divine hero. Chapter 3, “The Search for Royal Eloquence,” the longest of these preliminary chapters, situates the royal odes relative to Gallican and Jesuit eloquence. It examines the hybrid genus dicendi of the odes, their accessory political function, and their incorporation of the rhetorical methods of wonder in support of Henri’s ideological program. To grasp Malherbe’s idea of eloquence, the roles of phronēsis [practical wisdom], moral virtue, elocutio [style] and the emotions are analyzed. The “admirable style” is not wholly rejected but rather modified by a Ciceronian Atticism tinged with the suggestiveness and emotional intensity of Hellenistic plainness. While owing more to the polish and abundance of Isocrates, Malherbe still borrows from the Longinian sublime. Powerful figures of thought underpin the self-description of the royal odes as portraits of character capable of changing readers’ perceptions of the monarch. The result of such close rhetorical analysis is to show on what basis the speaker of the odes becomes a model subject of the new nation. Part II, “The Sequence of Royal Odes,” the heart of the book, demonstrates the underlying unity of the corpus by performing a close reading of each ode from start to finish and in chronological order: À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France (1600; 1601); Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin (1605; 1607); Ode sur l’attentat commis en la personne de sa majesté (1605; 1606); Ode au feu Roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan (1606; 1607); À Monseigneur le duc de Bellegarde (1608; 1609); 45 Introduction 31 The first date, conjectural, is the year of composition; the second date represents the first printed edition of the ode. Malherbe’s poems usually circulated in manuscript before reaching the press. See Antoine Adam’s notes in Malherbe, Poésies (Gallimard NRF, 1971). Sur la mort de Henri le Grand (1610; 1630); À la Reine sur les heureux succès de sa régence (1610; 1611); À la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence (1613; 1621); Pour la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence (unfinished 1613; 1630); Pour le Roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois (1627; 1635). 31 The number of odes examined here expands the corpus studied by David Lee Rubin from seven to ten, adding the shorter Horatian odes “Sur la mort de Henri le Grand” and “À la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence” as well as the long fragment “Pour la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence.” The expansion is justified by the intertextual motifs woven throughout the sequence, that is to say, the image of the ship of state and/ or images of flood and storm, which lead an attentive reader to infer the overarching mythological quest. Such active participation is a figure of thought known as emphasis or significatio (Quintilian 8.3.83; 9.2.64; Rhet. ad Heren. 4.53.67 ff.), and it is how a reader would have become implicated in the political adventure and would have undergone the desired cognitive and affective modifications, that is, the movement from a partisan point of view to a collective national sentiment. This second half of the book therefore closely examines the argument and style of each ode, showing how the themes, imagery, and examples of each are fitted to the particular historical occasion as well as to the sequence’s overarching mythological pattern. Ethos, virtue, and the resources of elocutio remain the guiding principles by which to explore these multiple connections. With Malherbe’s royal odes placed in their proper historical context, mean‐ ingful intentions emerge from their stylistic choices. Such intentions have less to do with what Malherbe meant to say than with what he did say and what that implies when considered against the political, social, and rhetorical backdrop. Every poem, every metaphor, is treated as an intentional object, that is, something purposefully constructed. This approach respects the Aristotelian distinction between actions and products and leaves the poet’s psychological intentions in the realm of speculation. It treats the stylistic choices evident in the text as decisions whose meaning and implication become plain once they have been set in their original context. The resonances of Malherbe’s odes with the pamphlet propaganda of the Wars of Religion, generously cited in Myriam Yardeni’s La Conscience nationale en France pendant les guerres de religion 46 Introduction 32 See Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (New World Library, 2008) 1-18. (1559-1598), were especially illuminating. Malherbe’s decision to compose odes in the grand style, rather than prose pamphlets, on behalf of his Bourbon patrons, most likely had to do with the alleged permanence and universal appeal of poetry. The immortality and universality which the royal odes claim for themselves are recruited to serve the greater good of the monarchy and the nation. That said, the revelation of the hero cycle—an ahistorical structure—came as a complete surprise. David Lee Rubin must be credited with first seeing that the mythological themes informing Malherbe’s first ode to Marie de Médicis could be extended to the entire series. When I began to follow up Rubin’s leads, however, looking closely at the odes’ mythological examples and images, and tracking down their textual sources, it dawned on me that the odes as a whole formed a unified sequence, and that, although Rubin did not do so, an underlying mythological pattern for the whole sequence could be found. My attention to the odes’ rhetorical strategies and tactics suddenly broadened to include the story they were trying to tell. That story had a hero, and the hero was engaged in a quest. But the sequence told it indirectly, through allusion from multiple sources, giving only bits and pieces in any single ode. Joseph Campbell’s hero cycle from The Hero with a Thousand Faces suggested itself because any particular story, or myth, does not have to include every stage of the cycle for the whole to be implied, and most important, every particular hero-story is a variation on the general pattern, so that the diversity of mythological examples and images presented in Malherbe’s odes could remain united in the motif of the quest. The underlying presence of the pattern means, too, that the incongruous details of any myth may be discounted. While my choice to use Campbell’s hero cycle to interpret the overarching story of the sequence may raise objections in some quarters, the ubiquity of the ship of state and storm/ flood imagery as the mythological motif unifying all the odes is undeniable once the reader has been alerted to it. Campbell would argue that the monomyth of the hero’s adventure has such deep roots in the human psyche, as attested by the psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams, that Malherbe need not have consciously incorporated it into the odes. 32 Alternatively, Malherbe’s recourse to heroic myth may have simply unlocked a potential unity that the poet was able to keep exploiting and deepening over the years. I see no reason to choose between these alternatives. I would just add that Malherbe’s use of an image—metaphor, example, comparison, metonymy, analogy, etc.—to suggest more than is being stated (emphasis, Quintilian 8.3.83), sending an erudite and diligent reader to a classical 47 Introduction 33 See Fumaroli, L’Âge de l’éloquence 258-260. 34 For the reception of Malherbe in French literary history, see Emmanuelle Mortgat-Lon‐ guet, “Fabriques de Malherbe dans l’historiographie des lettres françaises (1630-1750),” Pour des Malherbe 31-49. or biblical intertext where an illuminating story is being told, recalls the con‐ temporary practice of Jesuit books of spirituality which used a mystical version of peinture [vivid description] to unlock the veiled meaning of engraved images that referred back to passages in the Bible. 33 This similarity of intertextual reading practices suggests that Malherbe could have invested his odes’ rhetorical images with spiritual meaning, and that the royal odes contain a deeper or hidden message which may be accessed only by reflection, provided the intertext has been dug up. If such a reading is plausible, and I don’t see why it is not, then the presence of Joseph Campbell’s hero cycle in the odes looks much less ahistorical. What does seem clear in retrospect is that Malherbe’s contemporaries, when reflecting on the poetic achievement of the odes, could not see the forest for the trees. The relatively uneducated members of the royal court, which constituted Malherbe’s captive audience, could hardly have been expected to pick up on such veiled allusions, while rivalry and caste loyalty probably blocked the royal odes’ reception among the more erudite members of the Church and the Parlement. Malherbe was after all contesting their self-appointed magistracy of royal eloquence. The myopic reading of the odes by erudite belle-lettrists like Chapelain, Godeau, or Guez de Balzac was perhaps the fault, at least in part, of Malherbe himself. His infamous critique of Ronsard, his rude snubbing of Desportes, and his exclusive poetry atelier (where his epigones gathered to discuss the mechanics of verse) fit two ready-made narratives: the petulant modern rejecting the humanist legacy, and the grammarian demanding clarity, logic, and coherence at the expense of inspiration. My aim in refocusing the lens on the royal odes is to widen and to deepen the reader’s gaze in such a way as to recover the big picture while not losing sight of tactics and tools. The approach I have taken, however, has little to say about the actual reception of the royal odes. That would have required writing an altogether different book. 34 The early seventeenth century was certainly no Golden Age of poetry. Malherbe did not, as a result of his odes, wield any political authority, although that did not stop him from pursuing pleasure, privilege, and fame alongside his social superiors. Already in 1630, the year Malherbe’s complete works were posthumously published, the elevated themes and style of the odes had started to look tiresome, and their attempt to reimagine the nation was not taken seriously—if readers were even aware of it. “If the writing of encomiastic 48 Introduction odes quickly turns to repetitive formulas and to academic exercise, becoming a pretext for essays and polemics among specialists, this is surely because its finality is increasingly less perceptible, and because a divide opens up between the means of expression handed down by literary tradition and the real aspirations of the social group at whom this literature is aimed” (Chauveau 66). Chauveau and others have noted how lyric poems of the early seventeenth century turn away from the implicit comparisons anchored in classical and biblical poetry that inform the royal odes. Poetry was migrating away from court to aristocratic salons, where poets and poetasters composed lyrics exploring the refinements of honnêteté [nobility] and galanterie [flirtatiousness]. Malherbe frequented the Hôtel de Rambouillet [the Rambouillet Townhouse] as early as 1615, but “between Malherbe and the other poets of the seventeenth century [i.e. Voiture, Sarasin, Corneille, etc.], there existed little personal contact at the Hôtel” (Abraham, “Malherbe et l’Hôtel” 84). What is more, a new political and cultural climate was emerging in the 1630s, shaped by such momentous events as the siege of La Rochelle (1627-1628), France’s entry into the Thirty Years War (1635), and La Querelle du Cid [The Quarrel of the Cid] (1637) which led to the publication of Chapelain’s Sentiments de l’Académie sur le ‘Cid’ [The Academy’s Opinions on the ‘Cid’] (1638). Heroic novels, the tragedies of Corneille, literary criticism, conversation, and light verse now preoccupied the literati. Aristocratic taste had moved on. Undoubtedly, the audience for Malherbe’s royal odes had always been select, and the scope of their impact limited, but Malherbe, despite his sardonic quips, never conceived his work as a minor art. On the contrary, the odes fearlessly engage the issues that most concerned ruling elites in the early seventeenth century: the proper functions of kingship, the political stability and economic prosperity of the kingdom, the crisis of noble identity, the political authority of women, and the imperial ambitions of the Habsburgs. The odes’ highest purpose is to reimagine the nation—indeed, to call into being a new national community. To say that they are ideological is to insist that they make claims about the way things are, affirm the values and beliefs of a dominant social group, and present a patriotic vision of the nation risen from the ashes of the civil war. Much more is at stake in Malherbe’s odes than questions of style, but those stakes are always filtered through style. Although this book is a work of historical criticism in French literature, I have tried to make it accessible to anyone who might take a comparatist’s interest in early modern poetry. I have generously quoted and translated the odes and the critical literature whenever it was appropriate. Indeed, I hope that anyone who loves poetry will be fascinated by the pomp and elegance of Malherbe’s 49 Introduction royal odes, their profound erudition, wild flights of imagination, and direct engagement with the powerful. Malherbe is the consummate craftsman, and his odes generously repay detailed analysis. But the path to appreciation requires that we understand how the odes work, and for that one cannot lose sight of their political, cultural, and rhetorical contexts. The imposition of historically alien values and expectations, whether of the later seventeenth century, or of our own era, merely ends up obscuring what is most astonishing in this poetry. These odes indeed have the power to astonish—that was one of their goals—if only we will deign to learn their language and to dream their dreams. 50 Introduction Part I Praising the Great Soul This section of the book resuscitates the historical conventions, cultural assump‐ tions, and critical terms necessary to appreciate the unique achievement of Malherbe’s royal odes. Its focal point is the megalopsychos, the Aristotelian great soul (NE 4.3), because it is both an ethos and a virtue, and because it was considered the wellspring of la grande éloquence [the grand style]. Chapter 1 examines how the ethos of magnanimity, modeled on Henri IV, encompasses and defines the members of the body politic. Chapter 2 asks how the virtue of magnanimity shapes the conceptions of monarchy and the national community. Chapter 3, the longest of these three, investigates the rhetorical climate and the hybrid genus dicendi of the royal odes to contextualize their version of the grand style. There was no way to define and to develop the notions of ethos, virtue, and eloquence, to relate them to the historical context, and to show how they organize the composition—one might say, the enunciation—of the royal odes, while at the same time explicating in a clear and coherent way such highly complex poems. Such a division allows the concepts and arguments presented in Part I to be used without excessive comment in the close reading of the royal odes in Part II. 1 On the collective personhood of the king, see Myriam Yardeni, La conscience nationale en France pendant les guerres de religion (21): “France draws a part of its greatness from the mystical connection of its king with God. However, the king does not draw near to God Chapter 1. Literary Patronage Although, technically speaking, Malherbe was the client of Roger de Saint-Lary de Termes, seigneur de Bellegarde (1562-1646), Grand Écuyer de France [Master of the Horse], in whose service the poet received a cash stipend, table and board, horse and valet (Adam, Poésies 263), it was understood that Malherbe was the king’s “man.” In addition to “écuyer du roi” [equerry of the king], Malherbe was named “gentilhomme ordinaire de la chambre” [official gentleman of the royal bedchamber] (Adam, Poésies 223). Bellegarde, a great lord from a powerful military family, was himself a loyal client of Henri IV. When the mortally-wounded Henri III recognized Henri of Navarre as his successor in 1589, Bellegarde without hesitation transferred his allegiances to the new king and valiantly fought by his side to help him secure control of the monarchy. After the death of Henri IV, the queen regent declared Malherbe the recipient of a royal pension in 1611, and Louis XIII reaffirmed this patron-client relationship in 1622 and again in 1624. The difficulty that Malherbe experienced in getting the royal treasury to honor these financial commitments may have led to the interruption of his work on the sequence in 1613, and it may explain the self-interested praise and solicitation of later odes. The personal ties between Henri IV and Malherbe, mediated by Bellegarde, belong to the diffuse and particularistic network of personal relationships known as patronage. One of those unfamiliar but essential practices of early modern France, patronage needs some explanation if a twenty-first-century reader is to appreciate how its assumptions and conventions inform the com‐ position of the royal odes. Fortunately, Peter W. Shoemaker’s important book, Powerful Connections: The Poetics of Patronage in the Age of Louis XIII, offers a compelling and nuanced analysis of this fundamental cultural practice which may be adapted, with small changes, to Malherbe’s royal odes, half of which were composed during the reign of Henri IV. The most important adaptation concerns the particularistic “audience of one,” which Shoemaker sees at work in all patronage texts. While this notion is certainly determinative for the royal odes (their patrons are Henri, Marie, and Louis, with one long ode addressed to Bellegarde), one must recall that a monarch constitutes a special kind of patron, since he or she embodies an audience of more-than-one: this is because a monarch cannot in principle be limited to a single body but always includes the body politic of the nation. 1 The royal odes written for the king, or the queen, 52 Part I Praising the Great Soul as an individual, but as a collective person representing France.” Kantorowicz speaks of a “corpus mysticum,” also of a “persona mystica,” which initially denoted the Church, then signified any body politic of the secular world. Jurists and political thinkers of the late thirteenth century variously define the “mystical body” as the people, the city, the kingdom, or the fatherland. See E.H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies (Princeton UP, 1997 reprint) 206-11. frequently address him or her directly, but they are also addressed through the monarch to the nation and, often, are aimed at the great nobility in particular, a key constituency of the nation. The ode to Bellegarde is an indirect appeal to the latter. Starting from the historical practice of patronage, this chapter shows how the monarch’s person (one of the three particulars of decorum: time, place, and persons) implies an imagined community of addressees. The broad outlines of patronage described by Shoemaker apply without reservation to the royal odes. “Representations were produced, and power was exerted,” he writes, “through networks of interpersonal relationships that bridged the public and the nonpublic. Writers, historians, artists, architects, and other cultural creators specialized in the business of publicizing—and illustrating—their protectors’ influence. In return, patrons provided publicity for artistic works and gave artists and writers access to social elites where the latter could promote their works” (Shoemaker 17). “This highly personalized and hierarchical system inevitably exerted an influence on literary practice, shaping the exchanges that defined the economic, social, and political value of literature and favoring certain genres and modes of expression. The promise of social advancement created a gradient of desire that generated representations and put them into circulation. In their attempts to win over patrons, writers were drawn into an elitist mode of cultural production and consumption that promoted a hierarchy of literary value based on aristocratic canons of taste” (Shoemaker 19). While the informal arrangements of patronage were governed by verbal contracts based on antiquated feudal ideals, and the relationships were often charged with powerful emotions, it is nevertheless true that self-interest and political calculation inevitably dictated the terms of both sides of the agreement and led to the frequent re-negotiation of loyalties. The relationship of poet and monarch in the early seventeenth century fits comfortably within Shoemaker’s broad paradigm. “The royal family recruited literary talent both for official propaganda and to provide the scripts for ballets, tournaments, and other court festivities” (Shoemaker 30). In theory, a monarch was supposed to be the most distinguished member of the nobility. Because this was not always the case in fact, monarchs used belles-lettres for self-aggrandizement, reinforcing their social and political elevation over the 53 Chapter 1. Literary Patronage nobles at court, especially the great lords, but also shoring up their authority over clergy and magistrates, the other powerful members of the body politic. Furthermore, given the voluminous and wide diffusion of pamphlet literature, which “sought to reach not only the most reasonable part of the populace, but to interest the masses” (Yardeni 44), there is no reason to assume that the impact of belles-lettres was limited to the first two orders of the kingdom. Various poetry anthologies, “the mirrors of their epoch,” edited and published by entrepreneurs with “sharply distinguished literary and esthetic conceptions” (Lafay, “Recueils collectifs” 15), disseminated Malherbe’s royal odes to different sectors of the reading public. Both literary venues, elite and popular, paid homage to the monarch’s preeminence and authority. As Shoemaker notes, this French literature, whether pamphlets or lyric poems, represented an elitist point of view in an elitist mode of expression. Public values were indistinguishable from the elitist values expressed at court or in aristocratic circles thanks to the hegemony over cultural production that the monarchy and the nobility exerted through patronage (Shoemaker 17). Although Shoemaker examines the flourishing of patronage primarily after the reign of Henri IV, he traces the practice’s “contingent rhetorical strategies” and its “personal or particularistic rhetoric” to a foundational text, Budé’s De l’institution du prince [On the Education of the Prince], published in 1547 (Shoemaker 19). “The treatise devotes an extended discussion to court oratory and lays particular emphasis on the man of letters’ potential role as counselor” (Shoemaker 20). In Shoemaker’s view, the significance of Budé’s treatise derives from its prescient anticipation of a “shift from oratory to counsel” (Shoemaker 20), of “a move away from the traditional public scope of rhetoric” (Shoemaker 20-21). However, this shift would have to wait more than half a century to come about. The contentious political environment that accompanied the Wars of Re‐ ligion not only fostered oratory of the sort practiced by Demosthenes and Cicero, but also subsumed the traditional patronage ties of poets under the banner of one sectarian camp or the other. Polemic abounded, and this includes militant poems like Ronsard’s Les Discours (1560-1584) or Agrippa d’Aubigné’s Les Tragiques (1572-1616). Indeed, had it not been for the religious wars, Catherine de Médicis (1519-1589), “imbued with her ancestors’ ideal that governments and powerful persons should patronize artists and humanists,” would probably have dispensed more royal pensions and commissions (Baumgartner 293). With the return of peace in 1598, the crown and political elites could contemplate a return to the traditional arrangements of literary patronage. What was unusual, therefore, about Henri IV’s accession was that it marked the end-game to a long and devastating civil war. In the early years of the sev‐ 54 Part I Praising the Great Soul enteenth century, Henri IV enjoyed, if not a monopoly over literary patronage, then an unusually broad outpouring of goodwill. Despite isolated Huguenot and Leaguer opposition, “a kind of unanimity had formed around the idea of celebrating the return to order and peace symbolized by Henri IV” (Chauveau 67). Such strong support for the crown would not be seen again until after the Fronde. If the public and political thrust of the royal odes makes them outliers in the undeniable march toward “the expansion of two parallel realms of personalized discourse: private conversation and secret political counsel” (Shoemaker 22), it is almost certainly because Malherbe was a contemporary of Henri IV and grew up under the same dark clouds of civil conflict. In addition, placed in the clientele of Bellegarde, he was invited to stay at court when literary patronage had only just recovered and encomiastic speech-making had only just supplanted political oratory. While the outward form of the royal odes—the encomium—is adapted to the epideictic rhetorical climate instituted by Henri IV in 1603, their impassioned patriotism recalls the stirring pleas of royalist pamphlets published in the 1580s and 1590s. Indeed, the eventual divergence of discourse into two personalized realms, reinforced by the vigorous rebirth of patronage culture, may well have doomed the odes to a reception not on their own terms. Shoemaker rightly insists that all patronage texts—and this includes Malher‐ be’s royal odes—exhibit a particularistic rhetoric. “This rhetoric was necessarily ad hominem in that the success or failure of a given performance was not a function of swaying the opinions of a broad public, but rather of seducing a single individual” (Shoemaker 23). This observation, while true on its face, requires some qualification in Malherbe’s case. For instance, Malherbe’s first ode, “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601), which he read aloud at Marie’s reception in Aix, seems to have gone unnoticed by both Marie and Henri. It was Henri’s de facto poet laureate and close friend, Cardinal Du Perron, who noticed and recommended Malherbe to the king in 1601, calling him “the best poet in the kingdom” (Adam, Histoire 27). In 1605, Malherbe travelled to Paris in the entourage of his mentor, the Président Du Vair, and quite unexpectedly received a commission from Henri to compose an ode on the occasion of his imminent campaign in the Limousin—which Malherbe accepted and, upon the king’s return, presented him with “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607). Clearly, if Malherbe had not succeeded in fitting the ode to his prospective patron, and if the ode had not made a favorable impression on the soldier-king—despite his alleged untutored tastes and loathing for scholars (Fumaroli L’Âge 522)—Henri would not have placed Malherbe in the clientele of Bellegarde. But it was the educated humanists at court, Du Perron and Du 55 Chapter 1. Literary Patronage Vair, who had a high opinion of Malherbe’s poetry and who prepared the poet’s positive reception by the king. With respect to Malherbe’s royal odes, therefore, several caveats must qualify Shoemaker’s “audience of one.” First, Henri IV was in no way qualified to make critical judgments about the quality of Malherbe’s poetry. This was not unusual. The Valois kings were known for their generous patronage of literature and the arts, but neither François I nor Henri II were educated beyond what one would expect of a nobleman of the time. Henri III, it is true, tutored by Pontus de Tyard and Budé, had a broad and deep foundation in classical learning. He created the Académie du Palais, a coterie of poets and scholars devoted to cultivating French eloquence, and did not hesitate to harangue Parlement in 1586 (Fumaroli, L’Âge 494). The arrival of Henri IV at the Louvre, however, did not bode well for belles-lettres, destroying the “literary bridges” that had been erected between “the elite of the erudite Robe” and “the high nobility orbiting around the king” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 521). Du Vair and Du Perron (and Malherbe, too) lamented “the pretentious and courtly taste of belated rhetoriqueurs” which the Gascons had brought to the Louvre from the court of Nérac (Fumaroli, L’Âge 521). Add to this the fashionable Italian and Spanish influences in poetry, court spectacle, and humanist scholarship that arrived with Marie de Médicis, and the French court in the early years of the seventeenth century became a veritable “dialectical crossroads” without its own language or style (Fumaroli, L’Âge 522). In such circumstances, how much could a poet really expect from a patron like Henri IV? Even if the monarch had the last word about engaging the services of writers and poets, his opinion and taste were bound to be influenced by such “experts” as Du Vair and Du Perron—who indeed intervened on Malherbe’s behalf. To Henri’s credit, he listened, and hired Malherbe to shore up his public image. The second caveat is that, even if “the ideal of the orator necessarily became entangled with royal patronage” (Shoemaker 20), the royal court was not the only, nor even the most important, social space where eloquence was practiced. As Marc Fumaroli shows in L’Âge de l’éloquence, the vying of orators to outdo one another in praise of Henri IV was more than a personal competition. It was a competition of caste to determine whether the pulpit, the Parlement, or the court would constitute the epicenter of royal eloquence. The markedly different rhetorical practices, social and political values, esthetic preferences, and levels of education that characterized these social spaces created a complex dynamic in which distinct conceptions of eloquence competed for dominance. To compose, and then to publish, an encomiastic ode for the monarch was to take up the gauntlet in this fierce contest and to challenge all other claimants to the mantle of royal eloquence. Malherbe’s bid for Henri’s patronage was 56 Part I Praising the Great Soul 2 See Charles Chamberlain, “From ‘Haunts’ to ‘Character’: The Meaning of Ethos and its Relation to Ethics,” Helios 11.2 (1984) 97-108. personal, certainly, as it concerned Malherbe’s employment and it was Henri’s decision to make, but it was public to the extent that the ode as finished product implied the endorsement or the negation of rhetorical positions staked out by other contenders in the nascent French Republic of Letters. Third, all rhetoric is particularistic. Whether in public oratory or private conversation, the principle of decorum says that the speaker must adapt himself and his discourse to the particulars of the occasion: time, place, and persons (Eden, Hermeneutics 26; Aristotle, Rhet. 3.7.1-11; Cicero, De Or. 3.210-211, Orator 70-71, 123; Quintilian 8.3.11-13). In rhetorical theory, a speech is not less particularistic for being addressed to a broad public. Its arguments and style are more skiagraphic, that is, less polished, rougher (Aristotle, Rhet. 3.12.5; Shuger 15). To be effective, however, it must still succeed in presenting the speaker in terms familiar to the audience. He must appear to be one of them, which is achieved by adapting himself and his discourse to their concerns and values (Rhet. 1.2.4 & 1.8.5). This close familiarity is the function of ethos, character portrayed in and through discourse. Ethos is the sort of rhetorical tool that allows a speaker to adapt his own character to a composite audience or to an individual. A rather vague concept in modern parlance, ethos is a word of Greek origin, with a long and complex history in politics, ethics, and rhetoric. 2 In these pages its primary meaning is “character” or “kind of person,” with the understanding that the group always already informs the individual. That is to say, an individual’s distinguishing habits, attitudes, beliefs, values, and tastes are to a large extent determined by the social group (or groups) to which he or she belongs (or would like to belong). According to Aristotle, the causal link between discursive character and moral character is deliberate choice, since it ultimately determines both action and speaking. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle asserts that different kinds of persons aim at different ends (NE 3.2 111b5). Similarly, the kind of things one chooses to say, and the way one chooses to say them, suggest something about the kind of person one is (Rhet. 3.16.8)—and this explains ethos’s potential for abuse, that is, the politician’s deception: using words to obscure moral character. In Aristotle’s ‘Rhetoric’: An Art of Character, Eugene Garver argues that ethos is the most important of the three “means of persuasion” (pisteis: logos, ēthos, pathos) because in Aristotle’s hands it transforms rhetoric from an instrumental activity, a technē, into a civic activity, a function of the virtue of citizens (Garver 6-8). In practical terms, it 57 Chapter 1. Literary Patronage makes a speaker appear worthy of credence to an audience (Rhet. 1.2.4). But Aristotle cautions that ethos is not the reputation a speaker already has. Rather, it is the kind of person that one appears to be in the act of speaking (Rhet. 1.2.4). In Malherbe’s case, the first ode “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601) praises Marie de Médicis, both her great virtues and the critical role that she will play in the new regime. The praise of Henri IV and the indirect plea to him in the ode’s last section make it clear that the ode is addressed to both monarchs. The second ode “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607) is trying to please and to move Henri in particular. In each ode, success means that the royal patron admires or approves of the ode as appropriate to himself (or herself) in some way. Ethos, or character, is the artistic means to that end. It gives the speaker something to aim at. It determines how the speaker of the ode portrays the subject of praise, shaping the choice of argument and style. It influences, for instance, whether he chooses arguments that stress legitimacy by divine right or emphasizes personal merit due to virtue, and it selects what sorts of tropes and figures he uses to represent royal majesty—hyperbole, for example, being appropriate to great virtue as well as to passionate advocacy. The act of presenting such arguments and values is meant to reflect the speaker’s own character, lending credibility and sincerity to the ode’s praise and political advocacy. There is room for the speaker to assert his individuality, and this emerges from particular, even singular choices. But an ethos cannot be totally idiosyncratic. It must encompass the monarch’s two bodies, and it must reflect the values and the ideals which the monarch has absorbed from his or her social group. Addressing a monarch is not like addressing a private person. A monarch has a “mystical body”—a political abstraction informed by theology—and this notion is broad and flexible enough to include the commonwealth, the state apparatus, the territorial kingdom, and the patrie [nation] (Kantorowicz 208, 211, 232, 236, 247). Addressing a king in writing is the equivalent of what we would call an open letter, so that one was addressing at the very least the entire court and royal bureaucracy, and potentially all members of the body politic. If character, or ethos, is not an idiosyncratic affair, it is certainly a type, the fusion of personality with social function. To cite Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue: “The requirements of a character are imposed from the outside, from the way in which others regard and use characters to understand and evaluate themselves. [] A character is an object of regard by the members of the culture generally or by some significant segment of them. He furnishes them with a cultural and moral ideal. Hence the demand is that, in this type of case, role and personality be fused. Social type and psychological type are required to coincide. 58 Part I Praising the Great Soul 3 As Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca write in The New Rhetoric, 20-21: “every social circle or milieu is distinguishable in terms of its dominant opinions and unquestioned beliefs, of the premises that it takes for granted without hesitation: these form an integral part The character morally legitimates a mode of social existence” (MacIntyre 29, his italics). Such observations hold true a fortiori in the case of a monarch. Ethos, in the moral connotation of the term, thus refers to a social type, and more narrowly, to the moral constitution of a particular individual. It signifies in fact that zone where type and individual mingle. Consequently, the royal patron targeted in Malherbe’s odes, while particular, even a particular (indeed the controlling particular), is neither a unity nor a private entity, but rather individual and collective, personal and public. A reader should therefore expect the royal patron’s character to shape the composition of Malherbe’s encomiastic odes in both ways: the ode represents something particular about the monarch, for instance, personal attributes for which he or she is known or would like to be known, but such a representation is already shaped by the collective, embodying the ideals of a caste—and of a nation. The final caveat is that the patron-client relation between monarch and poet may be represented as personal, even exclusive, but also, and on the contrary, as exemplary, illustrating the proper relationship of monarch and subject. Malherbe’s eloquence may distinguish him from other subjects and uniquely qualify him to praise the monarch, but the argument and style of any one of his odes, because they are adapted to the monarch’s character, model the proper thoughts and feelings which they seek to produce in the reading subject. Thus an ode aimed at the monarch, and modeled on him, at the same time targets the monarch’s subjects. This is what I mean when I claim that the actual persons being addressed in Malherbe’s royal odes go beyond the individual monarch. Every ode’s argument and style are calculated to affect the reader cognitively and emotionally. This multi-directional relationship—monarch and poet, poet and reader, reader and monarch—requires a rhetorical tool broad and flexible enough to establish and to encompass these binaries. Ethos is such a tool, always already collective, guiding the choice of argument and style, which are calculated to reflect the values and ideals of an individual and/ or a social group. For this reason, small differences in diction, examples, imagery, and intertexual sources from one ode to the next point to the composite nature of Malherbe’s audience: Catholics and Protestants, nobles and commoners, great nobles and governors etc. However, the long-standing convention of decorum—where the orator so reliably and completely adapts himself and his discourse to the ideals and beliefs of the audience, that one may infer the character of the audience from the arguments and style of the speech 3 —should not blind the reader to 59 Chapter 1. Literary Patronage of its culture, and an orator wishing to persuade a particular audience must of necessity adapt himself to it.” the creative possibility of Malherbe constructing, from the multi-directional relations of ethos, a whole greater than its parts. Malherbe’s principal task is to craft an ethos capacious enough to encompass diverse constituencies and inspiring enough to unify them in an imagined community. Put another way, the rhetorical ethos of the royal odes constructs a civic relation between monarch and subject, but also between poet and reader. Since the monarch is the unifying focus of the various constituencies ad‐ dressed in the odes, Malherbe would have wanted to choose an ethos appropriate to Henri IV which at the same time had broad appeal. The aristocratic ideal for the generation of nobles that had lived, fought, and survived the Wars of Religion was the Aristotelian megalopsychos, or great soul, and, in Henri’s particular case, such an ethos happened to be a fitting characterization. Most French subjects, including leading great nobles, expressed genuine admiration for his valor. Even enemies and critics had to admit that the scrappy king of Navarre had proven himself time and again in key military conflicts. Not only was he recognized as a master tactician of cavalry, but like Caesar and Alexander, the greatest heroes of antiquity, Henri often fought alongside his men. Once during the siege of Amiens (1597), from which the Spanish had sallied to disable French artillery, Henri’s infantry was in danger of being routed. “Henri, alerted to the danger, dismounted, seized a pike, and charged forward to rally the troops” (Pitts 202). Almost fifty years before the duke of Enghien, the future Grand Condé, distinguished himself at Rocroi (1643), unleashing a torrent of hyperbolic praise comparing the young noble to Alexander (Bannister, Condé 17), Henri IV incarnated the ideal of the classical hero. In the words of Pierre de L’Étoile, he was “king, captain, and soldier all together” (ctd. in Pitts 200). A character type described in the Nicomachean Ethics, the megalopsychos denotes someone of great merit, with the right concern for honor: “he thinks himself worthy of great things and is really worthy of them” (NE 4.3 1123b), and “what he thinks he is worthy of reflects his real worth” (NE 4.3 1123b15). Aristotle’s notion does not exactly coincide with the definition of magnanimity as it is used in English and French today: the generous forgiveness of insult or injury—a character trait, by the way, frequently displayed by Henri IV. But such readiness to pardon should be understood as a secondary consequence of the great soul’s proper understanding of honor. The moral disposition to perform great acts of heroism puts him above retribution for small slights. Only the greatest dangers have the power to motivate him: “he faces them in a great 60 Part I Praising the Great Soul 4 See Paul Bénichou, Morales du grand siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1948) 19. cause, and [] is unsparing of his life” (NE 4.3 1124b8). “His actions are few, but great and renowned” (NE 4.3 1124b25). In addition, the megalopsychos is said to possess all the other virtues in the highest degree: “Magnanimity, then, looks like a sort of adornment of the virtues; for it makes them greater, and it does not arise without them” (NE 4.3 1124a). Such character traits, as well as the translated term “magnanime” [magnanimous], its paraphrase “grande âme” [great soul], and their synonym “générosité” [magnanimity], frequently occur in the royal odes. If not every character trait mentioned in Book 4 of the Nicomachean Ethics is found in the royal odes, it is because the Greek ethos is filtered through the past chivalric ideals of the French nobility. 4 Generally speaking, then, Malherbe’s great soul is defined by great acts of valor, the right concern with honor, the thirst for glory, and the perfect devotion to love. The three other important qualities that distinguish Malherbe’s conception of magnanimity—the superlative, the quasi-divine, and the heroic—will be examined in Chapter 2. Underlying Henri’s honor and valor is an impassioned patriotism—at least that is how Henri portrayed himself and how his Protestant supporters and, later, the royalist Politiques, liked to think of him. In the “Lettre du Roi de Navarre aux Trois États” [Letter of the King of Navarre to the Three Estates], Henri writes: “Never will I put myself before my country [pays]: its interests will always take precedence over my own: and always my own pain, my own loss, my own sufferings will be endured before those of my fatherland [patrie]” (ctd. in Yardeni 195). Apart from hardline Leaguers who viewed such a declaration as a self-interested ruse, the majority of Frenchmen responded positively to this rhetoric of self-sacrifice in the name of the fatherland. “Beyond his unquestionable right to the succession, Henri of Navarre knew, perhaps from the start, how to embody the interests of France, how to be not only a partisan leader, but also how to see the interests of the whole nation [patrie]. There can be no doubt that this quality served, no less than his right to the crown, to attract to his side, after his accession, ‘all good Catholics and true Frenchmen’ who desired to preserve their country” (Yardeni 196). “The patriotism of Henri IV was made of such material that it could reunite, seamlessly, the most diverse threads of his own party with those, no less diverse, of the adverse party” (Yardeni 196). Henri presented himself as the restorer of the France which was “the communis patria of all Frenchmen” (Kantorowicz 247), only recently submerged by the bloody deluge of sectarian violence, and mercilessly attacked by antinationalist Leaguer demagogues (e.g. “Who would not rather be Spanish than Huguenot? ” ctd. in Yardeni 210). 61 Chapter 1. Literary Patronage 5 The historical record shows a more problematic and tumultuous regency. See Jean-Vin‐ cent Blanchard, Éminence: Cardinal Richelieu and the Rise of France (New York: Walker & Co., 2011) 17-30. The royal odes use this coincidence of magnanimity and patriotism, modeled after Henri IV, to create the ethos of the new patrie [nation] reborn from the ashes of civil war. Though expressed in the terms of chivalric nobility, this patriotic ethos had “nothing feudal about it” (Yardeni 196). It excluded “no order or individual” and transcended “the narrow loyalism owed to the king” by transforming personal loyalty into “loyalism toward the patrie [nation], since the bond that united the diverse members of the patrie [nation] was the fact that all are French” (Yardeni 197). The choice, however fortuitous, of Henri IV as the initial patron for Malherbe’s royal odes, therefore, determines their representation of the subject of the new nation. Henri is the model of the new patriotism, and the ethos of magnanimity is its form and vehicle. While such an ethos portrays the monarch a quasi-divine hero who defends the interests of the nation, it also makes possible an ethic of emulation and self-sacrifice in the service of king and country, pro rege et patria (Kantorowicz 259). The ethos of magnanimity presents yet another advantage. Henri, a one-time peer of the blood who abjured his Protestant faith to rule France, would have wanted to show that he was above mere political expediency. Such an implica‐ tion is inherent to magnanimity. The royal odes maintain that Henri possesses the right of legitimate succession, based on the Salic Law, but they stress that he has earned that right. His devotion to the nation and his achievements on the battlefield were rich premises from which to argue that he deserved the throne. After Henri was assassinated in 1610, Malherbe extended this logic of magnanimity—the logic of intrinsic merit—to Marie de Médicis, whom the Paris Parlement had confirmed as regent. The odes celebrating the magnanimity of the queen regent may be the most interesting of all the royal encomia, not least because, as we will see in Part II, Malherbe uses this traditionally masculine ethos to praise a powerful woman, arguing that her sagacious piloting of the ship of state proves her superlative merit. 5 Some years later, after Louis XIII had snatched the reins of power from his mother, Malherbe would use the same ethos and apply its implicit logic to a young king whose military campaigns in the south of France were designed to remove any doubt about his readiness to impose his will. The royal odes also extend this logic of intrinsic merit to the new patriotic subject. By arguing that the Bourbons deserve to rule because of their com‐ mitment to the nation, Malherbe is appealing to the nation’s sense of honor, that is, both what the subjects owe to their monarch and what they owe to 62 Part I Praising the Great Soul themselves. As Myriam Yardeni explains, during the Wars of Religion, the embryonic patriotism of the diverse constituencies of the nation (and this includes the democratic-minded monarchomachs) remained colored by noble ideology, which associated the greatness of France with the chivalric ideals of a caste that had traditionally defended the nation and, under the leadership of the king, had enforced God’s will (Yardeni 243-244). The logic of magnanimity redirects the desire of the nation’s greatest subjects for social distinction away from resentment toward emulation. This is because the sound judgment required to estimate correctly one’s own greatness is the same necessary for recognizing greatness in others (NE 4.3.1123b 1-5, 10-15; 1124a 5-10, 25-30; 1124b 1-5, 10-15 & 20). To recognize Henri IV as a great soul is not to lose face but to demonstrate one’s own magnanimity. It takes a great soul to know a great soul. In principle, but also as a practical matter, this condition of reciprocal recognition allows the ethos of magnanimity to reach through the monarch to address the great nobility as a privileged constituency of the new nation. “Henri IV understood very well that he must win over the great nobles, first because they were the easiest, but also because the great nobility encouraged the less brave to come along” (Yardeni 252-253). As the form and vehicle of the new patriotism, the ethos of magnanimity targets the great nobles in particular, but their example potentially relays it to all the other subjects of the new national community. To sum up, the practice of literary patronage in the early seventeenth century supplied an external goal—the character of the monarch—to which Malherbe adapted himself and his poetic discourse. The perceived magnanimity of Henri IV determines the ethos of the royal odes, and this ethos in turn selects appropriate arguments and style. Its logic of intrinsic merit helped advance Henri’s political agenda and reinforced Bourbon political authority after Henri’s death. In presenting the monarch’s magnanimity as a patriotic ideal that transcends sectarian loyalties, Malherbe exploits the collective identity of ethos to appeal to noble elites and, through them, to the nation as a whole. Henri IV may not have taken a strong interest in poetry, but he could not have failed to notice that Malherbe’s “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607)—the ode which earned the poet a position at court—advocates the healing of the wounds inflicted on the French nation. The patronage of Malherbe was a practical tool for the dissemination of an ideological public image which reaffirmed the authority of the monarchy and modeled the patriotism of the new nation. 63 Chapter 1. Literary Patronage 6 For the heroic myth of the nobility represented in the novel, see Mark Bannister, Privileged Mortals: The French Heroic Novel, 1630-1660 (Oxford UP, 1983); for the role of this class myth in encomiastic literature, see Bannister’s Condé in Context: Ideological Change in Seventeenth-Century France (Oxford: Legenda, 2000) and “Heroic Hierarchies: Chapter 2. The Evolution of Noble Identity The first three decades of the seventeenth century in France were marked by rapid and widespread change at almost every level of society. A fairly steady economic expansion began. The monarchy by fits and starts more aggressively asserted its power, attempting to centralize authority and to raise revenues with the paulette and through various commercial treaties. The regency of Marie de Médicis saw the great nobles challenge the crown’s authority in 1614, while a sixteen-year-old Louis XIII assumed his office with a dramatic coup d’état that wrested the reins of power from his mother in 1617. Louis XIII’s military campaigns in the early 1620s in the southwest of France, the bastion of Protestant resistance, culminated in the siege of La Rochelle in 1628, resulting in the defeat of the Protestants and the disarmament of all their strongholds. Monarchal and noble patronage flourished, while new centers of cultural authority and literary production emerged in aristocratic salons. French literature abandoned the gloomy themes inspired by the Wars of Religion and embraced larger-than-life heroism in novels, theater, and prose encomia, the amorous intrigue of pastoral, and the social refinements of salon culture. Noble identity was not immune to all these changes. This period was the crucible for the emergence of a new nobiliary ethos, the honnête homme [honorable man]. In 1630, the publication of Nicolas Faret’s L’Honnête Homme; ou l’art de plaire à la cour [The Honorable Man; or How to Please at Court] marked the transition of nobiliary ethos from the heroic warrior to the worldly courtier based on a reassessment of the virtue best adapted to the social and political conditions of courtly life. To be sure, the definition of honnêteté [nobility; dignity; propriety] would significantly evolve over the course of the seventeenth century, and it would be another forty years before the great nobles embraced honnêteté, sometime after 1668, when the recalcitrant Grand Condé was reabsorbed into Louis XIV’s absolutist regime (Bannister, Condé 155). In the interim, however, before its decline, the older warrior ethos, which Mark Bannister identifies with the class myth of the sword nobility, would blaze forth in spectacular fashion. In 1637, Corneille’s Le Cid announced the outbreak of a veritable cult of the hero, which was taken up, amplified, and refined in novels written between 1640 and 1660 as well as in various prose encomia composed for the intrepid Enghien in the 1640s and 50s. 6 On the question of noble identity 64 Part I Praising the Great Soul Classical Models for Panegyrics in Seventeenth-Century France,” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 8.1 (Summer, 2001) 38-59. in the first half of the seventeenth century, Malherbe’s royal odes, published between 1600 and 1627, stake out a clear commitment to the older warrior ethos based on the heroic conception of virtue, the very sort that would ignite the aristocratic imagination a decade after the poet’s death. This chapter recalls the debate over noble identity that occurred toward the end of the religious wars and that culminated in Faret’s L’Honnête Homme because it shows that the concept of virtue remained indispensable to noble identity in the first three decades of the century and that the choice between the older warrior ethos and the new worldly ethos was the choice between two virtues, magnanimity and moderation, respectively. While it is true that, by convention, the function of encomiastic discourse is to praise virtue, Malherbe’s choice to put magnanimity at the center of the royal odes invites closer scrutiny when one considers that this virtue underpinned the class myth of the sword nobility, in whose upper echelons Henri of Navarre moved before acceding to the throne. The sword nobility was not only a key constituency that needed to be won over, but its class myth would be used by Malherbe to fashion a national myth. The significance of the virtue of magnanimity in the royal odes, I argue, resides in its aptitude for birthing the civic community of the new nation. It gives the sequence of odes a logical coherence and a political ground. A few words should be said about the range of meanings of the term “vertu” [virtue] in the early seventeenth century. Today in French, as in English, it usually refers to “a disposition or a pattern in someone’s character or personality that leads them to act morally” (van Hooft 1). This acceptation occurs as the second definition of the word in the Dictionnaire de l’Académie [Dictionary of the Academy] (1694): “Virtue, means also, A habit of the soul, which prompts it to do good, & to avoid evil.” But the first definition shows that the word used to have a much wider semantic field: “Efficacy, power, strength, property.” For instance, plants and stones had “virtues,” such as curative properties or magnetic force. The term also implied moral greatness or excellence, a meaning borrowed from the Greek aretē. As Paul Bénichou notes in Morales du grand siècle: “The writers of this period are defined less by their preference for beauty or truth, than the case they make, to a greater or lesser degree, for human virtue, defined in the general sense of courage, power, or greatness” (Bénichou 12). Much like the early modern Italian “virtù,” this sense of the French word left its mark on French writers as diverse as Corneille, Racine, and Molière. The heroic novels of Gomberville, La Calprenède, and Madeleine de Scudèry, also use the word in this 65 Chapter 2. The Evolution of Noble Identity sense to designate the exceptional qualities or powers that make a monarch or a noble specially fit to protect and to command (Bannister, Privileged Mortals 7-8, 27-33, 47-48). When assimilated to “vertu héroïque,” it could reach superhuman proportions. Nor should we overlook the term’s stylistic implications. Moral excellence is esthetically pleasing. Virtue is beautiful because it is good. This coupling of the ethical and the esthetic is captured by the Greek term “to kalon,” translated as “the beautiful,” “the fine,” or “the noble”—and one should add the French term l’honnête [honorable, noble, fine]. Aristotelian scholars signal yet another shade of meaning: “the admirable” (Donahue 69). All these connotations of the term are relevant in Malherbe’s royal odes. What made the concept of virtue so attractive to nobles in the early seventeenth century was that it gave them a way to tie outward displays of distinction—feats of valor, good taste, politesse [etiquette]—to what they considered intrinsic merit. To be virtuous was to perform actions, to say words, to observe rules of civility, to possess objects, that were considered noble, fine, beautiful, or admirable. These were not just fitting to one’s social station, they were themselves the marks of virtue. Causality was turned on its head: to exhibit the mark of virtue was to be virtuous. By the 1660s, noble identity had evolved to the point where virtue was no longer necessary to legitimize the social distinction conferred by the performance, the possession, the consumption, or the appreciation of all things fine. La Rochefoucauld found the notion of virtue suspect and deconstructed it in his Maximes (1664), while two decades later the Chevalier de Méré replaced it with taste and the graceful mastery of social etiquette. In From Valor to Pedigree: Ideas of Nobility in France in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Ellery Schalk tracks the caste’s changing sense of identity in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by examining polemical treatises on nobility. Nobles and commoners questioned the relevance of a caste held responsible for the devastation of France during the Wars of Religion. Most of these treatises make it abundantly clear that military service was no longer a sufficient condition for membership in noble ranks. Ennobling titles, offices, and deeds of land ownership had long been for sale, swelling the caste with newcomers. Such treatises therefore aimed to determine what the proper criterion of nobility should be. The choice was between virtue and birth. In the early and mid-sixteenth century, the majority agreed that virtue was the sole criterion, defined as martial valor, physical prowess, and success in fighting (Schalk 21). By the end of the sixteenth century, however, the consensus flipped, with most writers holding that the caste was “simply a group, defined, determined, or justified by birth rather than by virtuous deeds” (Schalk 115). But 66 Part I Praising the Great Soul 7 On the classical sources of magnanimity, see Marc Fumaroli, “L’Héroïsme cornélien et l’éthique de la magnanimité,” Héros et orateurs (Droz, 1996). For the genealogy of the honnête homme and the honnête femme, see Jean Mesnard, “Honnête Homme, Honnête Femme,” La Culture du XVIIe siècle (PUF, 1992) and Emmanuel Bury, Littérature et politesse : la naissance de l’honnête homme, 1580-1750 (Paris: PUF, 1996); for a slightly different view, see Benedetta Craveri, The Age of Conversation (NYRB, 2005). Emmanuel Bury shows the modestly educated nobility looking to the humanist res literaria [literary canon] for guidance on how to develop a version of noble identity more appropriate for the times, and he cites the influence of Aristotle (especially the Nicomachean Ethics and the Rhetoric), Cicero, Isocrates, Quintilian, Seneca, Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Horace (Bury 16-17). the two terms were fluid. Noble birth was often considered a variety of “natural virtue,” the seed of moral virtue, as it were, a view expressed by Pierre Charron in De la sagesse (1601), while the definition of the polysemic term vertu [virtue] was stretched to accommodate new social practices. In the late sixteenth century, its meaning came to include the cultural capital conferred by the study of literature. In the early seventeenth century, this extension encompassed the capacity for courtesy and civility. Seventeenth-century opinion would eventually converge on birth as the sole legitimate criterion of nobility, but Schalk demonstrates the persistence of virtue in treatises by La Béraudière, Flurance-Rivault, Antoine de Pluvinel, and Nicolas Faret. L’Honnête Homme is the most famous of these, marking the evolution from warrior to courtier by detailing new functions and qualities for the nobleman at court. Yet Faret’s treatise still sees virtue as the indispensable quality of the honnête homme [honorable man], because virtue is able “to conquer hearts, and to win the goodwill of the better and healthier part of humanity” (Faret 23). In Faret’s view, birth is a necessary but insufficient condition for nobility. Schalk shows that the concept of virtue, extended to include such qualities as education and courtesy, still retained its importance as a legitimate source of prestige, especially when it was a question of arguing that the “well-born” deserved their status and privileges by right. The criterion of birth would assist Louis XIV and the old families in stemming the influx of newcomers into noble ranks, but the criterion of virtue, within the caste, could and often did serve to rank one noble above another. While the notion of virtue exercised considerable influence on noble identity in the early decades of the seventeenth century, there existed ideological confusion about which virtue was most important. The contest was essentially between magnanimity and moderation, and this choice reflected the contest be‐ tween the older warrior ethos and the newer worldly ethos. Scholars have traced both virtues to the reception of the Nicomachean Ethics in seventeenth-century France. 7 Prior to Faret’s treatise, a military hero could be described as honnête 67 Chapter 2. The Evolution of Noble Identity 8 On the moral relativism of the early seventeenth century, see Jill Kraye, “Conceptions of Moral Philosophy,” Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, vol. 2, eds. Daniel Garber and Michael Myers (Cambridge UP, 2003 paperback edition) 1279-1316. [honorable, noble] and could even be an honnête homme [honorable man]. But the term would be increasingly reserved for performances within a specific context. It was understood that the battlefield or military camp required different virtues than the court or the aristocratic salon. Magnanimity leads one to perform heroic exploits, whereas moderation is a virtue that describes the right attitude toward pleasure, implying not just self-control but, and above all, enjoyment of to kalon (Aristotle, NE 4.3 & 3.11). The ideological triumph of the honnête homme [honorable man] was prepared by the introduction of Greek and Latin authors in the sixteenth century and by the social, political, and theological upheavals of the Wars of Religion. Christian values and beliefs still dominated the early seventeenth century, and strict conformity to Christian morality and intellectual and religious dogma was enforced by the Jesuits and the Paris Parlement. Feeling the need for a new ethical outlook and way of life, but one that would not disturb dogmatic opinion, educated elites of the early seventeenth century returned to the humanist res literaria [literary canon]. It allowed them to pull ideas from a range of ethical systems, including Christianity, to fashion the ethos of honnêteté [nobility] that responded to the changed political and social environment. 8 A simple but sharp contrast between magnanimity and moderation emerges from a comparison of Rodrigue in Corneille’s Le Cid (1637) and Philinte in Molière’s Le Misanthrope (1666). Both these virtues of character presuppose the assistance of an intellectual virtue, phronēsis, often translated as practical wisdom, or more loosely, good judgment, defined as the ability to reason correctly about means and ends (NE 4.6). Whereas phronēsis enables Rodrigue to make correct judgments that lead to life-and-death feats of valor, it allows Philinte to make correct judgments productive of pleasure in social situations. In Le Cid (Act 1, Scene 4), Rodrigue reasons that failing to fight Dom Gomès, his fiancée’s father, will cost him both his honor and his fiancée (she will not love him disgraced), and so he fights the duel to preserve his honor, resigning himself to the enmity of his beloved. Similarly, in Act 4, Scene 3, outnumbered by the Moors invading Seville, Rodrigue has the presence of mind to lay an ambush, lulling the enemy into a false sense of security, and turning the unfavorable circumstances to his advantage. By contrast, in Le Misanthrope (Act 1, Scene 1), Philinte displays practical wisdom through worldliness: he adapts himself and his discourse to his interlocutors; he censures his own reactions of dislike or displeasure; and he regards human failings with generosity of spirit. The 68 Part I Praising the Great Soul self-effacing moderation of Philinte, in spite of his own and everyone else’s insincerity, procures a civilized pleasure for imperfect human beings engaged in conversation. From these examples, one could extrapolate that magnanimity and modera‐ tion are virtues suited to distinct sociopolitical configurations. Magnanimity was well adapted to a Renaissance monarchy dominated by a constellation of great nobles who either played an active role in affairs of state or revolted when they felt excluded from power, whereas moderation was more appropriate to an absolutist regime in which nobles no longer had a share in sovereignty and needed the methods of civility to obtain social distinction and to secure opportunities for advancement in the service of king and country. The predom‐ inance of the warrior ethos in the early years of the seventeenth century and the emergence and co-existence of honnêteté alongside it, before the triumph of honnêteté in the late 1660s, parallel the messy and unsteady transition of the Renaissance monarchy to a more absolutist form of rule. Malherbe’s royal odes were composed at the early stage of these important cultural and political changes, and so it is no surprise that the virtue of magnanimity underpins their ideological ambitions. Furthermore, the unusual circumstances of Henri IV’s accession in the late sixteenth century (the famous battles he won against Leaguer and Spanish opposition, and his remarkable trajectory from leader of the Protestant opposition to Catholic king of France) must have contributed to the centrality of magnanimity in the royal odes. What is surprising and deserves a closer look, however, is the emphasis which the odes place on the monarch’s natural virtue. This is unexpected because ready-made, competing versions of monarchal sacrality were available in the late sixteenth century. Leaguers clung to the traditional image of the Most Christian King, while royalists appealed to the tenets of neo-Stoicism to represent the monarch as the embodiment of divine reason (Crouzet 90-93). Contrary to what one might expect, moreover, the neo-stoic revival of the early seventeenth century does not profoundly influence the royal odes. Malherbe indeed completed a famous translation of the letters of Seneca; his mentor, Du Vair, composed treatises on ancient stoicism; and stoic arguments clearly inform Malherbe’s consolation poems. However, the royal odes do not present the good, virtue, or the passions in a way fitting to the ideal of the stoic sage. On the contrary, the good is what is good for the king, the state, or the nation; ambition, love, and glory are unabashedly celebrated in the royal odes; and virtue receives praise not so much for its own sake as for the benefits of peace, prosperity, and justice. When stoicism does make an appearance, it is invariably because some overwhelming dark force threatens the hero and the 69 Chapter 2. The Evolution of Noble Identity 9 See Roger Chartier, The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution (Duke UP, 1991) 92-135. nation (e.g. the failed attempt on Henri’s life in 1605), and similar to what one finds in Corneille’s classic heroic plays, it is a way of accepting the will of destiny without abandoning pride or repudiating the desire for glory (Bénichou 34). The royal odes present a third alternative to Leaguer sacrality and to Politique stoicism: the monarch’s natural virtue is portrayed as superlative, quasi-divine, and heroic, while the sacerdotal function of kingship is deemphasized. Of course, the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries did not witness anything like the desacralization of the monarchy that occurred in the eighteenth century. 9 Rather, during the Wars of Religion, as Myriam Yardeni shows, the outburst of national sentiment (whose various streams emerge simultaneously from dif‐ ferent milieus, Catholic and Protestant, noble and commoner, and progressively converge toward the late 1580s) is accompanied by a relative secularization of the state. “In the common cause made by those who are worried about their country [patrie], the idea of the State replaces every other criteria, and reason of State brings about a total separation of the State from every theologically-de‐ fined religion” (Yardeni 177). With respect to the royal succession, Yardeni sees the growing polarization, after 1584, between intransigent Leaguers and royalist Politiques, whose pamphlets share many common themes with those of the Protestants, leading to increasingly incompatible mind-sets that opposed two fundamental principles of the monarchy: the Salic Law (favored by the Politiques and Protestants) and the crown’s sacerdotal office (underscored by the Leaguers). While Leaguers still conceived the monarch as the anointed of God and the eldest son of the Church (Yardeni 177), religious tolerance in the name of national unity, proclaimed early on by Michel de L’Hôpital, came into its own in 1588 and 1589, taking the form of a passionate patriotism espoused by Protestants, coopted by Henri of Navarre, and embraced by the Politiques and other “true Frenchmen” (Yardeni 183-198, 221). According to Yardeni, the deplorable state of the countryside, the fragmentation of political authority, the abuse of seigneurial power, and the cozying up of the League to the Spanish were at the root of the patriotic propaganda that exploded between 1589 and 1593 supporting the Salic Law and extolling the legendary qualities of Henri IV (Yardeni 265-273). “The birth of the legend of Henri IV occurs in this period and undoubtedly responds to a national necessity” (Yardeni 263). Monsieur d’Aubray, for instance, writes in La Satyre Ménipée: “He alone, and no other, like a natural Hercules, born in Gaul, can defeat these hideous monsters, who make France frightening and horrible to her own children. He alone and no other will exterminate these petty half-kings” (ctd. in Yardeni 273). “Everyone 70 Part I Praising the Great Soul 10 Jean Bodin, Les Six Livres de la République 1.6, 1.9 (Livre de Poche, 1991) 91, 139. 11 See N. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France 72: “Bodin wanted to retain the notion that action by a prince that contravenes God’s law (rather than embodies or ignores it) is not, properly speaking, an act of sovereignty at all. But since he wrote his treatise partly to convince his countrymen that they must obey even a prince whose religious understands,” writes Yardeni, “that the greatness of France resides in its national unity, under a sole French king” (Yardeni 273). That Henri felt the need, however, to abjure his Protestant faith and return to Catholicism in 1594, even if merely a cynical ploy to undercut moderate Catholic support for the League, shows how important religious affiliation remained in the minds of monarch and subjects. Paradoxically, the arrival of Henri IV—with his abjuration, his fervent patriotism, his heroic feats of valor, his legitimacy, his credentials as a Frenchman—canalized this embryonic national consciousness but arrested its further development. The complete secularization of the state could not come to pass due to the monarchy’s traditional association with God (Yardeni 281), from whom absolutist theorists derived the king’s power (Keohane 17-18). But a significant shift of emphasis had nonetheless taken place. Religion was no longer the essential common denominator but only one thread among many in the fabric of the nation (Yardeni 281). Henceforth, “the State’s unifying thread is its national character, while the unifying thread of France is its specifically French character. So it is the king who embodies not only the essence of France but also its continuity” (Yardeni 281). King and kingdom, ideologically torn asunder during the civil war, were reunited but on a new basis, a collective national sentiment or patriotism arising out of what was initially personal loyalty to Henri IV. In other words, Yardeni shows that the monarch who had been separated from the kingdom was reunited with something larger—the patrie [nation]. Malherbe’s royal odes seek to perfect this unification. In a climate where national consciousness has displaced but not eradicated religious loyalties, national unity finds its center of gravity in the person of the monarch, still intimately linked to God, but now endowed with natural qualities that appear all the more exceptional. Take, for instance, Jean Bodin’s formula for sovereignty: “he is absolutely sovereign who holds nothing, after God, but from his own sword.” 10 Published in 1576, Les Six Livres de la République [The Six Books of the Republic] so tirelessly repeats that the absolute sovereign, whose unbounded powers Bodin takes great pains to enumerate, must obey divine law, that one cannot help but think the jurist doth protest too much—as though the king’s conscience were the last safeguard against the omnipotence Bodin feels compelled to unleash. 11 Claude d’Albon’s definition of sovereignty 71 Chapter 2. The Evolution of Noble Identity views were different from their own, he had no interest in discussing the vexed issue of justified resistance to abusive power.” 12 See Holt, Renaissance 204. in De la majesté royale [Of Royal Majesty] (1575) exhibits a similar distribution of divine and human powers: “What has placed kings in such veneration has been above all the virtues and divine powers which have been observed in them alone” (ctd. in Yardeni 18). By the late 1580s, however, this formula receives a different emphasis in the minds of royalist apologists. The powers that the king holds from God are deemphasized, and thus his natural powers increase. In 1594, in d’Aubray’s formulation, the monarch has become “a natural Hercules.” The link to God need not be utterly suppressed for the king’s natural virtue—in Bodin’s image, the sword—to augment considerably, especially in a political climate where the king himself becomes the focus and the catalyst of a new national consciousness. One must bear in mind, of course, that Henri, prior to his accession, had been publicly slandered as a relapsed heretic, and thus he was concerned to demonstrate the sincerity of his conversion and did not neglect to cultivate the sacerdotal aura of kingship—he touched for scrofula, for example, and he reasserted his authority over the Gallican Church. But aware that his conversion was viewed with suspicion, he did not privilege the sacerdotal route to authority. Or at least, he knew that he could not rely on the monarchy’s mystical rituals and symbols in the same way his predecessors had. 12 Malherbe’s royal odes reflect this unusual state of affairs. While not neglecting the monarch’s special relationship to God, they stress instead the human courage, power, or greatness that makes a monarch particularly fit to command and to protect—in short, they underscore the monarch’s natural virtue. Coexisting with the divine powers of the king established by Christian theology, virtue is a sort of classical substratum with its own political, met‐ aphysical, and moral implications. Although Malherbe is a poet and not a scholastic philosopher, one cannot help but notice that the royal odes add three key predicates to the portrait of the “monarque magnanime” [magnanimous monarch] (“Ode au feu roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan,” v. 181). In addition to portraying Henri as possessing great and complete virtue, and having the right concern with honor (NE 4.3 1123a35, 1123b20, 1123b30), the royal odes characterize this moral quality as superlative, quasi-divine, and heroic. The following example will serve to illustrate: “Qui ne confesse qu’Hercule / Fut moins Hercule que toi? [Who does not confess that Hercules / Was less Hercules than you] (“Ode au feu roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan,” vv. 99-100). Henri’s tireless efforts to secure peace, justice, and prosperity for 72 Part I Praising the Great Soul 13 Aristotle’s works dominated the university curriculum. Their influence on Cicero’s ethical, rhetorical, and political writings, a staple of early modern readers, cannot be overstated; nor can their influence on classical Stoicism, which experienced a revival in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. See A.A. Long, “Stoic Eudaimonism,” Stoic Studies (Cambridge UP, 1996) and “Aristotle’s Legacy to Stoic Ethics,” University of London Institute of Classical Studies 15 (1968): 72-85. the kingdom recall the labors of Hercules, but this comparison says that Henri is greater than the greatest Greek hero—a form of hyperbole that underscores the superlative nature of the object (Quintilian 8.4.4-9; 8.6.76). Hercules, moreover, is a demi-god. All three predicates are therefore implied by the comparison. If there were any doubt that they apply to the monarch’s natural powers, later in the same ode, Malherbe depicts Henri’s indomitability with a telling conceit: the reason fortune yields so readily to your acts of valor, he says, is that she is “amoureuse / De ta vertu généreuse” [in love / With your magnanimous virtue] (“Ode au feu roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan,” vv. 115-116). So obedient to Henri’s will does fortune appear, that Henri’s great virtue must have seduced her. The phrase “ta vertu généreuse” [your magnanimous virtue] points to a human power, not a divine one. It just is so great that it reaches up into the realm of obscure forces usually beyond human control. If the virtue of magnanimity supports the heroic idealization of the Bourbons, the three new predicates joined to it reveal an unsuspected logical consistency and political ground underlying the royal odes. Granted, these magnificent poems neither speculate nor meditate directly on abstract political questions, as Jean Bodin does, for instance, in Les Six Livres de la République. However, their praise of virtue echoes in thought-provoking ways Aristotelian political theory, which Malherbe likely absorbed indirectly from his reading. 13 Let us examine what sorts of inferences may be drawn from the addition of the superlative, the quasi-divine, and the heroic as predicates of Malherbian magnanimity. 1. Superlative virtue. This notion as applied to the Bourbons is not simply hyperbole. It is the defining quality of the “one best man” (Aristotle, Politics 3.10 1281a15) whose claim to political authority is so overwhelming that it transforms all other constitutional polities into a monarchy. “If one man be a better man than all the other good men who belong to the civic body, this one man should be sovereign” (Politics 3.13 1283b20). According to Aristotle, monarchy is the form of rule which most completely satisfies the demands of distributive justice in a political association, since it does not contradict itself in the partial way that oligarchy and democracy do (Politics 3.9 1281a1-5). It also best promotes the common interest (Politics 3.12 1282b15-25) and the good life of the state, which is based on justice and virtue (Politics 1.2 1253a30-1253b; 3.9 73 Chapter 2. The Evolution of Noble Identity 1281a1). Such philosophical claims lurk under the surface of Malherbe’s royal odes when they attribute superlative virtue to Henri IV or Louis XIII (the claim applied to Marie de Médicis, “one flesh” with her deceased husband, constitutes a special case that is examined in Part II). They invisibly support the favorite argument of the earliest odes in the sequence that even if Henri were not the legitimate successor, he would deserve to rule because of his superlative virtue. In short, Henri’s demonstrated virtue makes him the best man for the job, and his leadership most promises to reestablish justice and to bring about the good life for the whole nation. But what does it mean that the megalopsychos is the “one best man”? First, Henri is not just a man of great virtue, but of the greatest virtue. The logic of magnanimity underlying the royal odes demands that the kingdom’s other great-souled men—whom Malherbe calls by various names, “nos rebelles courages” [our rebellious braves] and “ces âmes relevées” [these towering souls] (“À la reine sur sa bienvenue en France,” vv. 9 & 206)—yield to the great-souled man whose virtue is superlative. Because every megalopsychos has the right concern with honor, correctly estimates his own greatness, and deserves whatever recognition he may receive, he is less likely to be deluded about the true worth of others. In his own case, which is the most difficult, he makes the right judgment in the right way. So, the recognition by one great soul of another great soul is itself a sign of magnanimity, that is, the capacity to make correct judgments in the right way. Where the megalopsychos is concerned, “it takes one to know one.” Although the other great-souled men of the political community have some claim to sovereignty on the basis of their outstanding virtue, the superlative virtue of the one best man requires, on the very same ground of political justice, that they yield to him and offer “a willing obedience” (Politics 3.13 1284b30-35). At the same time, because they are not without virtue, and it is great virtue at that, they cannot be said to be completely without that quality which is “peculiar to the ruler” (Politics 3.4 1277b25)—only, perhaps, that they possess it to a lesser degree. The logic of magnanimity therefore implies not only that the kingdom’s other great-souled men understand true opinion and are able to make judgements in the right way, but also that they, too, possess phronēsis (Politics 3.4 1277b25-30), “the chief intellectual virtue apart from wisdom and the condition for the possession of all the moral virtues” (Newell 165). Second, the polity thus envisioned by the royal odes differs from Aristotle’s. Normally, the appearance of the one best man of superlative virtue, with his justified claim to absolute political authority, “leads to the destruction of the city understood as a community of diverse contributions and interests” (Newell 162). In the political association where “a single person is sovereign on every 74 Part I Praising the Great Soul issue, with the same sort of power that a tribe or a polis exercises over its public concerns,” the civic community of competing claims to political authority gives way to “paternal rule over a household. Just as paternal rule is kingship over a family, so conversely this type of kingship [i.e. absolute] may be regarded as paternal rule over a polis, or a tribe, or a collection of tribes” (Politics 1285b30). The polity of the royal odes, however, is much closer to Bodin’s conception. In Les Six Livres de la République, the kingdom’s civic community, though deprived of sovereignty, is nonetheless identified with the civic body of the monarch. According to the doctrine of the king’s two bodies, the state “did not exist apart from its members, nor was the ‘state’ some superior being per se beyond its head and members” (Kantorowicz 270). The monarch is the head of the body politic, comprised of various members. By the late thirteenth century, the term patria was “synonymous with the whole kingdom or body politic over which the ‘Crown’ or its bearer ruled” (Kantorowicz 251). What the royal odes propose, therefore, is the birth of a new nation, that is, a new body politic, headed by the one best man. The appeal to virtue, and to magnanimity in particular, implies that the relinquishment of any claim to political authority by great-souled subjects need not be subjugation and abasement. The logic of magnanimity redirects all competing claims of political authority toward emulation pro rege et patria, that is, in the service of king and country. By serving the monarch, one serves the nation—because the monarch as head of the body politic serves the common interest of the body politic. But, argues Malherbe, those who claim to serve the nation against the monarch are dishonest or deluded: “Nous voyons les esprits nés à la tyrannie, / Ennuyés de couver leur cruelle manie, / Tourner tous leurs conseils à notre affliction” [We see minds born for tyranny, / Weary of plotting their cruel insanity, / Devoting their counsels to our suffering] (“Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin,” vv. 103-105). They are serving partisan interests, as evidenced by the death and destruction they inflicted on the commonwealth during the Wars of Religion. This competition of the more virtuous subjects for honor in the service of king and country underpins the “universal audience,” a normative concept of rhetorical argumentation. As Perelman and Olbrects-Tyteca explain in The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, a speaker evokes the universal audience when he presupposes unanimous agreement, by all fair-minded and rational beings, with arguments considered “compelling,” “self-evident,” and possessing “an absolute and timeless validity, independent of local or historical contingencies” (Perelman 32). Such universality is a matter of right, not of fact, since “one can always resort to disqualifying the recalcitrant by classifying him as stupid or abnormal” (Perelman 31 & 33, their emphasis). Consequently, 75 Chapter 2. The Evolution of Noble Identity an elite minority, even when limited to one perfect being, may validly serve as a model for the universal audience, that is, as the norm to which all men should conform: “the elite audience sets the norm for everybody” (Perelman 34). The criteria which elevate an elite group to the level of a universal norm may include rationality, a disinterested commitment to scientific truth, or a state of divine grace—all “exceptional and infallible means of knowledge” (Perelman 33). Virtue is another such criterion. It, too, is a normative quality that may define the universal audience, and it is the most relevant of such criteria to the royal odes. The function of the universal audience is twofold: it preserves the “universalistic” impulses of monarchy, “capable of swallowing up whole cities and ‘nations,’” while mitigating the incompatibility of this form of rule with “any notion of civic community” (Newell 172), and it lays the foundation for the national community. The virtue of magnanimity is the defining characteristic of the national community envisioned by the royal odes. When these poems address the monarch, the nobility and, through them, the French nation as a whole, they address a composite audience made up of persons “differing in character, loyalties, and functions” (Perelman 21). However, given their lofty ambition, they cannot simply reflect the attitudes and values of an existing community. Partisan interests divide these constituencies against one another. The odes must also forge a new community united by a universal value. By making an appeal to the virtue of magnanimity, the odes construct a universal audience of great souls who by right will constitute the civic community of the new nation. The king’s magnanimity (because it is superlative) precludes any share in sovereignty but (because it is a virtue) sets the norm for everybody. Furthermore, the competition for honor in service of king and country is a universal ethos because it accommodates all who desire to be virtuous and aspire to be recognized as such. In theory, therefore, even commoners are not excluded. What matters is the function one serves in the body politic, as this will determine which virtue one possesses. Of course, not all virtues count equally as a contribution to the good of the state, and even among those that do count, there exists a sliding scale (Newell 175). Nevertheless, in Les Six Livres de la République, Chapter 6, Book 6, Bodin explains that royal monarchy, the most perfect form of government, institutes “harmonic justice” (Bodin 575), an early modern version of distributive justice that “gently mixes nobles and commoners, rich and poor, with discretion, however, so that the nobles retain some advantage over the common people” (Bodin 575). It is not simply that such an arrangement prevents the masses from becoming embittered and trying to overthrow the state (Bodin 574). Rather, the harmonious distribution of honors and offices is considered the best and most just because, like Aristotle’s golden mean, it incorporates and 76 Part I Praising the Great Soul balances the extremes, that is, the partial and imperfect justice of democratic and of aristocratic regimes (Bodin 570). A commoner, then, provided he contributes to the good of the state, belongs by right to the civic community of the nation. He may not necessarily perform the same functions, nor share in honor to the same degree, as a nobleman, for whom the highest offices of the state were typically reserved. But we know in fact that French kings often promoted talented men from below. 2. Quasi-divine virtue. Closely bound up with the superlative, this second predicate elevates the monarch above and beyond all subjects and gives the scope of his (or her) rule a theoretically universal reach, while at the same time fostering a universal patriotic ethos that encompasses all subjects in a new civic community. In Chapter 13, Book 3, of the Politics, Aristotle says of the one best man: “a person of this order may very well be like a god among men” (3.13 1284a10). The royal odes unapologetically compare Henri IV and Louis XIII to gods (Jupiter, Mars) and demi-gods (Hercules, Achilles) and Marie de Médicis to goddesses (Athena, Aphrodite, Astraea). Such comparison usually underscores a particular quality—e.g. courage, phronēsis, beauty, justice—which the Bourbon protagonists share with their more illustrious models. But the implicit hyperbole of such a comparison is directly linked to the superlative degree of virtue (aretē huperbolē). What makes the hyperbole apt is the near identity of the one best man with God. In a brilliant article, Stephen Menn shows that “Aristotle takes both ‘the Good’ and ‘nous’ to be names of the essence of God” (Menn 546), identifying the Greek concept nous [mind, thought, intention, rationality] with the virtue of reason that exists itself-by-itself and orders the universe (Menn 561 & 566). Menn argues that our intellectual perception of this virtue, that is, our knowledge of it, is identical with the object of knowledge—which is just this virtue (“its pure immaterial being is pure energeia,” Menn 568). In other words, Aristotle, according to Menn, does not posit an identity of knower with object, but an identity of the activity of knowing with the self-subsisting rational activity that orders the universe (Menn 569). To paraphrase Menn, human beings may possess the virtue of reason which God possesses, but God possesses it “in a stronger way, by being it” (Menn 569). Human beings possess it “though a nonidentity relation, by perceiving it, since the virtue we possess is the same as the object we perceive” (Menn 569). Against this backdrop, one can see why quasi-divinity would be predicated of a monarch, that is, the one best man whose virtue is superlative. On the sliding scale of virtue, the monarch is not identical with God but participates as fully as any human can. A monarch’s virtue participates so fully in the self-subsisting virtue that orders all things as to suggest identity. Hyperbole is the appropriate figure of thought to convey 77 Chapter 2. The Evolution of Noble Identity the feelings of wonder evoked by a being nearly identical with God. Rhetorical manuals of antiquity and the Renaissance favored hyperbole for its capacity to strike the imagination, “making speech lively [by] leaving something for the audience to figure out” (Biester 107). Hence Malherbe’s persistent use of hyperbole to praise the virtue of the Bourbons is not mere exaggeration. The audience is supposed to infer the monarch’s divinity from the superlative degree of his (or her) natural virtue, although such an identity is logically denied. That is why the royal odes treat the Bourbons as demi-gods. 3. Heroic virtue. This predicate is likely due to the historical role that Henri played as the savior of the nation. Myriam Yardeni writes: “Henri IV is the most national king which France had known up to that period. Never had any king been so obligated to base his reign on his French character. His victory marks the triumph of a reinvigorated national sentiment that enters upon its full maturity” (Yardeni 317). However, any careful reading of the royal odes that takes into account their classical and biblical intertexts is bound to acknowledge that Henri, Marie, and Louis are all portrayed as heroes in the mythological sense of the term. “The hero,” writes Joseph Campbell, “is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human forms. Such a one’s visions, ideas, and inspirations come pristine from the primary springs of human life and thought. Hence they are eloquent, not of the present, disintegrating society and psyche, but of the unquenched source through which society is reborn” (Campbell 14). When Malherbe’s poetic sequence opens, Henri IV, the Hercules of France, has saved the kingdom from destruction and set sail aboard the ship of state on a political quest to usher in a utopia of peace, justice and prosperity at home and French hegemony abroad. As royal consort, Marie de Médicis incarnates the dual aspect of love and justice—Venus and Astraea, respectively—as she will secure the regime by providing a legitimate heir and facilitate the transition from war to peace, from disorder to governance. In the language of Campbell, either she herself is the boon which the hero seeks on his adventure and brings back to renew society, or the birth of her son is the magic gift, or both (Campbell 29, 148-165, 211). Later in the sequence, when the hero dies and Marie becomes queen regent, the odes depict her displaying the same magnanimity as Henri in service to the nation. Louis XIII, the son, for his part, will be portrayed as completing the unfinished labors of the father, fulfilling the conditions for the return of the Golden Age. From a mythological perspective, although such heroes maintain contact with the nation’s supernatural powers (i.e. God, the fates, and the daemon 78 Part I Praising the Great Soul of France), they do not personify the grand cosmic forces of creation and destruction. Nor do they resemble the archetypal religious hero—like Moses, Jesus, or Muhammed—who, as Campbell writes, “found and opened the road to the light beyond the dark” (Campbell 222). Rather, through an act of repetition, that is, by re-founding the monarchy and re-uniting the nation, the Bourbons reincarnate the greatest heroes of antiquity, who were also the first kings. In his analysis of the polity, and of monarchy in particular, Aristotle acknowledges such mythological founders and benefactors, situating their kingships in what he calls the “Heroic Age” (Politics 1.2 1253a30; 3.14 1285b5-15). The heroism found in Malherbe’s royal odes does not fit the evolution of the conception charted by Mark Bannister in the heroic novels of the 1640s and 1650s. Banister shows quite well how the notion evolves from an emphasis on physical prowess and moral autonomy (underscoring the sort of personal glory that elevates the hero to a realm beyond the human community) toward a more altruistic understanding of these concepts with an emphasis on service to the community (Bannister, Privileged Mortals 36-49). In the royal odes, both poles are already present. On the one hand, Henri’s quasi-divine attributes raise him above the nation, as though he were a demi-god or a special being chosen by God or destiny. On the other, despite this glory, he voluntarily serves the nation, pursuing the common good and conferring the greatest benefits on the national community, while his example is intended to encourage all his subjects, both greater and lesser, to do the same. At the same time, independent of the internal design of the royal odes, these three attributes of magnanimity also conform to Henri’s absolutist political agenda. J. Russell Major has argued that Henri’s and Sully’s suppression of the estates of Guyenne in 1603, and their imposition of royal officials who levied and collected taxes directly for the king, should be interpreted as a failed attempt to undermine the traditional rights and privileges of the provincial estates throughout France. Royal finances badly needed reform in the first decade of the century, having been strained to the breaking point. However, “by preventing the provincial estates and towns from taxing as they pleased, an important source of revenue that had been finding its way into the hands of the great nobles would be removed. With less wealth the great nobles could afford fewer clients to do their bidding; with fewer clients they would be less dangerous to the king” (Major, “Henri IV and Guyenne,” 364). Henri’s intention “to transform the Renaissance monarchy into a more absolute state” (Major, “Henri IV and Guyenne,” 363) goes hand in hand with the ideological efforts of propagandists and political theorists to revise the traditional images of the monarchy in 79 Chapter 2. The Evolution of Noble Identity 14 See Nannerl O. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France (Princeton UP, 1980) 54: “The development of the idea of absolute monarchy in the sixteenth century meant the reinterpretation of images of the king that had been familiar in earlier centuries, and the exaggeration of certain aspects of these images at the expense of others.” These images are: 1. defender and embodiment of the public good against particularist interests; 2. the overlord of all lords and vassals; 3. defender of the faith and favorite son of the Church; and 4. the emperor in his realm. 15 Holt’s point is well taken. Henri IV could not convincingly assume the ready-made trappings of sacrality. His conversion was viewed with suspicion by Protestants and Catholics alike, and the Protestant parts of the kingdom would not have been receptive to such traditional rituals and symbols. Henri had to find another way—and he did. But like a good politician, he still used the old symbols and rituals, pursuing multiple avenues simultaneously to attain his objectives. See Eric Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy: Catholic Reform and Political Authority in France (1590-1615) (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005). France. 14 Specifically, the superhuman proportions that magnanimity assumes in Malherbe’s royal odes remodel the traditional image of the king as “the eldest and most favored son of the church” (Keohane 55). Given Henri’s confessional flip-flopping and the still smoldering resentments of France’s sectarian conflict, this traditional image urgently needed revision. Henri’s necessary appeal to the Salic Law deemphasized the traditional reliance on the sacral aura of the monarchy “to reconstruct a sense of national community” (Holt, Renaissance 204). 15 “Henry realized that his royal person was still the only acceptable focus for national unity” (Holt, Renaissance 204). This shift of emphasis accords with Malherbe’s use of supercharged attributes to transform Henri into a “super-man, gifted with all the attributes of an anthropomorphic God” (Keohane 56-57). It should be noted, however, that the conception of absolutism which these attributes represent is qualitatively different from the sort of absolutism that took hold after the Fronde. Mark Bannister, having charted this ideological transformation, distinguishes the later absolutism by its “new relationship between monarch and subject, in which all gloire [glory] was vested in the king and in which systems of patronage and fidélité [loyalty] could work only in the same direction as the interests of the centralized state” (Bannister, Condé 155). By contrast, in the early seventeenth century, the class myth of the sword nobility, with its emphasis on the moral autonomy and personal glory of the individual noble, still dominated the French imagination. The royal odes project this myth on the new monarch, so that Henri, a former great noble, appears to have won the crown thanks to his superhuman virtue, working the will of God for the sake of the nation. If the image of a superhuman, great-souled monarch exemplifies the class myth of the sword nobility, it at the same time closes off any legitimate challenge to the new monarch’s authority, redirecting all noble 80 Part I Praising the Great Soul aspirations pro rege et patria. To the extent, moreover, that the royal odes fashion a new image of the French monarch, underscoring the capacity of Henri to see and to represent the good of all (Keohane 54), the superhuman monarch thus “incarnates and represents all the interests of the patrie [fatherland]” (Yardeni 317). “He is a king who symbolizes not only the greatness of France but also the love which must henceforth unite all the members of the French nation” (Yardeni 329). In the limited sense of the term “consent,” moreover, Malherbe’s praise for superlative, quasi-divine, and heroic magnanimity seeks recognition from the universal audience of great souls, in this instance, the civic community or body politic of the nation. As Mark Bannister notes, the heroic class myth of the sword nobility portrayed the nobles as “the defense and bulwark of the state” (Bannister, Privileged Mortals 26). In the royal odes, the Bourbons take over this role. The nation’s other great souls are invited to recognize the preeminence of their monarch, to follow his (or her) example, and to win glory pro rege et patria. By means of this patriotic ethos, based on the virtue of magnanimity, the royal odes merge the class myth of the sword nobility with the national myth of the sequence. In the overarching conceit of the sequence (where the ship of state navigates the troubled waters of political discord and conducts the nation to a new Golden Age), the Bourbons play the role of captain and/ or pilot, while the other great souls of the civic community play the role of supporting heroes and crew. Though not entirely apparent at the beginning of the sequence, the myth of the Argo becomes the primary intertext supporting Malherbe’s poetic sequence. Thus the conception of virtue informing Malherbe’s royal odes—magna‐ nimity that is superlative, quasi-divine, and heroic—stands on one side of an ideological fault line. The fact that ideas of virtue similar to Malherbe’s were finding vigorous expression in novels and theater of the 1630s and 40s suggests that such aspirations had already begun to migrate from the realm of political reality to the symbolic world of nostalgic reminiscence. The heyday of the heroic novel and theatre was an expression of the nobility’s ideological consciousness, allowing members of the caste to continue to define themselves in traditional ways while adapting to the social and economic realities encroaching on the caste as a whole. Lyric poetry, which by the third decade was for the most part composed in the salon milieu, traveled a separate path, eschewing the heroic in favor of the honnête [honorable] and the galant [flirtatious]. The ideological ground shifted right under Malherbe’s feet, so rapidly and significantly did the definition of nobility and the caste’s relationship to the monarchy evolve in the first three decades of the seventeenth century. 81 Chapter 2. The Evolution of Noble Identity 16 See Cicero, De Oratore 3.58, trans. E.W. Sutton & H. Rackham (Loeb, 1996): “In the old days at all events the same system of instruction seems to have imparted education both in right conduct and in good speech; nor were the professors in two separate groups, but the same masters gave instruction both in ethics and in rhetoric, for instance the Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence There can be no great eloquence without a great soul at its source. Marc Fumaroli, Héros et Orateurs (p. 324) The introduction and the first two chapters have been arguing that Malherbe’s royal odes were composed in a unique social and political environment which should inform how readers approach these poetic artifacts. Chapter 1 examined literary patronage to show how the perceived character of Henri IV—the great-souled man—supplied the royal odes with an external ethos. This ethos was collective and addressed an audience of more-than-one, notably the body politic. Chapter 2 analyzed the evolution of noble identity in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries to grasp the significance of the virtue of magnanimity and to show its political implications in the royal odes. We saw how the magnanimity of the “one best man” not only justified Henri’s accession but also evoked an imagined political community of great souls who redirect ambition pro rege et patria. Chapter 3 situates the royal odes in the rhetorical landscape of the early seventeenth century and then analyzes the components of their rhetorical ethos: phronēsis and moral virtue, but also elocutio and the emotions. The inclusion of these latter two elements requires some explanation. Eugene Garver’s analysis of Aristotelian ethos in Aristotle’s ‘Rhetoric’: An Art of Character does not consider the role played by elocutio. But the same logic that he applies to virtue and the emotions presumably holds for it. Elocutio may be considered a technē when it serves an argumentative or emotional function (the latter means stirring feelings of wonder or civic emotions like friendliness, fear, and hatred). Emotion itself serves an argumentative function, according to Garver, due to the formative role that affect plays in all judgment (Garver 34-37, 109-116). The elocutio of Malherbe’s royal odes—their particular version of the grand style—has been crafted to fit the perceived grandeur of the monarch, the model for the patriotic ethos they extol and endeavor to inculcate. Such propriety, that is, the correspondence of moral greatness and rhetorical loftiness, is presented as the restoration of the ancient unity of virtue and eloquence. 16 Amphion, the 82 Part I Praising the Great Soul great Phoenix in Homer, who says that he was assigned to the young Achilles by his father Peleus to accompany him to the wars in order to make him ‘an orator and a man of action too.’” Malherbe would have been quite familiar with this tradition. The great soul (la grande âme) of Demosthenes or Cicero is thought to be the source of powerful oratory (la grande éloquence). If action (doing) and eloquence (speaking) both presuppose practical wisdom as their foundation, then the same virtue (phronēsis) is actualized in both. The royal odes purport to restore this lost unity. poet-king who built the walls of Thebes with the power of his poetry, personifies the ideal of this restored unity. However, readers should not approach the two sides of this unity in a naive way. The rhetorical ethos of Malherbe’s royal odes does not simply correspond to a moral ethos that is merely lying around waiting to be praised, but the former in fact helps construct the latter, and thus rhetorical ethos deserves close scrutiny due to the major role it plays in reimagining king, monarchy, and nation. Although Malherbe’s version of the “best style” suited to the “one best man” aspires to be universal and timeless, it bears the unmistakable stamp of its rhetorical climate, which is so remarkably set forth, and in such rich detail, by Marc Fumaroli’s L’Âge de l’éloquence: Rhétorique et ‘res literataria’ de la Renaissance au seuil de l’époque classique. Fumaroli chronicles the reception and transformation of the ancient rhetorical tradition in early seventeenth-century France and charts the emergence of classical French eloquence by tracking the search for the “best style” to represent royal majesty. The crucial event in Fumaroli’s history is the promulgation of the Edict of Rouen (1603), by which Henri IV reinstated the Jesuits in France. The republican-style eloquence that more than three decades of civil war had nurtured was suddenly channeled into royal encomia. All that captured energy, combined with the perception of the Bourbon court as a “dialectical crossroads” without its own language or style (Fumaroli, L’Âge 522), touched off a fierce rivalry among orators—a galaxy of humanists, clergymen, lawyers, magistrates, rhetorical theorists, and writers—locked in competition to determine whether the pulpit, the Parlement, or the Bourbon court would serve as the epicenter of royal eloquence. With the composition and the publication of the odes, Malherbe took up the gauntlet in this competition, swaying the influence toward the court, but not without incorporating rhetorical practices borrowed from the other two rival camps. If the incorporation of Gallican eloquence into the royal odes comes as no surprise, the inclusion of figures of thought more at home in sacred oratory has largely gone unnoticed. To arrive at an accurate description of the royal odes’ rhetorical tools, this chapter interweaves literary history and rhetorical theory. A twenty-first-cen‐ 83 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence tury reader should understand where poetry fit in the discursive universe of early seventeenth-century France, how for a short time it acquired an accessory political function, and in what way Malherbe exploited its capacity for wonder. The idea is to show the significance of Malherbe’s rhetorical and stylistic choices. Although Malherbe famously and categorically rejected baroque poets like Du Bartas, Desportes, and Marino—whose poetics of wonder overlaps with the eloquence practiced by Jesuit preachers at the court of Henri IV—the royal odes do not wholly eschew their “admirable style” (Biester 4, 14-16, 47), but rather modify it with the polish, propriety and clarity of Ciceronian Atticism tinged with the emotional intensity and suggestiveness of Hellenistic plainness. The royal odes indeed balance the raw power of metaphor with the argumentative form of example, but this latter type of proof also serves alongside metaphor, allegory, significatio [suggestion, allusion], etc., as powerful figures of thought. These not only underpin the self-description of the royal odes as wondrous portraits of virtue (cf. “À la Reine sur les heureux succès de sa régence,” vv. 131-140), they also set up an allegorical level of meaning through intertextual links to classical poetry. Such allegory, known in the early seventeenth century as “la peinture spirituelle” [spiritual painting], unifies the individual odes into a sequence with the structure of a quest. Malherbe’s conception of the grand style, however, while owing something to the Longinian sublime, owes more to the polish and abundance of Isocrates. It is not the brilliant image, nor the concise example, that is meant to carry away the reader, but rather the diffuse amplification of a conceit, sustained by multiple images and examples. Interspersed within Ciceronian copia are key figures of thought with emotional intensity and the capacity to spark logical inferences and/ or psychological images. How the Royal Odes Perform an Accessory Political Function Eloquence, the highest achievement of rhetoric, is a term common to English and French that designates both an art or discipline containing an array of persuasive techniques and the special quality of any discourse designed to enchant or to persuade. The eloquent speaker attempts to move the audience to act or to judge, or he seeks to give them pleasure—sometimes he does both. The various kinds of eloquence and their specific purposes originated in ancient Greece where they were shaped by the diverse social and political contexts in which 84 Part I Praising the Great Soul 17 See Shuger 14: “Oratory flourished in the law courts, in public meetings, at the Panhellenic gatherings, at funerals, at religious ceremonies, and at banquets. [] The multiple functions of oratory in Athenian culture gave rise to a set of distinct styles suited to different types of speeches.” 18 The term “epideictic” comes from the Greek verb epideikasthai, meaning to show, to exhibit, or to display. This branch is also known as the demonstrative. See Aristotle, Rhet. 1.3.3-5. 19 The most famous and popular of these secondary rhetorical manuals is undoubtedly Cipriano Soares’s De arte rhetorica libri tres (Coimbra, 1562), whose marginal notes privilege Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. The examples cited are for the most part drawn from Cicero’s speeches. 20 Not relevant in this context are the finer distinctions of judicial oratory: Was the past action done? What exactly was done? What was the nature of the act? See Aristotle, Rhet. 1.13.9-10; Cicero, Orator 45; Quintilian 3.6. public speaking was practiced. 17 The classification of the kinds of speaking and their distinct styles into three branches—the judicial, the political, and the epideictic—stems from Aristotle’s treatise On Rhetoric. 18 These branches, with their respective styles, represented “competing ideals within Athenian culture” (Shuger 14), and they were later transmitted to ancient Rome through direct contact with Hellenistic teachers and Greek rhetorical manuals. This tradition, to which the Romans would make their own unique contributions, would in turn be disseminated throughout medieval and early modern Europe by the works of Cicero and Quintilian (for the most part) and by contemporary manuals based on them. 19 The De inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium, falsely attributed to Cicero, were authoritative manuals in the Middle Ages long before Cicero’s genuine works (judicial and political orations and more substantive rhetorical manuals, the De Oratore, the Brutus, and the Orator) were recovered and studied with great enthusiasm in the Renaissance. Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria (95 BCE) enjoyed an even more illustrious afterlife, proving to be the West’s “most comprehensive and influential presentation of rhetoric” (Curtius 66). The Roman influence was the broadest but not the sole tributary of the classical tradition in early modern Europe. Significant contributions were also made by Augustine and the Hellenistic rhetoricians Demetrius, Dionysius, and Hermogenes (Shuger 38, 41-50). Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian define the branches of rhetoric, the so-called “genera dicendi” (Shuger 14), in strikingly similar terms (Aristotle, Rhet. 1.3.3-5; Cicero, De Or. 1.141; Quintilian 3.4.12-16). The judicial and political kinds of speaking are categories that most readers will recognize. A judicial body gathers to judge a past action. A speaker accuses or defends, but never loses sight of the justice of the cause as he tries to move the audience to a judgment. 20 A political assembly convenes to deliberate on a future course of action. A 85 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence speaker advises the members of the audience to take action (or dissuades them from it) by speaking for (or against) the expediency of the proposal. The category of epideictic requires a bit more explanation. It is open-ended and includes whatever occasions do not strictly fit the other two: funerals, weddings, feast days etc. Cicero calls epideictic speeches “show-pieces” produced for “the pleasure they will give” (Orator 37), and Quintilian agrees that such an audience assembles “simply for the sake of getting pleasure” (Quintilian 3.4.6). On every epideictic occasion, the speaker praises (or blames) someone (or something) according to to kalon, the beautiful, fine, noble, or admirable (Aristotle, Rhet. 1.3.5). While this goal remains fixed, the particulars of the occasion determine the appropriate means to attain it. A speaker does not praise the same things at a wedding that he does at a funeral, nor in the same way. If the audience judges anything on such ceremonial occasions, it is usually the ability of the speaker (Aristotle, Rhet. 1.3.2). The success of the epideictic speaker typically “concerns himself and not his cause” (Quintilian 8.3.13). The classical genera dicendi would undergo significant modifications before being revived and adapted to the social and political institutions of France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In both Greece and Rome, political and judicial eloquence sputtered out under the suffocation of imperial rule. “The two most important oratorical genres, the judicial and the political, disappeared from political reality with the extinction of the Greek city-states and the Roman Republic, and took refuge in the schools of rhetoric” (Curtius 70). As one of the artes liberales [branches of learning] transmitted to the Middle Ages, rhetoric in the schools became the organizing principle of education in twelfth-century France and, although later dethroned by philology and philosophy, remained a prerequisite of university studies and the main vehicle by which composition was taught throughout the Renaissance and the seventeenth century (Curtius 37, 45, 56, 62, 71, 77). Judicial rhetoric would recover in Europe in the eleventh century, with the revival of Roman law (Curtius 69), while political rhetoric, restricted to school exercises, could find a real-world outlet only through epideictic oratory, most notably speeches in praise of rulers (Curtius 69). But the art of rhetoric was thriving in two other areas of activity. The poetic works of Ovid, Seneca, and Statius show that the genera dicendi had discovered an esthetic outlet for all of rhetoric’s most artistic resources (Curtius 66)—a lesson that would not be lost on Malherbe and other seventeenth-century French poets. In addition, Christian homiletics in both Latin and Greek launched a new era of rhetorical innovation and achievement, preserving seriousness of purpose and subject matter while keeping alive “numinous feelings of wonder and mystery” 86 Part I Praising the Great Soul (Shuger 7) and transmitting them to the vernacular literatures of early modern Europe. If classical and sacred eloquence flourished in France in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, it was certainly due to the on-going recovery of the Greco-Latin tradition. A Ronsard, a Montaigne, a Guez de Balzac transferred to the realm of belles-lettres a stunning rhetorical sophistication acquired from the humanist encyclopedia. A cohort of French-language preachers, magistrates, and lawyers did the same for public speaking, not to mention the scholarly contributions they made to history, political science, and rhetorical theory. But variants of the classical genera dicendi were nurtured by specific events and institutions in early modern France. According to Fumaroli, the arrival of the Jesuits on French soil in the mid-sixteenth century was crucial. “The intrusion of the Jesuits in France was perceived by the hyper-sensitive partisans of Gallicanism as a new stage of the religious ‘imperialism’ of the Holy See, forerunner to the political imperialism of Spain” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 234). The Paris Parlement and the Sorbonne were bastions of Gallican partisans who defended the independence of the French Church, claimed preeminence for the French kingdom in Europe, protected the inviolability of the fundamental laws of the realm, and promoted the sacred character and absolute authority of the French monarch. All this was at odds with the mission of the Jesuits: the formation of an international army of Christ loyal to Rome and the goals of the Counter-Reformation. A political showdown was inevitable. “The battle of Gallican magistrates and university doctors against the Jesuits naturally took an oratorical form: lawyers and theologians were pitted against professors of rhetoric and preachers” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 235). The public speeches of this polemic constitute the historical backbone of Fumaroli’s narrative about the flowering and evolution of French eloquence in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Add to this the erudite treatises on eloquence published by representatives from both camps, and the rich and varied rhetorical landscape in which Malherbe composed the royal odes comes into focus. While Malherbe enjoyed personal ties to Gallican orators like Du Vair or Du Perron, he could not have ignored the rhetorical influence of Jesuit preachers popular with the Bourbon court. The three main institutions where public speaking flourished in early modern France were the Parlement, the pulpit, and the royal court. If we put aside for a moment the politically-charged harangues delivered at the darkest hours of the Wars of Religion and the pamphlet propaganda that continued to be published well into the seventeenth century, the cours souveraines [royal courts of law] were the normal locus of political eloquence, albeit restricted in scope. 87 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence 21 See Holt, “The Problem of the Lit de Justice” 521. To Henri III, who had repeatedly forced the registration of edicts without prior consultation and deliberation, Achille de Harlay has this to say: “Sire, do not change the customary procedures followed in the distribution of justice or in the publication of edicts.” 22 See Jeffrey K. Sawyer, Printed Poison: Pamphlet Propaganda, Faction Politics, and the Public Sphere in Early Seventeenth-Century France (UC Press, 1990) 20-26. The Parlement of Paris was the most prestigious of these courts, and its most powerful and respected magistrates were erudite humanists who constituted a Gallican Republic of Letters and considered themselves the guardians of the kingdom’s fundamental laws (Fumaroli, L’Âge 431). This body, with its strange mix of executive, legislative, and judicial powers, was technically a mere extension of the king’s prerogative to make law, but Parlement could, and often did, make decisions that proved detrimental to royal authority (Moote 146). “The role of Parlement was not limited to registering the Edicts and Ordonnances of the king; it had to verify them, submitting them to various ‘touchstones: ’ the ‘fundamental laws,’ the ‘liberties of the Gallican Church,’ and more generally the jurisprudence of the kingdom” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 430). In the name of upholding existing laws, it could refuse to register what it considered unlawful innovations “pending royal answers to their own remonstrances” (Moote 147). The remonstrance, a speech delivered by leading magistrates to their peers, and sometimes to the king during a lit de justice [plenary session] or a séance royal [royal visit], could express dissent, evoke the king’s oaths and obligations, or offer counsel with respect to the law or the crown’s refusal to observe traditional procedure. The remonstrance was not the sole occasion for political eloquence in early modern France, but its theory and practice attracted the most ambitious and learned elites: Louis Le Roy, Christophe de Thou, Michel de l’Hospital, Étienne Pasquier, Guillaume Du Vair. The contents of these speeches ran the gamut from majestic appeals for religious tolerance, as in the case of de l’Hospital, to pointed reproaches regarding parliamentary procedure, such as that addressed by Achille de Harlay to Henri III in 1583. 21 Such speeches were often published twice: first as a stand-alone pamphlet, and the second time in a magistrate’s complete works. The prolific pamphlet literature of the age thus presents the lineaments of an embryonic public sphere whose center of gravity was the Paris Parlement. 22 Judicial eloquence was practiced in the same building where the Parlement gathered, the now destroyed Palais de Justice [supreme court]. The first and most common type of speech was the pleading of attorneys and procureurs généraux [public prosecutors] addressed to judges in lawsuits brought before the court. Fumaroli evokes memorable instances when Parisian crowds overflowed the 88 Part I Praising the Great Soul 23 See Fumaroli, L’Âge 475: “In 1609, the collection Harangues et Actions publiques appeared in Paris, presenting the best ‘Remonstances’ given by Pibrac, Mangot, and d’Espeisses, rhetorical treasures accumulated during the reign of Henri III.” 24 See Peter Bayley, French Pulpit Oratory, 1598-1650: A Study in Themes and Style, with a Descriptive Catalogue of Printed Texts (Cambridge UP, 1980) 14-15: “Although ecclesiastical authority required a sermon or homily at Mass on Sundays, these were often brief instructions and were rarely reprinted. The full dress sermon was normally delivered at a separate time, often in the afternoon, on certain major feast days, on Sundays in fashionable town churches, and above all during Lent and Advent. It also formed part of the elaborate ceremonies for the Octave of Corpus Christi. There were also, of course, sermons for special occasions like missions or professions into the religious orders, but few of these survive. The funeral oration, to which distinguished or noble figures had a right, forms a separate genre and was almost always published separately. The printed collections of Catholic sermons reflect these customs faithfully.” See also Bayley 8-13, 301-305. court room, having flocked from far and wide to hear high profile cases argued by lawyers with a reputation for eloquence (Fumaroli, L’Âge 457-458). But the austere ideals of judicial speaking stressed the absolute necessity of the speaker’s moral probity and promoted argument based on facts and denuded of sophistical ornament (Fumaroli, L’Âge 485-489). A second type of speech was unique to this social setting: the remonstrance d’ouverture [inaugural admonition], essentially a “harangue which the avocats du roi [king’s counselors] made twice a year at the general opening of legal proceedings in Parlement” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 469). “Every ‘Remonstrance d’ouverture’ possessed an epideictic aspect appropriate to the solemnity of the occasion, which celebrated the Logos of royal justice in religious and philosophical terms, and a homiletic aspect dealing with the everyday practices of the Palais de Justice, which reminded those who practiced forensic oratory of their moral obligations” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 476-477). This new and hybrid genus dicendi, addressed to all the lawyers who pleaded at the bar, would become a model of eloquence in its own right, published in handsomely bound anthologies available for purchase. 23 Sacred eloquence flourished at the pulpit, having been infused with new life by contact with classical sources, especially Augustine and the more select manuals of Demetrius, Dionysius, and Hermogenes (Shuger 38 & 44). One might think that a form of discourse so fundamental to the beliefs and social practices of early seventeenth-century France would be better preserved, but the print sources are meager and uneven, indeed frustratingly nonexistent in some cases—perhaps a testament to the fundamentally oral nature of the genre. 24 One would especially like to possess more sermons by the Jesuits who, seeking favor with Henri IV and noble elites, are alleged to have delivered ostentatious sermons. Fumaroli reports that Henri IV “was seduced in the 89 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence 25 Fumaroli, L’Âge 250: “The renown of preachers ‘fashionable’ with the Bourbon court attracted to the Église Saint-Louis and to the Maison Professe the great lords and ladies enchanted by Jesuit eloquence and the Company’s reputation as casuists.” highest degree, along with his court, by the eloquence of Father Coton” whose sermons owed their “captious and flowery sweetness” to “sacred sophistic” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 241-242). A 1617 edition of Coton’s sermons survive (Sermons sur les principales et plus difficiles matières de la foy) but “reduced” to meditations and significantly “pruned” to facilitate the transposition from oral performance to printed text (Fumaroli, L’Âge 264; Bayley 223). Twenty-first-century readers may be surprised to learn that noble men and women of all ranks made a habit of attending mass to enjoy the performance of an eloquent sermon. Particular preachers indeed attained rock-star status among this elite. 25 The Jesuits knew on which side their bread was buttered and single-mindedly targeted these connoisseurs of belles-lettres. With such a paucity of historical records, Fumaroli must reconstruct the stylistic practice of Jesuit sermons from critical reflections contained in the prefaces of manuals of piety (Richeome, Tableaux sacrez des figures mystiques, 1601) or, in one instance, a French-language rhetorical manual (Binet, Essay des Merveilles de Nature et des plus nobles artifices, 1621), as well as criticism of their sermons published by both Jesuits (Caussin, Eloquentiae sacrae et humanae parallela, 1619) and Gallicans (Antoine de Laval, Homélies de Saint Jean Chrysostome, 1621; Jacques Davy Du Perron, Avant-discours de rhétorique ou traité de l’éloquence, c. 1622) (Fumaroli, L’Âge 258-274, 297). According to Fumaroli, the Jesuit preference for florid figures of thought (e.g. hypotyposis, ekphrasis, or prosopopoeia) and their cultivation of unbridled amplification, with full and rounded periods, homeoteleuton, and other sonorous seductions, stemmed from the orality of the genre and reflected the desire to dazzle the imagination and the ears of their target audience, worldly noble elites whose less developed education in classical literature limited the refinement of their taste (Fumaroli, L’Âge 263). However, when addressing the erudite sectors of French society, the Jesuits completely changed their tactics and style. “It was difficult to be at one and the same time an orator in French, fitted to the ‘ignorance’ and the fashions of the Bourbon court, and a humanist in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, capable of making an impression on the ‘learned scholars’ of the Palais de Justice [supreme court] and its environs. The Jesuits were forced to specialize” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 247). These humanist scholars trained the professors for the Jesuit colleges where the sons of the nobility were sent to study classical literature and the art of rhetoric (Fumaroli, L’Âge 245-246), and they published profoundly erudite treatises in rhetoric and theology, composed 90 Part I Praising the Great Soul in Latin to compete with the intellectual and moral authority of Parlement and the Sorbonne. Fumaroli’s repeated characterization of the Jesuits’ stylistic practice in their French-language sermons—“an excess of ornatus” (261), “this mosaic of variegated descriptions” (266), “garish effects that strike the imagination and the passions” (273), “imaginative and emotional rhetoric” (298, 418-419)—has unforeseen relevance for Malherbe’s royal odes. It is not just that Malherbe implicitly competed with the Jesuits in the contest of royal eloquence; rather, more surprising, the royal odes exhibit clear traces of influence from Jesuit eloquence, reacting against its excesses while borrowing key figures of thought —not to mention exhibiting an allegorical mode of composition also typical of Ignatian spirituality. To appreciate the affinity of Jesuit eloquence and Malherbe’s royal odes, one must grasp the importance of the Edict of Rouen (1603), a watershed moment because it caused a kingdom-wide shift in rhetorical decorum. The Jesuits had been exiled in 1594, after Jean Châtel, a graduate of the Collège de Clermont, had attempted to assassinate the “heretic” Henri IV. Gallicans had accused the Jesuits of criminal complicity. A few Jesuit pamphlets at the time had laid out the case for tyrannicide (Fumaroli, L’Âge 236), and some Jesuit preachers delivered impolitic and unrestrained sermons. Although there is no proof of Jesuit collusion in the assassination, the Gallicans turned the tables on their opponents and pressed for their ouster from the kingdom. Henri IV was caught in the middle. He welcomed the aggressive absolutism espoused by his Gallican supporters, but he wanted his excommunication lifted and thus was inclined to do the Pope a favor by pardoning the Jesuits. The Society of Jesus would only partially comply with the legislation expelling them from the kingdom in 1594, and after a short interval, Henri called them back. Undoubtedly a shrewd political tactic, “the Edict of Rouen made the French Jesuits the ‘clients’ and the debtors of His Most Christian Majesty who, having reestablished them, could at any moment abandon them to powerful enemies with a tenacious thirst for revenge” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 239). The edict provoked a clash of oratorical titans—the prominent Jesuit Father Richeome was assailed by the Gallican giants Antoine Arnaud, Simon Marion, and Étienne Pasquier (Fumaroli, L’Âge 237-238). In retrospect, it appears that the Jesuit carried the day, accusing the Gallicans of stirring up civil discord and of usurping, with their republican-style harangues, Henri IV’s sovereignty. “The Edict of Rouen, which discounts the eloquent diatribes published by Arnauld and Pasquier, and which marks, with a certain brutality, the limits of the magistrates’ powers, clearly indicated to Henri’s former allies that the political domain was henceforth reserved for the 91 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence king and his Privy Council. The affairs of State were no longer matter for public debate” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 238). The Edict of Rouen thus resulted in the sudden promotion of epideictic eloquence. “The king, who found political eloquence so irritating, appreciated epideictic eloquence, the kind practiced by court preachers like Coton, or by the Gallican Arnauld when he limited himself to praising a peer of France before Parlement during a ceremonial assembly” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 238). “Marginalized by the king’s Privy Council, the Parlement under Henri IV was reduced to judicial eloquence or to demonstrative [i.e. epideictic] eloquence” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 442). Gallican Politiques had tirelessly and successfully pressed for the king’s absolute sovereignty, but the Jesuits were the first to capitalize on the political and rhetorical implications of this victory. “From 1604, French Jesuits had no trouble at all in defeating Gallican orators in a veritable contest to see who would go farthest in singing the praises of the king: odes, elegies, epics, panegyrics, epithalamia, consolations, and funeral eulogies renewed the verbal lavishness of sophists toward Roman emperors” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 240). A new rhetorical climate had arrived. The promotion of epideictic eloquence also shifted the epicenter of eloquence toward the royal court, the last of the above-mentioned institutions where public speaking flourished in the early seventeenth century. The occasions at court naturally revolved around the lives of the royal family: a military campaign, a royal marriage, the birth of an heir etc. A speech, a poem, even a series of them, would be recited before an audience and subsequently published in a deluxe edition. Other occasions included spectacles and entertainments, which invariably featured abundant praise, in speeches or poems, for the monarch, members of the royal family, and powerful nobles with close ties to them. But a crucial, and often overlooked, aspect of this space is the composite nature of the audience. “The two French elites, the Sword and the Robe, demanded two different tactics, and two different, almost incompatible disciplines” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 247). As mentioned, the Jesuits practiced one sort of eloquence for the less educated Sword and another for the humanist Robe. However, a smattering of learned humanists belonging to the magistracy and the clergy were mixed in among the less educated noble elites at court: such figures as Bertaut, Du Perron, Du Vair etc. While their sparse presence did not impede the triumph of an overwrought and sophistical eloquence whose most lauded practitioners were the Jesuits, the mixed audience of scholars and amateurs at the Bourbon court suggests that Malherbe composed the royal odes with two different readerships in mind. The polish, clarity, and emotional intensity of the royal odes were 92 Part I Praising the Great Soul 26 See Fumaroli, “Sous le signe de Protée: 1594-1630” in Précis de la littérature française du XVIIe siècle, ed. Jean Mesnard (PUF, 1990) 95-98. geared toward the aristocratic amateurs of belles-lettres, whereas the allusive and suggestive allegory targeted the more select audience of erudite humanists. The promotion of epideictic eloquence in 1603 was crucial in cementing the cultural prestige of lyric poetry and elevating the encomiastic ode to the level of the pamphlet, remonstrance, and sermon. If it need be said, the originality of Fumaroli’s L’Âge de l’éloquence is the claim that the study of the institutions, practices, and debates of French eloquence, both Gallican and Jesuit, more faithfully represents the field of literary production in the early seventeenth century than the practice of belles-lettres traditionally studied by scholarship. However, his ground-breaking approach does not seriously consider the impli‐ cations of the promotion of epideictic speaking for encomiastic poetry in the early decades of the seventeenth century (although in another text, Fumaroli does acknowledge that encomiastic poetry and prose were for a time at the forefront of literary innovation). 26 The most significant of these implications is the acquisition of an accessory political function by encomiastic poetry. Such a development had been long in the making, prepared by the recent rise of the lyric as a legitimate poetic genre alongside epic and tragedy. Lyric poetry was considered a species of epideictic eloquence during the Renaissance. Rhetorical theory, following Aristotle, had for the most part treated poetry as distinct from the art of rhetoric. The two were sisters, and they borrowed from one another, but poetry was defined by mimesis, whereas the art of rhetoric rested on “an ability, in each particular case, to see the available means of persuasion” (Aristotle, Poetics 1.15; Rhet. 1.2.1). However, as Gustavo Guerrero shows in Poétique et poésie lyrique, Renaissance theorists did not narrowly define the term mimesis as the imitation of human action (Guerrero 138). Francesco Patrizzi (1586), for instance, questioned the usefulness of mimesis as a criterion to define poetry because of its plurality of meanings (Della poetica: la deca disputata, ctd. in Guerrero 138). Guerrero cites numerous Renaissance theorists who did not feel bound by the term and thus freely speculated on the nature and definition of poetry. Given the age’s respect for classical antecedents, the legitimation of lyric poetry as a genre was explicitly grounded in the odes of Horace and Pindar. Italian theorists in particular took great pains to establish such classical antecedents for Petrarch’s poetry, the stakes being nothing less than “the literary dignity of the Italian language” (Guerrero 101), and Petrarch would singularly shape the Renaissance lyric in France. 93 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence Never having risen to the level of a genre on a par with epic and tragedy, lyric poetry is not well defined in ancient literary theory. To remedy such conceptual inadequacy, Renaissance poets and critics borrowed concepts from epideictic rhetoric (Guerrero 99). The significant overlap of themes between lyric poetry and epideictic rhetoric must have suggested that they also shared an analogous goal and purpose. For instance, in his 1510 commentary on Horace’s Ars Poetica, Guarico says: “the purpose of lyric forms was to show men the path of virtue, to obtain pardons from kings, sometimes also to unite us in athletic contests, and to sum up the great principles of our predecessors” (ctd. in Guerrero 79). Ludovico Dolce (1535) gives this telling translation of Horace’s famous lines on lyric poetry in the Ars Poetica: “Thus the verse called lyric / the muses gave us to sing / the virtue of great heroes / and various games and youthful passions” (ctd. in Guerrero 103). In his Poetices (1561), Scaliger, a major philologist and literary critic, inventories the following themes and occasions for lyric: “Praise, love, invective, affliction, toasts, reproach, prayer” (ctd. in Guerrero 99). He could just as well be describing the topics of epideictic rhetoric. The purpose which Scaliger assigns to lyric (at least some of its forms) is revealed in his ranking of poetic genres according to “nobilitas,” a Latin translation of the term to kalon: “Most noble are hymns and paeans. Second place belongs to songs, odes, and drinking songs that praise brave men. In third place, epic poetry” (ctd. in Guerrero 95). The genres of epic and tragic poetry enjoyed unparalleled cultural prestige in early modern Europe, but they were evidently not considered more noble than lyric. Thanks to Petrarch and Italian theorists, lyric poetry stood shoulder to shoulder with them, becoming a genre in its own right, one that was endowed with genuine sociopolitical functions. Sixteenth-century French poets and theorists certainly stressed lyric poetry’s divine inspiration and its kinship to music, but they also acknowledged that “Rhetoric is equally distributed throughout the poem as it is throughout the oration,” and that “the Orator and the Poet are all the more close and related, as they are similar and equal in many things” (Sébillet, Art poétique français, Goyet 58). French theories of the lyric exhibit a less systematic character than those developed in Italy and Spain, but they nonetheless assign it similar sociopolitical functions. In the 1550 preface to his Odes, for instance, Ronsard boldly claims for himself the title of “the first French lyric author,” and after lamenting the fact that his odes are not literally fitted to the lyre, defines the genre in these terms: the true goal of the lyric poet is to celebrate in the extreme whomever he has under‐ taken to praise. And if he finds in his subject nothing worthy of great recommendation, he must delve into his family and there look for a brave and valiant ancestor; or honor 94 Part I Praising the Great Soul 27 See A. Leigh Deneef, “Epideictic Rhetoric and the Renaissance Lyric,” The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 3.2 (Fall 1973) 203-231. him with the reputation of his country, with some happy fortune bestowed on him or his own, or with other such extraneous digressions (Weinberg 147-148). This definition echoes almost word for word the section on praise in Rhetorica ad Herennium (3.6.10-15), one of the best known rhetorical manuals of the Renaissance. While Ronsard may have a rather narrow sense of “liriq” in mind, meaning just the Pindaric ode, it would nonetheless be easy for a reader to think this definition extends to all forms of lyric—and it just so happens that we have an instance of such a reading in Le Quintil horacien by Barthélemy Anneau (Goyet 203). Offended by the arrogance of Ronsard, Anneau charges him with unfairly excluding native French forms from the genre of lyric and, therefore, unjustly claiming to be the first French lyric poet. The point here is to underscore Ronsard’s generalization of a particular conception of lyric which is based on fragments of Pindar and epideictic themes. Once lyric poetry was classified as a species of epideixis, a French theorist like Jacques Peletier did not hesitate to define all poetry in terms of lyric’s own sociopolitical function. Take, for instance, his Art poétique of 1555: Poets were once the teachers and the reformers of life. This is proven by its ubiquity in ancient Greece, when Nobles and all sorts of people taught their children Poetry, not only so that their minds would be awakened, and rectified, but also so they would learn how to live, and have examples of virtue. [] It was because of Poetry that the memorable exploits of illustrious men have come down to posterity. Bearing witness to the greatness and excellence of virtue and the virtuous, poetry caused their descendants to attempt to equal their deeds and exploits out of a desire for immortality, and it inspired brave men to risk their lives for the safety and conservation of their Country (Goyet 225-226). The purpose he envisions for poetry is consistent with a general trend in Renaissance treatises: poetry teaches a way of life through examples of virtue; it commemorates the virtuous; and it does so for the young and for posterity. 27 As Ronsard puts it: “The erudite madness of poets will survive the innumerable centuries to come, proclaiming the glory of those princes on whom they have bestowed immortality” (Weinberg 148). Lyric’s aptitude for praise and commemoration, which it shares with epideictic speaking, was accepted for a short time as the purpose of all poetry. The fact that lyric could be used as such a yardstick attests to the growing importance of the new genre and suggests 95 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence 28 See Alain Génetiot, Les genres lyriques mondains : 1630-1660 : étude des poésies de Voiture, Vion d’Alibray, Sarasin et Scarron (Genève: Librairie Droz, 1990). 29 See Stephen A. White, Sovereign Virtue: Aristotle on the Relation between Happiness and Prosperity (Stanford UP, 1992) 10-11: “Our desire for this end [i.e. happiness] is not derived solely from desires for other ends (as in ‘decisions’), but it also implies that we that poetry as a whole occupied a more important place in the cultural life of early modern France than a historian like Fumaroli is willing to allow. Indeed, the cultural and political prominence of lyric poetry did not wane in France until after 1630. Lyric turned away from public occasions and the grandeur of encomiastic odes, becoming instead a pastime of salon culture, pro‐ longing the conversations of habitués and commemorating their lives together. 28 Around the same time, Chapelain and other theorists began reexamining mimesis as the proper criterion of poetry, focusing their attention on tragedy and epic. French classical theater and the heroic novel boomed in the late 1630s, while in the 1650s Scudéry, Chapelain, and Desmarets tried their hand at writing full-blown epics. Lyric poetry had won its spurs during the Renaissance, but its glory in the early decades of the seventeenth century was short lived, receding to a respectable but minor position in the hierarchy of genres, as evidenced by Boileau’s Art poétique (1674). For a few decades, however, the promotion of epideictic eloquence in 1603 confirmed the rising cultural prestige of lyric poetry and endowed the enco‐ miastic ode with a political function akin to a remonstrance, a sermon, or a pamphlet. To grasp this development, one must know that the goals and purposes of the three branches of rhetoric are mutually reinforcing, and that each branch has an accessory function borrowed from another branch (Garver 65). Notably, a reciprocal relationship exists between political eloquence (delib‐ eration) and epideictic eloquence (praise), that is, between their respective ends, the useful and to kalon (Aristotle, Rhet. 1.3.5). “Praise and deliberations are part of a common species,” writes Aristotle, “thus, when you want to praise, see what would be the underlying proposition; and when you want to set out proposals in deliberation, see what you would praise” (Rhet. 1.9.35-36). Such reciprocity opens poetry (understood as a species of epideictic discourse) to the performance of a political function, albeit in an accessory capacity. In deliberative speaking, for instance, one does not argue about whether to pursue happiness, only the most expedient means to attain it. But in praising what is noble or admirable (to kalon), epideictic speaking affirms or critiques a society’s beliefs about happiness. On the rare occasions when people discuss what happiness or the good life is, they state beliefs and argue about the way things are to justify those beliefs. 29 Such argument is fully at home in encomiastic poetry, whose 96 Part I Praising the Great Soul judge this end to be good, and hence that we have beliefs as our reasons for pursuing it” (his italics). 30 See Kennedy’s gloss in Aristotle, On Rhetoric, trans. George A. Kennedy (Oxford UP, 1991) p. 48, n. 77: “Praise corrects, modifies, or strengthens an audience’s belief about civic virtue or the reputation of an individual.” political effects remain indeterminate only as long as beliefs and assertions are not tied to any political context (Garver 72). In early seventeenth-century France, Malherbe’s royal odes perform an accessory political function precisely because their praise for the Bourbons is rooted in the historical particulars of the occasion. That is to say, they state beliefs and argue about the way things are to justify those beliefs. To dismiss their hyperbolic praise as mere flattery or propaganda is to miss their ideological purpose, to ignore their affective force, and to dismiss their argumentative persuasion. The accessory political function of epideictic eloquence in a monarchal regime was already well understood in antiquity. In Tacitus’ Dialogue on Orators, the tragedy written and performed by Maternus in the presence of the emperor and other powerful elites becomes politically charged because it endorses antiquated, republican ideals in opposition to the status quo (Tacitus 2.1). The Dialogue suggests that such political effects are not accidental but intentional (Tacitus 3.3). Several passages intimate, moreover, that poetry in a monarchy could exercise something like the political function of oratory in a republic (Tacitus 4.2, 10.7-8, 12.4). This classical precedent was known to Malherbe and his contemporaries and was explicitly taken as a model for the practice of political eloquence after the Edict of Rouen (Fumaroli, L’Âge 238-240). The promotion of epideictic discourse in 1603, the Renaissance classification of lyric as a species of epideixis, and Tacitus’s acknowledgement of poetry’s political function in a monarchy all support reading Malherbe’s royal odes with an eye to the political implications of their praise. That is the focus of Part II of this book. To take only one example now, in “Prière pour le roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607), the hyperbolic praise for Henri IV’s courage and prudence, delivered with the biblical solemnity of a psalm, implies: 1. that Henri deserves to be king, and 2. that readers should be filled with awe and gratitude for God’s choice of this remarkable man to save France. Thus the ode’s argument and mood urge all recalcitrant subjects, greater and lesser, Huguenot and Leaguer, to stand down. Such acceptance is the first condition for enjoying the fruits of peace. Because encomiastic poetry has the power to correct, modify, or strengthen beliefs related to happiness, 30 and because different assertions about happiness and the way things are imply distinct distributions of power, policies, or courses of action, we cannot take at face value Malherbe’s quips 97 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence 31 Biester 6: “Along with ‘marvelous,’ ‘miraculous,’ ‘astonied,’ ‘astonishing,’ and ‘amazing,’ these words belong to the family of terms that includes the Greek thauma, thaumaston, deinos, deinotēs, and ekplēxis; the Latin admiratio, admirabilis, mirum, miraculum, mirabilis, and mirandus; and the French and Italian admirer, merveille, and meraviglia or maraviglia. The Latin admirabilis and the Greek deinos register especially strongly about the uselessness of poets to the state. The rhetorical context in which the royal odes were composed suggests, on the contrary, that it is a serious misreading to treat encomiastic poetry as a purely formal exercise or to focus on Malherbe’s poetic reforms in isolation from political considerations. The Political Functions of Wonder and its Rhetorical Production Before examining the component parts of the royal odes’ rhetorical ethos (i.e. phronēsis, moral virtues, emotions, elocutio), the political functions of wonder in France during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries should be addressed to appreciate fully the significance of the figures of thought and the mythological allegory which Malherbe incorporates in his poetic sequence. It is not the case that critics and historians of this period in French literature and culture have overlooked the importance of wonder altogether, but rather that this protean concept has too often been subsumed under the category of the Baroque. An unfortunate outcome of such an approach has been to polemicize Malherbe’s place in the history of French literature. Is he a baroque, or a classical poet? This sterile debate has diverted attention away from the function and the methods of wonder in Malherbe’s royal odes. If the cultural genealogy of wonder developed by James Biester in Lyric Wonder: Rhetoric and Wit in English Renaissance Poetry applies so marvelously well to Malherbe, it is because England and France in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were both court societies in which royal and aristocratic patronage played an outsized role in cultural production. In addition, Biester’s observations are valid for French poets of the same period because he casts such a wide cultural net to recover the motives “for pursuing wonder through style” (Biester 7), examining contemporary literary criticism in English and Italian, the conduct of European princes and courtiers, the colonization of the New World, the collecting of strange and rare objects in “wonder cabinets,” and the early modern reception of Hellenistic rhetorical manuals. Nearly identical lexical changes in both languages have obfuscated the cultural assumptions and political motives of poets who self-consciously adopted “witty, difficult, rough, and obscure styles” (Biester 3), and equally applicable to French are the lost meanings of English words associated with wonder. 31 With Biester as guide, 98 Part I Praising the Great Soul the sense of a response to something that is powerfully affective either positively or negatively, something that so repulses or attracts, or repulses and attracts, that it renders the soul incapable of normal operation. Deinos has an enormous and fascinating range of meanings, including fearful, terrible, terrifying, terrific, mighty, powerful, wonderful, marvelous, strange, able, and, notably, clever.” 32 Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 21, trans. Jonathan Bennett (2017) 47; www.earlymod erntexts.com/ assets/ pdfs/ machiavelli1532.pdf a cultural historian of early modern France may resuscitate the long-held and widely-shared cultural assumptions underlying wonder, recover the purposes of provoking it, and identify the specific methods of doing so. For early modern Europeans, wonder was an emotion, a passion, an experi‐ ence—perhaps a proto-Kantian category of experience—in response to whatever seemed rare, strange, or inexplicable (Biester 10). At the same time, it “condi‐ tioned, established, and maintained internal political and social relations as well, which might be thought of as a series of levels or mirrors of wonder. At the summit of power, the miraculous divine exacts all love and fear; the monarch’s reflected but dread majesty similarly depends on the ability to astonish; and the courtier attempts to produce the same kind, if not the same degree, of astonishment” (Biester 10). Because eloquent speaking and writing were privileged at court above every other form of conduct, “the ability to astound through words” became “invaluable” (Biester 11). The courtier’s verbal performances and amateur poetry were informed by “poetics, rhetorical theory, and conduct manuals [that] encouraged courtier-poets to astonish their audiences” (Biester 6-7). Serious poets, often forced to play the role of courtier, consequently borrowed what they needed from Aristotle and the rhetorical tradition to endow their poetry with “wonderful strangeness” (Biester 18). Biester sums up the nature of our modern cultural blind spot in this way: “Europeans’ responses to works of art and works of artful self-presentation were tinged by terror, awe, and astonishment of the kind evoked by people foreign and inexplicable to them, by those whose skills rendered them dazzling, and even by events they considered miraculous or supernatural. That wonder was recognized as overpowering when imposed from without, but empowering when possessed, endowed it with rare value” (Biester 13). Machiavelli and Castiglione had both urged political actors to exploit the ideological and social value of wonder. “Nothing builds a prince’s prestige,” writes Machiavelli, “more than undertaking great enterprises and setting a fine example by his personal conduct.” For example, Ferdinand of Aragon “has always planned and acted on a grandiose scale, keeping his subjects’ minds in a state of amazement.” 32 Castiglione, for his part, advised courtiers to make men 99 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence wonder while oneself wondering at no man by cultivating spezzatura, a term designating the readiness and naturalness of a person performing in rare and difficult matters (Biester 12). The purposes of wonder varied according to the circumstances and social stature of the historical actors, but it generally served either to upend the status quo or to consolidate social and political gains. Henri of Navarre, future king of France, was not above the employment of such tactics to achieve his political objectives. As king of Navarre pressing his rights of succession, he used wonder to create a public image that was magnanimous and regal. As king of France, he used it to repair the social and political ties between monarch and subjects, greater and lesser, that had been damaged by the civil war. But Henri lived in a time when historical events themselves were so dramatic that they provoked feelings of wonder in observers. In the late sixteenth century, for instance, astrological almanacs interpreted the violence, social upheaval, and material destruction wrought by civil war as the portents of an impending doom, perhaps “the end of the French monarchy” (Crouzet 75). Such supernatural signs intimating God’s judgment elicited intense feelings of admiration and dread in Huguenot and Leaguer pamphlets alike. They pointed to God, to destiny, or to the obscure forces beyond human control that were driving current events with a mix of terror, reverence, and exhilaration. What observers understood to be the stakes of the civil war, that is, the preservation of Catholicity and the potential collapse of the House of France, and what such events portended for the continued existence of the French nation, stirred up a generalized atmosphere of fear and excitement. Henri of Navarre, on his way to becoming king of France, naturally provoked strong emotional reactions. How could he of all people have inherited the throne when Henri II had had four sons—all of whom died without a legitimate heir? How could the scrappy king of Navarre, in battle after battle, overcome the numeric superiority of the armies arrayed against him? Either God had chosen him to be the savior of France, or he possessed the kind of extraordinary virtue that characterized the greatest demi-gods and heroes of antiquity—or both. Pamphleteers registered the general astonishment and awe at such historical marvels. Henri and his apologists leveraged this climate of wonder for three political purposes: 1. the naturalization of elevated social stature; 2. the moral renovation of French subjects; and 3. the re-sacralization of the monarch. One of the motives behind the practice of provoking wonder—“‘to imply the natural or given character of one’s social identity, and to deny any earnedness, any labor or arrival from a social elsewhere’” (Biester 12)—is especially relevant in Henri’s case. Although royalist propagandists consistently stressed the 100 Part I Praising the Great Soul importance of the Salic Law over the Catholicity of the crown, arguing for the Salic Law’s divine sanction and its foundational antiquity for the monarchy and the nation, this appeal to the law was underpinned by the notion that Henri’s marvelous exploits and divine election destined him for the crown. In other words, Henri was where he belonged, at the top of the social hierarchy. As early as 1585 in Declaration du Roy de Navarre, Philippe Duplessis-Mornay began the process of naturalizing Henri’s meteoric rise. Henri’s alleged willingness to spare France from the continued evils of civil war by challenging the duke of Guise to a duel gave proof of his heroic magnanimity; it exemplified his loyalty and service to king and country and stressed his submission to God’s will as manifested in the outcome of such an ordeal. As Nicolas Le Roux notes in “Henri IV: Le Roi du miracle,” the same themes of magnanimity, loyalty and service, tempered by humility before God, had been amplified so many times in multiple pamphlets between 1585 and 1589, that the shocking assassination of Henri III and the unexpected victories of Navarre at Arques (1589) and Ivry (1590) were marvelous turns of events that perfectly fit with the public image of Navarre as God’s hand-picked savior of the monarchy and the nation (Henri IV: Art et Pouvoir 18-19). The widely disseminated, and probably apocryphal, description of Henri at Arques praying to God for victory, alongside his men, both Protestant and Catholic, astonished the French people: it was “striking proof of the possibility of a toleration based on a common ideal, the delivery of the nation [patrie]” (Yardeni 290). By 1590, the larger-than-life legend of Henri IV had firmly taken root: “an excellent military leader, well-versed in the business of peace [] he is a true Hercules, a second Theseus, who guided by God, thinks only of the kingdom’s well-being and the alleviation of the people’s suffering” (Panegyric au très-chrestien Henry IIII, 69 verso). The point is not that a twenty-first-century reader should look with suspicion on such wonder-filled exaltation—the events were extraordinary, and Henri, by all accounts, was an exceptional individual (with his fair share of human defects). Rather, Henri and his propagandists knew what they were doing. “His apologists transformed him into a sort of demi-god that outshone all the great figures of antiquity” (Yardeni 295), and Henri strove to resemble the portrait: he was “inclined to pardon, good-natured, beneficent, and, in the limited time he devoted to religion, pious. But there can be no doubt that he was all those things by political calculation” (Yardeni 294-295). The wonder of Henri’s example, therefore, served his personal interests and at the same time reaffirmed the natural superiority of social and political elites. The marvel of Henri’s spectacular rise to power encouraged acceptance of his reign because it was willed by God, while the fact that the ‘one best man’ now set the example for the entire kingdom aimed to defuse the 101 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence 33 See Mack P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion 142-153. social resentment of commoners against the nobility exhibited in pamphlets like Dialogue d’entre le Maheustre et le Manant (1593). 33 The wondrous example set by Henri implied the moral renovation of the subject of the French monarchy. The early modern humanist tradition consid‐ ered wonder to be a passion that links the desire to know (which it awakens) to a new understanding, which in turn leads to self-reformation (Fuchs 188). Pico della Mirandola pointed to the wonder elicited by God’s creation as the basis for spiritual awakening, “the ‘condition’ in which love and virtue become possible” (Fuchs 190). Recalling Horace’s declaration that poets, through the wonder of their art, were the originators of human civilization, Sidney lauded the power of wonder to transform the human spirit (Fuchs 190). “The addition that the humanist poets and philosophers bring to Aristotle’s assertion that wonder leads to understanding,” writes Fuchs, “is that understanding must lead to action” (Fuchs 191). For early modern humanists, “right thought must lead to right action” (Fuchs 188). With this in mind, there are two ways in which Henri’s wondrous example could have been expected to transform his new subjects. First, it would reform the horizontal relationship between subjects. To paraphrase Fuchs, the subject, stirred by wonder at Henri’s example, would have been induced to refashion his character (Fuchs 188). The suspension of the soul’s normal operations was followed by various desires: to know, to grasp causes, to understand, and, based on that understanding, to emulate. In the case of Henri IV, such emulation would ideally reorient the French subject toward loyalty and service pro rege et patria. This new orientation toward the national interest, that is, the public good or the commonwealth, implies redefining the relationship of French subjects toward one another, transforming fear and hostility to friendliness and trust. Second, the wonder of Henri’s example would repair the vertical relationship between sovereign and subject. In the last decade of the sixteenth and the first decade of the seventeenth century, Henri used printed propaganda, political policy and military action, public building projects, court ceremony and enter‐ tainment, and political and artistic patronage to amaze his subjects, both greater and lesser. His military victories and political decisions read like the marvelous plot reversals of the heroic novels and plays that would captivate French readers beginning in the 1630s. If Arques (1589) and Ivry (1590) were amazing victories, Henri’s well-timed abjuration of Protestantism (1593) and coronation at Chartres (1594) were astonishing coups de théâtre, effectively pulling the rug from under the Catholic hard-liner resistance to Henri’s reign. Royal entries 102 Part I Praising the Great Soul 34 The reader will recall Jean Bodin, Les Six Livres de la République 1.6, 1.9 (Livre de Poche, 1991) 91, 139: “he is absolutely sovereign who holds nothing, after God, but from his own sword.” See also Panegyric au très-chrestien Henry IIII (Tours, chez Jamet Mattayer, 1590) 139: “Let us now return to our most ardent prayers, that it please God to send an Angel with a flaming blade to exterminate this monstrous beast and its henchmen [i.e. the League] like the army of Sennacherib, and that He guide his Majesty in all his duties so that he may soon overwhelm and overthrow all these rebels, punishing them for their condemnable plotting, with his avenging sword, which has been divinely vouchsafed him for that purpose.” 35 See Perelman and Olbrects-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric (Notre Dame Press, 1969) 20-21: “Every social circle or milieu is distinguishable in terms of its dominant opinions and unquestioned beliefs, of the premises that it takes for granted without hesitation: these views form an integral part of its culture, and an orator wishing to persuade a particular audience must of necessity adapt himself to it. Thus the particular culture of a given in Lyon (1595) and Avignon (1600) were intended to strike the imagination of the French people, while the elaborate renovations to royal châteaux were calculated to astonish the more refined tastes of social and political elites. Like “the marvelous scenes of recognition and reversal or fabulous episodes” (Biester 18), Henri’s deeds and performances upset expectations, awakened the desire to understand, stimulated inferences, and provoked powerful emotions. In a tradition dating from Aquinas (Bynum 10), Henri’s multi-pronged provocation of wonder would be expected to lead the subject to what Thomas Elyot called the “pleasant and terrible reverence” of majesty (ctd. in Biester 10). Majesty is another word for sovereignty, the numinous quality granted by God to the king and symbolized by the sword. 34 Such complex feelings, through their association with divinity, were calculated to re-sacralize the monarch, in other words, to restore both monarchal inviolability and authority. The rise of the Holy League and the assassination of Henri III had marked the institution’s nadir, and Henri of Navarre, publicly slandered by Leaguers in a coordinated propaganda campaign, was widely reviled in the early 1580s. The French subject’s encounter with Henri IV’s majesty was intended to demobilize political opposition to his rule—through fear of the avenging sword, certainly, but also through the acceptance of God’s election of an unlikely and, therefore, all the more extraordinary hero whose virtue had saved the French nation from destruction. The cultural phenomenon of wonder was thus coopted by Henri and his apologists and directed to political ends. What remains to be seen is the political function of wonder from Malherbe’s point of view, that is, the purposes, motives, and methods of wonder discernible in the royal odes. Each of these factors will be discussed in turn. To take their purposes first, the royal odes were undoubtedly intended to participate in Henri’s program of wonder, and we know this because an observant reader may see how closely they have been fitted to it. 35 Here, 103 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence audience shows so strongly through the speeches addressed to it that we feel we can rely on them to a considerable extent for our knowledge of the character of past civilizations.” once again, the notion of ethos becomes indispensable. Decorum enjoins the eloquent speaker to adapt himself and his discourse to the particulars of time, place, and persons, but ethos, or character, is the tool that allows him to align the form and function of discourse, in other words, to line up the internal goal of the speech with the external goal of the act of speaking (Garver 34-41, 151). If the external goal of the royal odes is to renovate the monarchy and to unite the nation—which implies reimagining the relationships between sovereign and subject as well as between subjects—the internal goal is to praise the monarch’s virtue as admirable or noble (to kalon) and, in an accessory way, to argue about what promotes happiness. These two goals are aligned by the patriotic ethos of the royal odes because it subsumes under one concept the characters of monarch, subject, and poet. It refers to these persons simultaneously (albeit in two different ways, either modeled on them or intended to shape them), and its discursive embodiment in the royal odes can be seen in Malherbe’s rhetorical choices. In other words, their genus dicendi (hybrid epideictic/ deliberative), no neutral choice, is associated with political argument and patriotic sentiment, while their partes (inventio, dispositio, elocutio) and offices (teaching, delighting, moving) reflect, on the one hand, the sort of argumentative reasoning common in political discourse and, on the other, the methods (metaphor, hyperbole, allegory, significatio, etc.) used to provoke “pleasant and terrible reverence” appropriate to divine or royal majesty. As for Malherbe’s motives, he was subject to the same social pressures as any other courtier-poet. The eloquence of his poetry, its capacity to awaken wonder, was Malherbe’s ticket to social promotion. The competition for literary patronage was fierce, and so Malherbe could distinguish himself from his rivals only if the odes were able to astonish. The poetic cultivation of sprezzatura presented the further advantage of erasing Malherbe’s recent social promotion, implying “the natural or given character of one’s social identity” (Biester 12). The wonder produced by figurative language was considered a sign of the poet’s wit, his natural genius, a capacity he possessed “by nature, not by art” (Biester 13). In addition, the obscurity, difficulty, or pregnant associations which the stylistic techniques of wonder imparted to poetry was a subtle form of flattery, since it offered “readers the opportunity to test their own wit” (Biester 15). Undoubtedly, however, Malherbe’s most important motive for incorporating wonder in the royal odes was its capacity “to mimic the three functions that poetry had bor‐ rowed from rhetoric: moving, teaching, and delighting” (Biester 13). As Biester 104 Part I Praising the Great Soul shows, following Aristotle and his early modern commentators, metaphor and related tropes and figures are specially equipped to spark inferences, and this process is pleasurable. Figurative language also performs something akin to the recognition and reversal of tragic plots, “surprising us with what we should have expected all along” ( 27). This capacity to astonish moves the mind, that is, it convinces. The various conceptions of wonder developed by early modern rhetorical theorists thus assured poets that they satisfied all the orator’s duties when they incorporated “the range of stylistic techniques deemed admirable” (Biester 13-14). Finally, the methods of wonder. Biester traces the preferred rhetorical tools of the admirable style to the influence of Hellenistic rhetorical manuals. Theorists of sacred eloquence had turned to these manuals to develop a grand style adapted to the demands of early modern Christianity, and poets took “what they needed” from such ideas (Biester 19). The seventeenth century, as Deborah Shuger explains in Sacred Rhetoric: The Christian Grand Style in the English Renaissance, elaborated not one but two ideas of grandeur: the plain, exemplified by “Plato and the Bible,” and the grand, represented by “Cicero and Demosthenes” (Shuger 7). The homiletic imperative to move the soul toward God could harness either “the harsher forensic impulses of pity and fear or the numinous feelings of wonder and mystery” (Shuger 7). Such emotional intensity was triggered by energetic tropes and figures, vivid language with the capacity to stimulate the imagination and to activate the will. Numinosity was the special province of the anti-Theophrastean, un-Ciceronian variety of grandeur which early modern theorists developed primarily from Hermogenes, but also Demetrius, Dionysius, and Longinus. This alternative tradition was a passionate plainness characterized by solemnity, sublimity, and force, and its language could be rough, dense, asymmetrical, and obscure. “Rather than copia, the hellenistic grand style emphasizes a dense compactness, compressing numerous ideas into a single period. It is therefore pregnant and suggestive rather than clear” (Shuger 40). Simplicity of style could henceforth be accompanied by grandeur of conception. The language of the Bible was no longer considered low and inartistic but seen as imbued with dignity, solemnity, and mystery. In the Hellenistic tradition, “solemnity and the sublime both reside principally in qualities of thought and emotion” (Shuger 41). Consequently, the rich verbal ornament associated with figures of speech was eschewed in favor of powerful figures of thought—the sorts of figures that strike the imagination, puzzle the mind, then provoke inferences: analogy, allegory, prosopopoeia, hypotyposis, significatio etc. As Biester notes, early modern English poets availed themselves of these figures of thought. But if and when they chose ordinary tropes and 105 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence figures, they would look to other stylistic resources to create force and emotional intensity: rough-hewn lines, dense or asymmetrical syntax, obscure brevity, and allusion. “Lyric poets could not frustrate the audience’s expectations through marvelous scenes of recognition and reversal or through marvelous episodes. Instead, they turned to style, to epigrammatic statement, puns, proverbs, hyperbole, and especially to metaphor” (Biester 18). The poetic-rhetorical methods of wonder in Malherbe’s royal odes are nearly identical to those Biester catalogues in English poetry. Part II provides a more complete demonstration, but let me offer two examples now for the sake of clarity. A crucial difference between Malherbe and English poets like Donne or Marvel is that the Frenchman’s royal odes hew more closely to the Theophras‐ tean-Ciceronian tradition. Although the heart of Malherbe’s grand style is not the discordia concors resulting from figures like oxymoron and paradox, the royal odes nevertheless incorporate aspects of the plainer variety of Hellenistic grandeur such as solemnity, dense compactness, or suggestive obscurity, and these are produced by hyperbole, pun, dramatization, prosopopoeia, significatio etc. For instance, the main conceit of the inaugural ode of the sequence, “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601), besides using hyperbole to express joy for the new queen’s arrival and to register astonishment at her beauty and virtue, depends on a subtle pun between “astre” (star) and “Astrée” (Astraea). The implicit analogy between Marie and the goddess of justice who returns to earth in Virgil’s fourth eclogue announces an imminent Golden Age in France, a political utopia imagined as the return of justice, peace, and prosperity and figured as the destination of the ship of state captained by Henri IV. The pun functions like a puzzle intended to spark this chain of inferences—which, once grasped, unifies the disparate parts of the ode and, what is more, furnishes the telos of the quest motif underlying the entire sequence. For another example, take the ode “Sur la mort de Henri le Grand” (1610; 1630). This lamentation deploring the loss of Henri IV plays a pivotal role in the sequence. Using a simple apostrophe, the ode dramatizes one side of a dialogue and, with latent allusions to biblical and classical intertexts, symbolically resurrects the dead king so he may again crown Marie and thereby reinforce the legitimacy of her regency. The ode’s vivid images of Marie weeping to the point of petrification, and of Henri resurrected in glory, strike the imagination, puzzle the reader, and then stimulate intertextual inferences which unify the ode’s various parts and clarify its function in the sequence. Such latent and overt allusions, ubiquitous throughout the odes, are clear instances of significatio per similitudem, emphasis by analogy (Quintilian 4.54.67-68), a stylistic technique used by early modern 106 Part I Praising the Great Soul English poets and found in Hermogenes, Demetrius, Quintilian, and Flacius (Biester 59-60, 103-107; Shuger 73-76). Many more examples of vivid description, prosopopoeia, allegory, analogy, etc., could be cited from the remaining odes in the sequence. Critics have overlooked that Malherbe’s royal odes incorporate and heavily rely on such figures of thought. If Malherbe’s debt to the plainer variety of Hellenistic grandeur needs to be pointed out, it is because the wondrous tropes and figures of that tradition have been omitted in the accounts of the stylistic reform allegedly inaugurated by his poetry. The research of Biester and Shuger, although focused on England, suggests that the traditional narrative of the French evolution of poetic style from Ronsard to Boileau should be set in a larger context. Malherbe’s critique of Ronsard and Desportes targets a particular reading of rhetorical wonder that prevailed in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and anticipates, however imperfectly, a later understanding of the term. “Neoclassical critics, harmonizing On the Sublime with Quintilian and Horace, and operating in a different system of literary production and consumption, tended to read deinotēs [wonder] differently, and to judge Renaissance efforts at lyric wonder to be sophistic rather than sublime” (Biester 39). It would be wrong to deny that Malherbe’s motives and goals, even his stylistic techniques, resemble those of his contemporaries, including Giambattista Marino, who dominated the French literary scene between 1615 and 1623. The royal odes’ rhetoric of wonder also seeks to astonish. But Malherbe picks up on the classicizing tendencies of his era. In the poetry of Du Perron and Bertaut or Charles Paschal’s De optimo genere elocutionis (1596), one also discovers the taste for clarity, reason and intelligibility; the promotion of judgment over imagination and invention; and the concern with grammatical correctness and prosodic precision (Adam 12, 34; Fumaroli, Précis 79, 81, 85, 94; Peureux, Pour des Malherbe 23; Winegarten 9). Malherbe’s doctrine and poetic practice do not represent the wholesale rejection of the “admirable style” but rather the renunciation of its sophistical variety, which Fumaroli in L’Âge de l’éloquence identifies with contemporary Asianism, a new Second Sophistic whose leading exponents were Jesuit preachers and littérateurs. The proto-classical sublime exists in tension with Ciceronian polish and copia in the royal odes and sets them apart from the poetry of most contemporaries. The Ciceronian Atticism of the Royal Odes The first three sections of this chapter have examined the spaces of eloquence in early modern France, the hybrid genus dicendi and accessory political function of the royal odes, and their rhetorical support of Henri’s political program 107 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence 36 See Chapter 2, “The Evolution of Noble Identity.” The source of this concept is Ch. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1971) 31-35. 37 See Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 4.12.27: “they are persuaded if they love what you promise, fear what you threaten, hate what you condemn, embrace what you commend, sorrow at what you consider sorrowful, rejoice when you announce something delightful [] not that they may know what is to be done, but that they may do what they already know should be done.” of wonder. Such a long build-up was necessary to prevent the somewhat technical analysis that follows from falling back into the formalist criticism that deprived Malherbe of his political voice. In this section, the components of rhetorical ethos will be examined: practical wisdom, virtue, and goodwill (eunoia) (Aristotle, Rhet. 2.1.5-6). The analysis of the first two requires a closer look at the kinds of proof (pistis) used in the royal odes, while the analysis of the last necessitates a consideration of their style (elocutio). The function of rhetorical ethos is to create trust, and in the royal odes specifically, it is to lay the corner stone of the new political community. It must therefore accommodate three persons: the monarch, the poet, and the subject. The poet plays a dual role: showing the proper relationship between monarch and subject, and repairing the relationship between subjects. This latter category, the French subject, is necessarily composite. While certainly focused on the king’s court, it potentially includes all members of the body politic. The challenge facing Malherbe is to construct a rhetorical ethos that matches the grandeur of the monarch’s virtue, awakens admiration, pride, and gratitude in the subject for the Bourbons, and elicits from the members of the body politic the emulation of Bourbon amor patriae [love of country]. While the royal odes make stylistic and argumentative concessions to particular constituencies of the king’s court (i.e. sword nobles, the Gallican robe, Jesuits), their rhetorical ethos reconciles potentially contradictory characters of the body politic, with their distinct values and functions, by appealing to the “universal audience,” 36 the imaginary community of great souls whose loyalty and service pro rege et patria subsume all partisan interests. As we saw, the great soul, the Aristotelian megalopsychos, fashioned after the Bourbons, is the model for the new French subject. Praising this model is not enough, however: the royal odes must charge it with emotional intensity if they are to move the hearts and will of the French subject, reaffirming and/ or transforming perceptions, feelings, and beliefs with respect to the monarch and the nation. 37 So then what is the rhetorical equivalent of the great soul? Which character of style is appropriate? Which specific proofs, tropes, and figures construct it? Malherbe’s response to this problem—which involved turning away from 108 Part I Praising the Great Soul the dazzling verbal cleverness associated with Jesuit eloquence and Desportes, yet retaining particular aspects of the middle style—is worked out through the tenets of Ciceronian Atticism, a neo-Latin stylistic reform that by the end of the sixteenth century had begun to influence literary production in French. Atticism is a category of style that originated in the Athenian taste for purity and elegance of language, for “sanity and wholesomeness of style” (Brutus 285), based on “sound and discerning judgment” (Orator 26). Its contrary is Asianism. According to Cicero, the fastidious ears of the Athenians rejected “the rich and unctuous diction” of Asiatic speakers from “Caria, Phrygia, and Mysia,” where there was “the least refinement and taste” (Orator 25). In Brutus and Orator, the question of Atticism arises when Cicero defends his dynamic model of oratory against a younger generation of speakers who reserve the coveted title of Attic for the parochial plain style of their speeches (Brutus 284-286, Orator 23-31). Generally speaking, the plain style is “acute and judicious, while at the same time pure, sound, and matter-of-fact, [and] does not make use of any bolder oratorical embellishment” (Brutus 291). “Positively considered, it is clear, urbane, natural, often witty and graceful, and persuasive. Yet it is suitable only for small, unimportant subjects; it seems commonplace and ordinary, often losing effective strength by seeking meticulous correctness” (Shuger 31). The “mannered extreme” of this style cultivates “an archaic roughness or an overanxious and deadening concern for correctness” (Shuger 31, note 46; Orator 28-29). Countering the oratorical models of the Roman Atticists—Calvus and Lysias—with the example of Demosthenes (Brutus 289, Orator 23), whose lofty themes, majestic diction, fierce emotional intensity, and sometimes jagged, harsh phrasing contradict the fastidiousness of the Roman plain style, Cicero maintains that “there are many kinds of Atticists” (Orator 28) and that “all who speak well deserve the title of Attic” (Brutus 292). Yet he clearly uses Demosthenes as a cudgel against his rivals to promote his own brand of eloquence: “Let them learn what is Attic,” he writes, “and measure eloquence by his strength, not by their own weakness” (Orator 24). Thus Ciceronian Atticism is born. Not limited to one character of style, it incorporates all three: grand, middle, and plain, according to the rule of decorum (De Or. 3.54; Orator 20-22, 70-72, 74-100). “Totally different styles must be used in different parts of the speech, and different speeches also require wholly different styles” (Orator 75). Each style has a particular function: “the plain style for proof, the middle style for pleasure, the vigorous style for persuasion; and in this last is summed up the entire virtue [L. vis: force, power, virtue] of the orator” (Orator 70; cf. De Or. 2.129). Each also corresponds to height or importance of subject matter: “trivial matters in the plain style, matters of moderate significance in the tempered 109 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence 38 See Cicero, De Or. 3.38. 53-54. style, and weighty affairs in the grand manner” (Orator 101-102). Defined by its variety, admitting “ornate, vehement, copious language” (Orator 30) as well as “finish, urbanity, and precision” (Brutus 285), according to the requirements of the occasion or the moment, Ciceronian Atticism thus demands a speaker of “great judgment” and “the highest ability” (Orator 70). The revival of Ciceronian Atticism by humanists of the Italian Renaissance added to its prestige and authority. “The Latin language, already sacred by the will of the Roman Church, restored to its original purity by humanist philology, became the language of glorious immortality,” writes Fumaroli. “The Holy See, laying claim to a dual inheritance, the pagan legitimacy of imperial Rome and the Christian legitimacy of Apostolic Rome, prided itself on delivering its official communications in the purest Latin, which became the symbol of the preeminence of the Roman See over the rest of Europe” (Fumaroli, L’Âge 80-81). Petrarch, Poliziano, Pico, Bembo, Erasmus, Dolet: generation after generation of neo-Latin writers searched for the perfect version of the Tullianus stylus [Ciceronian style]. Its reinvention by each great stylist nourished rhetorical criticism and created a gamut of artistic prose styles that could serve as models for European vernaculars. Emulating the example of Petrarch, whose literary genius and humanist learning also served to glorify his native Italian, ambitious sixteenth-century French authors produced creative writing (epistles and poetry) and literary criticism (prefaces, treatises, essays), both in Latin and in French, and thus ended up transplanting to French soil the questions and lessons of the Ciceronian Quarrel. Malherbe’s choice of Ciceronian Atticism for the royal odes is a bid to leverage the universal prestige and authority of the Tullianus stylus for the creation of the optimus stylus [best style] to represent the French monarchy, one that would at the same time serve as a unifying national idiom. By modeling their style along the lines of Ciceronian reform (purity of diction, grammatical correctness, propriety, logical clarity), 38 Malherbe seeks to put the French of the royal odes on a par with Latin. In an act of stylistic assimilation, the royal odes appropriate the prestige of the ancient language and piggyback on the authority of its most famous stylists. Similarly, the linguistic hegemony which the royal odes inherit from the Tullianus stylus is calculated to promote, or at least to will, the monarchy’s renovation at home and the nation’s hegemony abroad. The mechanism is psychological: by associating French with Latin, the mind of the reader completes the analogy and transfers the grandeur of Rome to France, both its monarchy and its language. 110 Part I Praising the Great Soul The notion, therefore, that Malherbe, or his so-called doctrine, “breaks with the literary tradition of humanism” is misleading (Adam 29). The categorical condemnation of Ronsard and Desportes signals not the abandonment of the humanist tradition but the rejection of an earlier generation’s taste and methods. The opposition to stylistic excess of every kind—from artificial sound-patterns and cloying figurative language to prolixity and lexical promiscuity—accords with the “lessons of linguistic purity and elegance” which Malherbe allegedly learned in the salons of the marquise de Rambouillet or Mme des Loges (Adam 35), but it is also consistent with the reform of eloquence inherent to the Ciceronian Atticism sweeping through the Latin republic of letters. Malherbe’s repudiation of Neo-Platonism, the poetics of “docte fureur” [erudite inspiration], and the indiscriminate imitation of Greco-Latin models does not represent a break with humanism but simply a concession to the taste and education of aristocratic connoisseurs. If Malherbe succeeded in giving his name to a stylistic reform that had its roots in the mid-sixteenth century, as most critics acknowledge (Adam 12, 34; Fumaroli, Précis 79-85, 94; Peureux, Pour des Malherbe 23; Winegarten 9), it is because his poetry was the most visible to appropriate Ciceronian Atticism and to overlay it on the developing trends of aristocratic style and taste. Consequently, the style of the royal odes demands a bi-level reading. The worldly lords and ladies who frequented the Bourbon court, with their taste for pastoral and civilized conversation, charmed by d’Urfé’s novel L’Astrée (1607) and Saint Francis de Sales’s Introduction à la vie dévote (1609), may not have perceived the ideological implications of Malherbe’s Ciceronian Atticism. But such echoes would not have been lost on the Gallicans and Jesuits who moved in the orbit of the Bourbon court. Each group, classically educated humanists and modestly educated nobles, could find what it was looking for in Malherbe’s royal odes, which were at the forefront of distinct stylistic developments in two different segments of French society. In the battle to define royal eloquence, the odes were allied with Gallican power and luminosity against Jesuit luxuriance and charm, without being forced to give up the cultivation of sweetness. In the realm of aristocratic belles-lettres, they were opposed to the sophistical excesses of poets like Desportes, Du Bartas, and Marino, without being obliged to sacrifice the pursuit of wonder. Classically educated humanists could appreciate their grandeur and beauty, while the modestly educated aristocracy could enjoy their polish and finesse. While Adam and Fumaroli rightly stress the importance of aristocratic taste in Malherbe’s cultivation of rhetorical douceur [sweetness]—since aristocratic amateurs of belles-lettres were a key audience for Malherbe—such an approach 111 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence 39 Fumaroli, Précis 96: “But sweetness has trouble attaining grandeur. When it looks to invention, it is sometimes overloaded with erudition and imagery. Then it falls into swollenness and excess, even pedant obscurity. The passage from sweetness to elevation is thus not to be sought in that direction, like Ronsard and Desportes, but rather through judgment, which effects a severe choice of words and images, according the rhythm and the argument to the grandeur of the subject matter being treated.” 40 Biester 47: “Rough wonder persuades, even in a sense commands; smooth wonder delights. Rough deinotēs, coordinate with the style of deliberative oratory and designed to move the audience, provokes the wonder akin to fear; sophistic deinotēs, coordinate with the epideictic style designed to please, elicits the more purely pleasant wonder we feel at dazzling verbal cleverness.” risks misconstruing the mixed stylistic character of the royal odes. Rhetorical sweetness, that is, the delight aroused by rich verbal ornament and artistic sound-patterns, in fact already belongs to the grand style as conceived and practiced by Cicero. Descending from the Theophrastean tradition “which conjoins power and ornate beauty” (Shuger 21), Ciceronian grandeur mixes two characters of style, the grand and the sweet. The royal odes are committed to Ciceronian grandeur because they deal with the most serious and important matters, such as the authority of the monarchy and the unity of the nation. It is not the case that the odes are composed in the sweet style, adjusted and elevated by Malherbe’s critical judgment. 39 To emphasize the delight that aristocratic connoisseurs derived from the rhetorical sweetness and lexical refinement of Malherbe’s royal odes is to offer only a partial reading. Conversely, Boileau’s praise for Malherbe’s smooth meters, purity of diction, clear organization and thought (Art poétique I.131-162) is still only a partial reading. When Biester notes that neoclassical critics of the later seventeenth century reject the aural richness and verbal copia of deinotēs or wonder, one of the possible effects of the grand style (Biester 39), he could have been speaking of writers like Boileau, Costar, and Bouhours who privilege the other side of the grand style, that is, “greatness of thought and intensity of feeling” (Shuger 29). The truth is that Malherbe’s grand style is an amalgam, combining smooth wonder and rough wonder, polish and power, charm and awe. 40 This fact is consistent with their hybrid genus dicendi—at once epideictic and deliberative—but also with the broad historical evolution of the grand style in early modern Europe. Two other factors decisively commit the royal odes to Ciceronian grandeur: 1. the universal audience, and 2. the rhetorical ethos of the great soul, the Aristotelian megalopsychos, which is the patriotic model of the nation. Stylistic grandeur was thought to reflect and spring from a great soul (Shuger 29; Fumaroli, Héros et Orateurs 324), and thus the link between them is more profound than decorous proportionality of height or seriousness of subject 112 Part I Praising the Great Soul matter. It follows that the grand style is proper to the universal audience, since it is addressed by right to the magnanimous, and virtue sets the standard for everybody. The qualities of style that manifest the magnanimity of this community are greatness of thought, intensity of feeling, and overwhelming emotional force. The equation of sublimity with the great soul is attributed to Longinus, but the early stages of its development are discernable in Cicero and Quintilian (Shuger 28-29). It is just that the Roman conception of the grand style allows “rhythm, some periodicity, and figurative richness [] without allowing it to slip back into Isocratic cultivation” (Shuger 26). As Quintilian writes: “Why then should it be thought that polish is inevitably prejudicial to vigor, when the truth is that nothing can attain its full strength without the assistance of art, and that art is always productive of beauty? [] the study of structure is of the utmost value, not merely for charming the ear, but for stirring the soul” (9.4.7-10, ctd. in Shuger 26). Such a formulation alerts the attentive reader to look beyond the verbal sweetness of the royal odes to their underlying agonistic strength and emotional intensity. Argumentative reasoning is a major source of such “vigor.” While critics have noted and analyzed the logical organization of Malherbe’s royal odes (Adam 30; Fromilhague 135), what has thus far escaped notice is the role that argumentative reasoning plays in the construction of character and in the production of emotion, two other sources of artistic persuasion. In Aristotle’s ‘Rhetoric’: An Art of Character, Eugene Garver establishes that argumentative reasoning (logos) is the backbone of ethos. “Good practical reasoning,” he writes, “is the discursive embodiment of good character. The character of the speaker is what is revealed in the speech, and specifically in the reasoning of the speech” (Garver 151, his italics). In the royal odes, the speaker praises the magnanimity of the Bourbons by reasoning about their right sense of honor and the greatness of their virtues; in doing so, he illustrates his own magnanimity, which is exactly the quality of character the odes seek to foster in the subjects of the new nation. For instance, in the third stanza of “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607), the speaker argues from effect to cause, saying that the absence of any trace (“nulle marque,” v. 16) of the storms of political discord (“Les funestes éclats des plus grandes tempêtes,” v. 14) shows “What strength the hand possesses that has preserved us” (“Quelle force a la main qui nous a garantis,” 18). The hyperbole of the danger, “the greatest storms,” requires proportionally hyperbolic “force,” representing physical prowess, an allusion to the martial virtue of Henri. Henri acted to preserve the state, and his success proves that his virtue is as great as he believed. These are the traits of the megalopsychos. The speaker’s ability to make arguments about magnanimity suggests that he possesses the same virtue (Rhet. 2.1.5-7; 1.9.1; Garver 110). This 113 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence principle holds for all the moral virtues which appear in the royal odes: courage, justice, self-control, liberality, magnificence (Rhet. 1.9.5). The intellectual virtue of practical reason (phronēsis), however, deserves special mention. One of the three components of rhetorical ethos, it is also crucial to the attainment of happiness (NE 6.5 1140a25), which is the highest end for the sake of which the state exists (Pol. 1.1 1252b30). The political agenda promoted by the royal odes on behalf of the Bourbons presupposes the nation’s general welfare defined by justice, peace, and prosperity. Any specific actions praised or urged by the odes should always be referred back to the public good, i.e. the commonwealth. Phronēsis, “the ability to formulate alternative recommendations for actions, to foresee possible consequences” (Garver 11), is active whenever one reasons about means and ends in reference to an indeterminate practical matter (Garver 153). “These are abilities that both the able rhetorician and the person of practical wisdom seem to display” (Garver 11). Accordingly, the royal odes exhibit phronēsis in two ways. 1. Sometimes they point to the practical reason of the monarch. For instance, in “Ode au feu Roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan” (1606; 1607), the poet urges Henri to follow his martial inclinations wherever they lead because “Tes desseins n’ont pas naissance / Qu’on en voit déjà le bout” [“Your projects are hardly born / We already see their attainment,” vv. 113-114). In “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607), the punishment of evildoers (vv. 49-54) and the recognition of merit (vv. 70-72), which are both forms of justice, the imposition of civic order (vv. 55-60), and the return of prosperity (v. 64) result from Henri’s practical wisdom. 2. Sometimes the odes exhibit phronēsis by offering the Bourbons political advice. For instance, they counsel Henri to cease risking his life in battle; they advise Marie to stamp out civil strife; and they urge Louis to put aside clemency and punish La Rochelle. In both instances, the recognition of practical reason and the dispensing of practical advice, the reasoning of the speech allows one to infer that the speaker possesses phronēsis. “We infer that someone who gives good advice must be prudent because it takes prudence to formulate good advice” (Garver 44-45). Phronēsis is an important quality of character to exhibit because it integrates the process or method of persuasion—proof—with the desired effect—belief—(Garver 142), and it produces trust by directing belief not toward the proposition but toward the speaker (Garver 126). The royal odes must exhibit this quality of character if they are to foster trust in the speaker and thereby establish and maintain the political relationships—between subject and monarch, and between subjects—crucial to the unification of the nation. 114 Part I Praising the Great Soul The royal odes sometimes use enthymeme to praise the virtues of the Bourbons, but the argumentative forms that Malherbe uses most often are example (with the related proofs simile and analogy) and, to a lesser degree, the maxim. Such rhetorical proofs are effective because they usually leave something unstated and thus activate the mind’s powers of logical inference. Example defines and illustrates; that is, it lays down a rule by giving an instance (Trimpi 378; Perelman and Tyteca 350). The rule must be inferred. That Malherbe primarily uses biblical and mythological examples has to do with his project of elevating history to a realm of timelessness and perfection—an issue taken up in Part II. The maxim, for its part, presents a self-evident truth, working like a premise in a practical argument (Rhet. 2.21). In its case, some logical step in the argument is usually inferred—and sometimes the whole argument. If the royal odes favor examples and maxims, it is probably because they most directly express the character of the persons involved. This is because, as Eugene Garver rightly notes, no example is ever neutral: “all examples have emotional and ethical coloring” (Garver 157). They reflect “reasons internal to the community, which are weakened if regarded as purely logical appeals” (Garver 157). An apt choice of example illuminates the subject of praise as well as the speaker, exhibiting a character that shares the values of the community. A community whose values have been confirmed by a speaker is one step closer to trusting him. Similarly, self-evident truths also reflect value-judgments internal to a community. The narcissistic pleasure of recognizing them favorably disposes the audience toward the speaker (Aristotle, Rhet. 2.21.15; Garver 159-160). Both techniques are subtle forms of telling people what they want to hear. Such flattery need not be false or ill-intentioned, although it can be. It aims primarily to show that the subject of praise, the speaker, and the audience share the same ethos: “he is one of us,” “we are one.” In short, argumentative reasoning reveals character as trustworthy in two important ways. First, the speaker who can reason correctly about means and ends seems to share that ability with the person of practical wisdom (Garver 11). Second, choosing arguments appropriate to the particulars of time, place, and persons fashions a character that appears closely related or familiar to the audience. Character (ēthos) is the most important of the “means of persuasion” (pisteis: logos, ēthos, pathos) because it helps a speaker line up the argumentative forms of the speech with the external purpose provided by the social and political context. In Garver’s view, this alignment of an internal end (rational argument) with an external end (action or decision) is what makes rhetoric an art (technē) and not just a skill (Garver 36-38). It maintains phronēsis and persuasion in a causal relation. In other words, it promotes the outcome—belief 115 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence 41 See Garver, Aristotle’s ‘Rhetoric’: An Art of Character, “Chapter IV. Deliberative Ration‐ ality and the Emotions” (Chicago UP, 1994). or conviction—by means of the activity of reasoning transmitted from speaker to audience, and such an ability produces trust by associating the speaker with the person of practical wisdom and by fostering a close relatedness between the speaker and the community. Equally fundamental to the construction of ethos are the complementary articulations between argumentative reasoning (logos) and emotion (pathos). 41 In book 2, chapters 2-11, of the Rhetoric, Aristotle examines emotion as artistic proof (pistis). The artistic use of emotion exhibits the goodwill (eunoia) of the speaker, a quality of trustworthiness such as the willingness to give the best advice (Rhet. 1.2.5; 2.1.4-8; Garver 110). Unlike phronēsis and moral virtue, however, a speaker exhibits goodwill by causing emotion in the audience (Rhet. 1.2.3 & 5). Not all emotions qualify, only those one might consider “civic” emotions, that is, useful in the context of forensic or deliberative speaking. Cicero and Quintilian, when speaking of what makes “oratory reign supreme” (Orator 129), are usually referring to the forensic emotions of fear and pity (Shuger 36-37). Such emotional appeal is “violent, hot and impassioned” and “wrests cases from our opponents” (Orator 129). “In general, the emotions proper to oratory strike one as rather primitive, self-interested, and harsh: hatred, vengeance, ill-will, personal triumph (Part orat 96), although Cicero also mentions oratory’s calming and pacific effects” (Shuger 36). In the Aristotelian tradition, fear, pity, anger, hatred, shame, ill-will, indignation, envy, and their opposites are not excluded from the acts of judgment at the core of civic life. On the contrary, Garver shows that while emotions may have a corrupting influence, they are nevertheless “the form in which we perceive practical particulars (De Anima I.1 403a5-8)” (Garver 106). As such, they “allow reasoning to become decisive” (Garver 116). From this point of view, because emotions complement judgment and make it complete, they are integral to civic life, inspiring friendliness toward allies and aggression toward enemies (Garver 116). “The emotions are continually at work in good decisions,” writes Garver, “the person of practical wisdom does not simply reach the right decision about what to do, or even reach the right decision for the right reason alone; such a person also holds that decision with the right emotions” (Garver 108 & 118). Aristotle’s insight is not simply that emotions are inherent to our perception of actions and events, facts and arguments. It is that emotions are affected by reasoned argument “and so are generated, destroyed, deflected, intensified and minimized by argument” (Garver 119). The Rhetoric shows how to produce or to modify 116 Part I Praising the Great Soul emotion and, most important, how to argue from emotion “to a judgment about the people and actions at issue” (Garver 119). Malherbe’s royal odes excite all the above mentioned civic emotions, and they use argumentative reasoning to do so. Here is an example for the sake of clarity. As we just saw in “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607), the poet argues from effect to cause, deducing the greatness of Henri’s virtue (“Quelle force,” v. 18) from the current absence of any trace of the great political discord that threatened the ship of state (“Les funestes éclats des plus grandes tempêtes,” v. 14). The premise of this argument is that the danger is proportionate to the magnitude of the stakes, and this sort of cause excites fear because everything is at stake (Rhet. 2.5.2). The conclusion of the argument, the fact that the pow‐ erful hand of Henri preserved the state from destruction, inspires reassurance (tharsos) (Rhet. 2.5.16-22) and perhaps even a sense of gratitude in response to Henri’s benevolence (kharis) (Rhet. 2.7.2). In other words, a reader attentive to the stanza’s argumentative reasoning is disposed to feel the emotions stirred by its premise and conclusion, and these encourage an inference about the persons involved. This is what it is for the royal odes “to move” an audience: to fear what the poet dreads, to feel reassured and grateful for what the poet approves. The contours of the new national community are thus delineated by generating emotions appropriate to its constituent members: the monarch excites reassurance and gratitude; fellow citizens, “true Frenchmen,” inspire friendliness and emulation, even shame when circumstances warrant; hostile foreign powers, like Spain or the duchy of Savoy, and “mutins” [rebels] both Catholic and Protestant, “bad Frenchmen,” elicit hatred, anger, and indignation. Such affect cements the ties and marks the boundaries of the nation. Ciceronian grandeur does not usually excite wonder, joy or awe (Shuger 39)—feelings which, as we saw, are proper to the subject contemplating the extraordinary virtue of the monarch—but the mixed character of Ciceronian Atticism allows the royal odes to provoke numinosity through two other channels: by incorporating the luxuriant ornamentation of the middle style, or by incorporating the dignity, solemnity, and sublimity of Hellenistic grandeur, which reside in qualities of thought and emotion (Shuger 41). Such grandeur may be the effect of harsh, rough, brief, or asymmetrical language, but it chiefly results from figures that are pregnant and suggestive (Shuger 40). The mythological and biblical allusions that permeate the royal odes exemplify this latter type of grandeur. While the antiquity and authority of the sources impart dignity and solemnity, the myths or stories themselves, quite familiar, are easily taken for granted. It is only reflection, prompted by the brief, compressed, or obscure manner in which they are cast, that reveals their deeper function and 117 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence meaning. In this respect, the plainness of Malherbian intertextuality recalls the stylistic innovations of contemporary rhetorical theorists like Carbo (1595), Vossius (1606), and Caussin (1617) (Shuger 76-89). The royal odes appear to incorporate the plainer variety of Hellenistic grandeur that such theorists reintroduced to sacred oratory, and this includes the figures of thought already mentioned. Such plainness does not disturb the Ciceronian balance of polish and power, of concinnitas and emotion, because it is subsumed under emotional intensity, in other words, power. It gives the royal odes access to a spectrum of numinous feelings absent from Roman civic and forensic oratory. The commonplace of the ship of state informing the third stanza of “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607), while not a mythological example on its face, could qualify as a variant of Hellenistic grandeur. Easily accessible in two classical authors, Quintilian (8.6.44) and Horace (Odes 1.14), the allegory was widely used during the French Renaissance. Malherbe adds some hyperbole, “greatest storms” (v. 13) “ever stirred up” (v. 14), but the imagery is so familiar that one easily overlooks it. Such familiarity, I believe, is a form of obscurity. It is only when the speaker calls the effacement of all discord a “miracle” (v. 17)—clearly a cause for admiration—that the reader is prompted to take a second look. The speaker would have the reader feel wonder for the act of dispersing the storms of civil war and then transfer the emotion to the monarch’s extraordinary virtue (“Quelle force,” v. 18). The allegory is thus a kind of portrait of the monarch, one that works like a riddle. The figurative language obscures the events and persons with which one is familiar. The character traits of the great soul provide the key or pattern that solves the riddle. Upon further reading and reflection, an attentive reader might notice that the commonplace of the ship of state forms the basis for the new national myth that unites the sequence of royal odes. Such an unsuspected depth to this commonplace is the most powerful cause of wonder. But how, if at all, does elocutio contribute to rhetorical ethos? If reasoning models what it is for a proof to be artistic, that is, an activity with a guiding end and a transmissible form (Garver 23-37), and if there is no art (technē) of metaphor (Garver 23 & 31), then elocutio would seem incompatible with the notion of artistic proof. Individual tropes and figures might clinch an argument or transport an audience “beyond logical demonstration”(Garver 44), but together do they make any essential contribution to ethos? Kathy Eden’s analysis of the Aristotelian eikōn [image, simile] in Poetic and Legal Fiction in the Aristotelian Tradition, combined with Biester’s account of the sophisticated theory of figurative language which early modern poets and critics developed from remarks in Aristotle and Hellenistic rhetoricians, suggests what role 118 Part I Praising the Great Soul tropes and figures related to the eikōn might play: they endow rhetorical ethos with vivid particularity, a quality with the power to excite emotion and to activate such higher mental faculties as judgment and will. While elocutio is not an artistic proof, it performs an emotional and/ or argumentative function by turning rhetorical ethos into a visual and psychological image. Using key passages from the Poetics, the Rhetoric and the De Anima, Eden shows how Aristotle rescues the eikōn and image-making from Plato’s stigma of untruth by uncovering the critical roles these have in human perception, cognition, and decision. For Plato, the eikōn and image-making were sources of falsehood and error, and the eikōn itself was the sort of imitation that corresponds in every particular to the original (Eden 64-65). As Eden notes, Aristotle’s concept of the eikōn is quite different. In the Rhetoric, he identifies it with the simile and considers it a species of metaphor (Rhet. 3.4.1); he thus “delimits its meaning, just as he did in the Poetics with the term mimēsis” (Eden 70). A new category of image is born, what Eden calls the poetic-rhetorical image, based on the crucial functions that the eikōn (essentially metaphor) fulfills in poetry and oratory (Eden 70). This poetic-rhetorical image has the capacity “to instruct through logical demonstration and through instruction to delight (3.10.4). Thus equipped to fulfill two of the three intentions of rhetoric— to instruct and to delight—the eikōn accomplishes the third—namely, to move an audience to adopt a particular course of action—through its special quality of energeia. Aristotle defines energeia as a kind of movement which brings the object represented ‘before the eyes’ (pro ommatōn) of the spectators (3.11.1, 3.11.4; cf. 3.10.6). Even Homer’s popularity, according to Aristotle, resides in his consummate ability to activate (energeian poiein) his representations through metaphors and eikones” (Eden 71). The orator and the mimetic poet use the tropes and figures related to eikōn, especially metaphor, to impart vividness (enargeia) to their presentation of particulars. “Both orator and poet, according to Aristotle, must make the audience feel that they, like the jury, can see for themselves the events exactly as they occurred” (Eden 73). For the epic or tragic poet, then, vividness serves two functions: 1. it helps the maker of plots not to overlook anything in the arrangement of events or the presentation of details, and 2. it moves the mind of the spectator or listener toward belief: this is because likeness (eikonos) is tied to likelihood (eikotas), that is to say, probability, the principle which underpins Aristotle’s defense of fiction (Eden 67-69, 34-35). For the orator, however, “the vividness of particularity” performs a different function: it moves the mind of the audience to action (Eden 74). To bring to light “the motivating power of the vivid particular,” Eden delves into Aristotle’s De Anima (Eden 74). Her analysis of Aristotelian psychology 119 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence reveals that the operations of thought and of perception would be impossible without the imagination and its images. “Imagination or phantasia is a kind of movement activated by perception, and its images (phantasmata) resemble percepts (aisthēmata), except that they lack matter. These images, moreover, enable the mind to think. In fact, it cannot think without them (432a7-10; cf. De Motu Animalium, 703b18 ff.)” (Eden 75). While imagination is “in some ways like perception” and cooperates with it, it also “participates in calculating, reasoning, and deliberating” (Eden 76). It therefore mediates “between perception and the higher powers of the soul” (Eden 76). The first of these higher powers discussed by Eden is the will, defined as desire for the good (Eden 76). “Just as desiring cannot occur without imagining, neither can willing, which is itself a kind of desiring. Moreover, it is precisely as a result of the interaction between imagining and willing that movement or, where some reasoning intervenes, action occurs” (Eden 78). The second is the power of judging. Eden notes that Aristotle does not draw a sharp distinction between judging and imagining, describing the tasks they perform in such similar terms, “that they seem at various points in the discussion to be a single faculty” (Eden 78). “In affirming (kataphasa, phasa) or denying (apophasa), the mind judges the images provided by the imagination and delivers a directive either to pursue (diōkein) or to avoid (pheugein) an object or a course of action” (Eden 80). However, because the De Anima does not directly address the question of whether the vivid particular activates the imagination of an audience, thereby provoking fresh perception and setting in motion the faculties of willing and judging, Eden must turn to Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria for the final step of the analysis. This highly influential rhetorical manual clarifies the relation between the poetic-rhetorical image, or eikōn, and the psychological image, or phantasma (Eden 90). After subsuming metaphor, simile, and example under the general term imago, the Institutio Oratoria derives them from the psychological images of the speaker’s imagination (Eden 87, 90). The speaker “first creates the scene in his imagination, as if he were an eyewitness to the events, and then recreates it artistically for his audience to the same effect” (Eden 90). Quintilian’s procedure for composing vivid images provides the missing link between the two types of image. Eden sums it up nicely: “As the product of the imagination, a faculty which shares certain properties with both perception and thinking, the image, like demonstrative evidence, represents the conjunction of sensation and intellection; it combines, so to speak, both percept and concept, enabling the mind to think, judge, will, and eventually to act. As the artfully designed product of the dramatist and forensic orator, the poetic-rhetorical image embodies these same attributes and so moves the whole mind, reason and emotions alike, to 120 Part I Praising the Great Soul 42 See K. Eden, Poetic and Legal Fiction in the Aristotelian Tradition (Princeton UP, 1986): a properly structured plot renders events intelligible “by making them the consequence of the characters’ choices and intentions, the motivating forces of action” (53) while make choices and render judgments” (Eden 92, my emphasis). Because the poetic-rhetorical image possesses the same attributes as the psychological image, the whole process is reversible for spectator or listener. Images in spoken discourse provoke images in the mind. Longinus’ On the Sublime suggests that this process functions in the same way for images in writing. “Like Quintilian’s imago, Longinus’ phantasia combines the affective, motivating powers of the Aristotelian phantasm with the discursive, descriptive power of the Aristotelian metaphor and eikōn. Here too psychological image engenders rhetorical image” (Eden 93). It has been widely noted, moreover, that while discussing how to endow language with sublimity, Longinus provides written examples which are supposed to transport the soul of the reader. Written poetic-rhetorical images apparently also have the capacity to excite psychological images. This genealogy of the image and its underlying psychological theory are significant because they provide the conceptual background for grasping how the elocutio of the royal odes endows rhetorical ethos with vivid particularity, transforming it into a visual and psychological image. Although such portraiture remains implicit in the majority of royal odes, Malherbe in “À la Reine sur les heureux succès de sa régence” (1610; 1611) acknowledges the fundamentally visual nature of his project, claiming that the ode presents a “richer” image of Marie than any tableau in the galleries of Fontainebleau, the Tuileries, or the Louvre (vv. 135-140). Given that Malherbe’s royal odes do not narrate, how is it that they accomplish this? The missing piece of this puzzle is provided by James Biester in Lyric Wonder: Rhetoric and Wit in English Renaissance Poetry. When early modern poets and critics pursued wonder as the goal of lyric poetry, they recognized that a non-narrative genre could not produce the astonishing reversals and recognitions effected by tragedy and epic through the structure of plot (Biester 23). So they turned to Aristotle’s “analyses of style in chapters 21 and 22 of the Poetics and Book 3 of the Rhetoric” to develop the “unstated comparison of the metaphor with the tragic plot” (Biester 26, 32). In lyric poetry, Biester argues, it is not plots but metaphors that “astound and convince” (Biester 26). “Metaphors teach, delight, and astound by presenting a resemblance between two objects that the reader would not have considered susceptible to comparison. Like the plot of a tragedy, it convinces through what is contrary to expectation, yet upon reflection seems logical” (Biester 34). Whereas the object of belief in tragedy and epic concerns human events, 42 the object of belief in lyric poetry concerns 121 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence energetic metaphors make the presentation and arrangement of details more probable thanks to the power of bringing things before the eyes (67, 71). perceptions (Biester 26). The figurative language of lyric poetry does not seek to induce belief that a seemingly impossible action or event, upon reflection, turns out to be logical, but rather to substitute one perception for another, or one way of perceiving for another. The poetic-rhetorical images favored by Malherbe and other early modern poets produce cognitive and emotional effects through a process of estrange‐ ment and recognition (Biester 14-18). By deviating from prevailing usage, but without sacrificing clarity, tropes and figures make language distinctive and unfamiliar with a view to inducing admiration and pleasure in the audience (Rhet. 3.2.1-3, 6; Biester 26-27). “Metaphor especially has clarity and sweetness and strangeness” (Rhet. 3.2.8). With its source in sense perception (Rhet. 3.2.13) and its capacity to bring about “quick learning in our minds” (Rhet. 3.10.4), metaphor is the perfect vehicle for creating fresh perceptions (Biester 27). The vivid particularity of metaphor is ocular (seeing is believing) and affective (feelings of fear, pity, and wonder accompany and color the mental operations of recognizing and judging) (Eden 54-58, 74; Biester 24-25). It performs something akin to an argumentative function when it enables logical inference or reveals likeness, and it performs something akin to an emotional function when it moves the mind to assent or to deny. Encomiastic poetry of the sort Malherbe writes presupposes that the facts, events, and persons being considered are familiar to the audience. The figurative language stranges the known particulars, strikes the imagination, sparks inferences, stirs up emotions, activates recognition and judgment, and thus produces a fresh perception. Accordingly, tropes and figures, which are poetic-rhetorical images, consti‐ tute a mimetic representation, both visual and psychological, of character. In essence, rhetorical ethos is a symbolic image, a kind of portrait, of moral ethos. For the royal odes, the Aristotelian megalopsychos is the general rule that governs the selection and the arrangement of the tropes and figures. The details of the portrait come from various sources. Sometimes they are provided by the historical facts: Henri IV’s courage and practical wisdom brought the civil war to a close (“Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin,” vv. 7-12). Sometimes they are implied by a classical or biblical intertext: Virgil’s fourth eclogue (IV.6), for instance, in which Astraea, the virgin goddess of justice, returns to earth with the establishment of a new political order, casts the arrival of Marie de Médicis in France as a new era of peace, justice, and prosperity (“À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France,” vv. 41-50, 101, 122-124). Sometimes they are supplied by 122 Part I Praising the Great Soul 43 The term conceit derives from the Italian “concetto,” which the French called “la pointe.” For the origin and evolution of this terminology, see Mercedes Blanco, “Du ‘Concetto’ à la Pointe,” Figures à l’italienne 279-280 and Les Rhétoriques de la pointe: Balthasar Gracián et le conceptisme en Europe (Genève Éditions Slatkine, 1992). See also James V. Mirollo, The Poet of the Marvelous: Giambattista Marino (Columbia UP, 1963) 116-118. a metaphor or some other eikōn: the “foudre,” or lighting, of the young Louis XIII in “Pour le Roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois” is an image for the artillery that the king will unleash against the rebels of La Rochelle, but it also sets up an allegory, assigning the monarch the role of Zeus in the revolt of the giants against Olympus—a figure that supports Malherbe’s argument that punishment, not clemency, is the appropriate action for the king to take (“Pour le Roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois,” vv. 2, 85-92). Subsumed under the definition of the great soul, such details may be amplified and varied to heighten the effect of estrangement, but in every instance, they illustrate the character type. As shown by our running example, the third stanza of “Pour le Roi allant en Limousin,” the reader must supply the pattern, i.e. the great soul, that connects the details into a whole. The same character, the megalopsychos, determines the selection and arrange‐ ment of the enthymemes, examples, and maxims, and these together with the tropes and figures create an underlying argument to each ode that may be called a conceit. 43 Not reducible to any particular metaphor, although metaphor is often the most concise and efficient way of expressing it, the conceit is the organizing principle of the ode (Biester 33). It supplies the premise of the overall argument and governs the amplification of that premise using particular arguments and images. As Biester notes, it is to a lyric poem what plot is to tragedy or epic (Biester 33). For each of Malherbe’s odes, adapted to the particulars of its historical occasion, the argument or conceit is somewhat different. But each ode selects and arranges its various lines of argument and its tropes and figures to demonstrate and to exemplify magnanimity, the patriotic ethos of the new nation. Just as “the completed tragedy constitutes an example or paradigm” (Eden 70), so the completed ode does, too, and for the same reason: because it demonstrates a general rule according to probability, showing how this kind of person generally acts. Endowed with the power of exemplarity, the ethos of magnanimity which underlies every ode and permeates all its parts is a poetic-rhetorical image that provokes its psychological counterpart in the mind of the reader. If the activity of reasoning about magnanimity encourages the reader to attribute this virtue to the speaker of the royal odes, the reader may also attribute it to himself, at least to the extent that the higher faculties of judging and willing have been activated. By spurring cognition and stirring up 123 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence emotion, every ode encourages the reader to identify the psychological image of magnanimity with the monarch, with the poet, and with himself—indeed, with all good Frenchmen. This projected character, visual and psychological, is a new perception, and this could be applied to the monarch or to the members of the body politic. What is more, the exemplary portrait of the great soul which results from each ode is part of a grander tableau. By taking aim at an immediate and attainable target—the character of the monarch—the royal odes seek to achieve their highest goal, namely to call into being a national community united in its support of an ethnically French monarchy. The sovereign good that governs the actions of the great soul in the royal odes is the general welfare of the nation, but the nation is what must be presupposed, what must be imagined. Its image, as such, never appears. Rather, it is a communal spirit, a common project, a collective mindset, represented in the odes by the overarching conceit of the sequence: the Bourbon demi-gods steering the ship of state through the storms of political discord to the halcyon waters of a new Golden Age. The first ode in the sequence lays down the premise of the conceit and articulates the goal of the quest, and each subsequent ode qualifies the vision in some way. But the perception of the overarching conceit, with its quest-like structure, arrives only once the whole sequence has been read. The grand tableau appears in no single ode. The reader must piece it together with the examples, tropes, and figures that recur in the sequence. The story being told is not in the odes themselves but in the classical and biblical intertexts to which the reader is led by the various mythological motifs. While the argumentative and emotional functions of the figurative language certainly activate the mind of the reader, one particular figure of thought, significatio, is responsible for spurring the inference from the local image to the grand tableau of the sequence. It is impossible to overstate the grandeur of this conception, this design, this architecture. The wonder it potentially provokes is calculated to transport the reader “beyond logical demonstration” (Biester 44) and to accomplish “the primary function of rhetoric, psychagogia, without bothering with evidence or discursive reasoning” (Biester 39). Biester urges twenty-first-century readers not to “miss the association be‐ tween political skill and imagination” because then we will misread “the cultural function of a variety of poetic practices” (Biester 68). In bringing before the eyes the ethos of magnanimity and the quest that defines the national community, Malherbe targets the imagination of the Bourbons and their subjects, both greater and lesser. Imagination was a crucial component of political power in seventeenth-century France. But we must take care: this is not the Romantic 124 Part I Praising the Great Soul imagination, with its quasi-divine powers of creation. The seventeenth-century imagination, as Pascal famously observed, was the powerful counterpart of reason: This mistress of error and falsehood which plays the dominant part in mankind’s life is all the more deceitful for not being always false. I do not speak of madmen, I speak of the wisest of men. It is among these that imagination exercises its great right to persuade (Lafuma, 44-82, my emphasis). Pascal distinguishes power or violence (“force”) from mere outward appearance (“l’habit”), but he also recognizes that the latter may function like the former: “Cet habit est une force” [this costume exerts a force] (Lafuma 89-315). Such displacement is the effect of the imagination, which invests outward appearance with a power as effective as violence. Working in concert with convention and tradition, the Pascalian imagination is the efficient cause conflating texts with persons, poetry with virtue, rhetorical ethos with moral ethos. Imagination turns logic on its head, enabling the confusion of outward display with intrinsic merit. In conclusion, the royal odes did not simply join the chorus of political goodwill praising Henri IV and the royal family. With the promotion of epideictic eloquence, Malherbe seized the occasion to reimagine the French nation. He revamped the style of encomiastic poetry and leveraged its accessory political function to craft portraits of character, specifically, the great soul (le magnanime), using the most powerful tools of oratory (logos, ēthos, pathos, and elocutio), and doing so in a highly visual way. The wonder which Malherbe’s grand style attempts to evoke is intended to move powerful elites to accept his representation of his patrons—and of himself—as models of magnanimity. Whereas the poetic images of the royal odes appeal directly to the imagination, their discursive reasoning embodies the virtue they wish to inculcate. Thus the royal odes do not make purely emotional appeals, although they model and excite appropriate emotions. They bring the power of wonder, of style, under the control of practical reason mediated by ethos. They indeed seek to inspire, to astonish, but always on a firm foundation of trust. What rescues them from sophistry is not only their commitment to king and nation, but also the way they undergird the transport of wonder, the power of agonistic emotions, and the delight of polish, with argumentative proofs concerning virtue and happiness. The result is that the speaker of the odes becomes a model subject of the new nation. The next section, Part II, uses the historical terms and concepts recovered and developed here to perform close readings of Malherbe’s royal odes both individually and as a sequence. 125 Chapter 3. The Search for Royal Eloquence 1 See Philip A. Wadsworth, “Form and Content in the Odes of Malherbe,” PMLA 78.3 ( June 1963) 190-195. Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes In 1972, David Lee Rubin published an eye-opening study, Higher, Hidden Order: Design and Meaning in the Odes of Malherbe, which dispels the claim that the odes have no discernable unity. Through close reading, Rubin excavates the “organic unity of wholes” (Rubin, Higher 16) created by the implicit comparisons, between the subjects of praise and classical mythological figures, that inform each ode. The mythological pattern that he uncovers for each ode lends it meaning and makes it a unified whole. In The Knot of Artifice (1982), Rubin asserts that “Malherbe’s first completed ode establishes a pattern for the entire series” (Rubin, Knot 93) and proceeds to summarize each ode to show their interlocking themes and their thematic progression. Rubin’s scholarship thus counters the reductive formalist reading that had questioned the “esthetic value of these poems” (Rubin, Higher 15) because of their perceived lack of structural or logical unity. 1 The emphasis on rehabilitation might also explain why Rubin limits his study to the odes considered major, complete, and perfect. This book picks up where Rubin’s leaves off and seeks to establish what remains only an intuition in Rubin’s work, namely that these magnificent poetic artifacts constitute a unified sequence which itself has an underlying mythological pattern. Because it focuses on showing the unity of the sequence as a whole based on a recurrent trope and set of supporting intertexts, it expands the Malherbian corpus to include two shorter odes and a long fragment. What unifies the sequence is the story of the Argo intimated by the ship of state motif and key implicit comparisons. That underlying myth portrays the Bourbons as heroic demi-gods piloting the French nation through the storms of political discord to a new Golden Age, where peace, justice, and prosperity at home are matched by French hegemony abroad. Every other mythological allusion is subsumed under it in one way or another. The sequence’s ideological goal of forging a unified national community is thus mirrored in its formal unity. Using mythological allusions borrowed from classical and biblical intertexts, the royal odes implicate reading subjects in a shared political adventure by means of inference, a figure of thought known as emphasis or significatio (Quintilian 8.3.83; 9.2.64; Rhet. ad Heren. 4.53.67 ff.). Such active participation is how one potentially undergoes the desired cognitive and affective modifications, that is, the movement from a partisan to a collective national sentiment. Rubin keenly understood the implications of Malherbe’s use of myth: each ode idealizes the historical occasion and actors through the perfection or correction of some flawed pattern (Rubin, Higher 63). The myth underlying each royal ode involves either flawed protagonists or some flawed outcome which the historical actors have the opportunity to correct. The mythological examples and motifs, through an implicit comparison or analogy, not only make contemporary events and actors more intelligible and illustrious, but also, as Rubin has shown, “evoke a specific mythological pattern which un‐ derlies and lends meaning to the poem’s literal action” (Rubin, Higher 30). One important result is the transformation of the historical present. History becomes the perfection of myth, and the present joins the perfection of the past. Consequently, the particular time becomes timeless; the particular place becomes the space of imagination; and the particular persons become idealized models. Each particular of the occasion sheds some part of its spatio-temporal determinations, and only universal, timeless actors and events remain. Another important result is that the implied universal audience also attains a timeless status. As an imaginary construct, it joins past, present, and future into a single continuum. Historical readers of the royal odes merge with this universal audience, indistinguishable from the national community, which now includes posterity. The royal odes reclaim the exemplarity of the past for the living and confer on them immortality in the here and now. It is in this sense that Malherbe may rightly claim to erect a timeless monument where his subjects of praise endure beyond death. By establishing continuity with the exemplarity of the past, the odes cast the present as a return to greatness, and, therefore, a monument to itself. Critics of the royal odes have so far failed to notice the quest structure of the sequence, but it emerges into the light as soon as one suspects that the ship of state motif “means more than it says,” a form of rhetorical emphasis (Quintilian 8.3.83; 8.4.26; 9.2.65-67) that spurs the reader to seek its echoes in other odes. It conforms to a well-known archetypal pattern—the hero cycle—made famous by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). The royal odes’ chronological order of composition (in which they are here presented for analysis) almost perfectly mirrors what Campbell calls “the standard path of the mythological adventure” (Campbell 23), whose recurrent structure has three basic elements: departure, achievement, and return. “There will be astonishingly little variation in the morphology of the adventure,” he writes, “If one or another of the basic elements of the archetypal pattern is omitted from a given fairy 128 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes tale, legend, ritual, or myth, it is bound to be somehow or other implied” (Campbell 30). The caveat with respect to Malherbe’s sequence, however, is that the promised return never quite materializes, but is left tantalizingly imminent from the beginning. A progression from the first ode to the last is nevertheless discernable. As Rubin saw, the germ of Malherbe’s entire poetic itinerary may be detected in the first ode of the sequence, “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601), which outlines the whole adventure. Beginning in medias res, this ode presupposes a prior departure and promises an imminent return to a new Golden Age. Subsequent odes, from “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607) to the unfinished “Pour la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence” (1614; 1630), present the cycle’s various stages of achievement, in which the Bourbon hero (or heroine) must undergo trials or tests, portrayed as triumphs, set-backs, even death. The final ode in the sequence, “Pour le Roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois” (1627; 1635), written for Louis XIII, celebrates the new young hero whose arrival was foretold in the first ode, and whose mission represents the fulfillment of the labors begun by his father—but the Golden Age has not yet returned. The odes represent the return of the Golden Age as possible in principle, even if its factual arrival is always delayed. The condition of its arrival is the movement from a partisan point of view to a collective national sentiment. So, in a way, the return of the Golden Age can ever only be evoked by the royal odes since they demand, and attempt to bring about, a change of heart in the reader as the necessary condition of utopia’s arrival. Just as the unity of each individual ode depends on a mythological pattern which will be perfected or corrected in history, so the unity of the whole sequence depends on overcoming the flawed pattern of the foundering ship of state. Malherbe’s choice of the ship as the underlying theme of the sequence is particularly interesting because it subtly underscores the interdependence of the diverse subjects of a dynastic polity. The sufferings caused by decades of civil war have driven home the idea that “we are all in this together.” A strong monarch, Malherbe suggests, protects and promotes the public good against the personal interests of the nobility, which have proven so destructive. Most intriguing about Malherbe’s use of myth is his preference for images (metaphor, comparison, example, etc.) over narrative (the plot of tragedy or epic). The story that the royal odes tell is contained in the classical or biblical intertexts. The reader has to do the work of comparing the mythological figures with the historical protagonists, has to tease out the logical inferences, and fill in the blanks of the metaphorical language. It is an operation that requires foreknowledge of the whole as well as delicacy and tact, since particular 129 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes elements the classical and biblical stories informing the royal odes must be discarded in favor of others more congruent with their new national mythology. Such selective reading mirrors the psychological process of redefining national identity, overwriting former selves and allegiances and recasting them in a new ideological framework. The close readings that follow explain and coordinate multiple levels of meaning in the royal odes, historical and mythological, as well as local and sequential. The interpretation proceeds sequentially from the first ode in the sequence to the last, and it follows the argumentative progression of each ode from start to finish. The underlying conceit of every ode is identified, analyzed, and related to the supporting intertexts as well as to the internal themes, imagery, and examples. Each chapter therefore does double duty, placing one or more odes in the overarching mythological quest while examining the argument and style of each specific ode and relating it to its occasion. What emerges is not just the encomiastic portrayal of the Bourbons as great souls in each specific ode, but also the grand tableau of the whole, distributed across the sequence, depicting the imminent return of the Golden Age for a reimagined national community embarked on a political quest for the ages. 130 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes Chapter 4. The Return of Astraea À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France (1600; 1601) The importance of this first royal ode can hardly be exaggerated, containing as it does the germ of the entire poetic sequence. It celebrates the magnanimity of its royal principals; its examples and images recur throughout the other odes; and it lays the groundwork for a national myth. Malherbe’s characteristic eloquence, moreover, appears all at once, fully matured, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus. The same amalgam of polish and power (Malherbe’s idea of the grand style) reappears in all the other odes. In this first ode, however, the speaker remains in the background. Whereas Malherbe will explicitly assert his greatness in later odes, the speaker’s magnanimity here must be deduced from the aptness of the examples and imagery supporting the ode’s underlying conceit. The historical occasion of the ode is a welcome reception for Marie de Médicis, Henri’s new bride and France’s new queen. Demonstrative adjectives, “ce coup” [this stroke] (v. 11) and “Cette princesse” [This princess] (v. 22), and the deictic phrase “La voici” [Here she is] (v. 25) suggest that the new queen has entered Aix and is actually listening to the ode. Antoine Adam relates that Malherbe indeed read an early version to Marie and others who attended the reception. There are three main lines of argument: 1. stanzas one through eight register joy and wonder at Marie’s arrival, express admiration for her person, and assert that Marie deserves to be queen because of her outstanding virtue; 2. stanzas nine through twelve focus on the national renaissance which Marie in her new role will bring about, treating her arrival as the imminent return of a Golden Age for France; and 3. stanzas thirteen through twenty-three express fear that the nation may lose its hero and protector, Henri, if Marie does not use her charms to pacify him. In addition, the ode’s final four stanzas present military service pro rege et patria as the proper model of emulation for the subjects of the new nation. The other avenue of distinction, writing encomiastic poetry, remains implicit at this stage in the cycle. Most important, the sacralization of Marie and Henri which results from the language of deification and adoration expresses a powerful national sentiment that permeates the epic political adventure evoked by the ode and in which every French subject has a stake. The conceit that unifies the various arguments and mythological motifs is not self-evident on a first reading and must be inferred by the reader. It results from the combination of two commonplaces. The first is the implicit comparison of Marie to Astraea, the goddess of justice in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (I.149) who flees the earth at the dawn of the Iron Age, becomes the constellation Virgo, 131 Chapter 4. The Return of Astraea 2 Michel de l’Hôpital, De initiatione sermo (1559); Du Bellay, “Discours sur le sacre du roi” (1560); Ronsard, “Institution pour l’Adolescence du Roi” (1562); Amadis Jamyn, “Ode à la navire de France” (1575). 3 See Nannerl O. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France: the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (Princeton UP, 1980) 18: “For absolutist theorists, the will and power of the king provide the cement and structure for society, just as God’s will and power construct the universe. Sovereignty is like the keel of a ship that makes the difference between a vessel and an ‘evil-favored hoop of wood.’” Jean Bodin, Les Six Livres de la République 1.2: “Mais tout ainsi que le navire n’est plus que bois, sans forme de vaisseau, quand la quille, qui soutient les côtes, la proue, la poupe et le tillac, sont ôtés: aussi la République sans puissance souveraine, qui unit tous les membres et parties d’icelles, et tous les ménages et colleges en un corps, n’est plus République. Ce n’est pas la ville ni les personnes qui font la cité, mais l’union d’un peuple sous une seigneurie souveraine.” and who, in Virgil’s fourth eclogue (IV.6), returns here below with the arrival of a new political order. This classical motif is by no means unique to Malherbe. As Fumaroli notes, it appears in early modern European literature whenever “some new Augustus seems to have put an end to an epoch of discord and blood” (Fumaroli, Précis 47). The second is the trope of the ship of state. It is hinted at here and there with storm and water imagery until the seventeenth stanza. There, the poet explains why Marie-Astraea should prevent Henri, “notre grand Alcide” [our great Alcides, i.e. Hercules] (v. 121), from continuing to risk his life in military engagements: Puisqu’il sait qu’en ses destinées Les nôtres seront terminées, Et qu’après lui notre discord N’aura plus qui dompte sa rage, N’est-ce pas nous rendre au naufrage Après nous avoir mis à bord? (vv. 165-170) [Because he knows that with his destiny, / Our own lives will be finished, / And because without him our discord / Will no longer have anyone to tame its rage, / Is this (i.e. his loss) not to deliver us up to shipwreck / After having taken us on board? ] The image of a ship is implied by the word “naufrage” [shipwreck] and by the expression “mettre à bord” [to put on board]. But the reader must supply the classical allegory. It had been popularized in the sixteenth century by Michel de l’Hôpital, Du Bellay, and Ronsard among others. 2 In Les Six Livres de la République, Jean Bodin famously uses the trope to illustrate his conception of sovereignty, 3 an important reference for Malherbe whose idea of absolutism 132 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 4 See Horace, Odes 1.14, Epodes 16; Quintilian 8.6.44; Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.515 ff.; Alcaeus, Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmentum 6 & 326; Pindar, Pythian 1 & 4; Plato, Republic 6.488b-d; Aristotle, Politics 3.4.1-3 1276b15-35. appears to resemble Bodin’s. The commonplace would have been familiar to anyone with a standard classical education in the early seventeenth century. 4 The decision to involve the reader is strategic. To supply the allegory is to recognize the analogy of sailor and citizen. Such an analogy rests on the mutual dependence and common good of members of a political association, and to see it for oneself is to be one step closer to having a stake in the political adventure. The rhetorical question implies, moreover, with a hint of impatience, that Henri must consider the ultimate purpose for which he fought for leadership of the nation. Why take the helm of the ship of state if it is only to get himself killed and plunge the nation back into political chaos? His new role as captain brings new responsibility for the safety of the crew and passengers. It also brings new priorities. Henri has no legitimate heir, and he will need one to secure the political gains he has made—hence the momentous importance of the arrival of the new queen of France. In her role as royal consort, Marie will perpetuate the dynasty. The ode will further develop the consequences of this act to include the renewal of the life of the nation and the salvation of the state from ruin. The conceit, then, that underlies the various threads of the ode is the following: Astraea, the starry goddess of justice, has returned to France in the person of Marie de Médicis to guide the ship of state out of the troubled waters of political unrest to the halcyon seas of peace and prosperity. The male heir to whom she gives birth will not only permit the rebirth of the nation but will also establish a new French empire. A reader infers this larger picture by combining the implications of the dual analogies (Marie = Astraea; Henri = ship’s captain) with the ode’s arguments and imagery. The lack of explicit development is not just an invitation, it is a figure of thought: significatio per similitudem, which possesses “liveliness and distinction in the highest degree” and encourages the reader “to guess what the speaker has not mentioned” (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.54.67-68). The ancient commonplace of the ship of state, moreover, is the motif that unifies the whole sequence and that lays the mythological foundation for a national quest. But its global importance appears only in retrospect. After one has read the sequence in its entirety, there arises a suspicion that the trope “means more than it says,” a form of rhetorical emphasis (Quintilian 8.3.83; 8.4.26; 9.2.65-67), and an attentive reader may seek to confirm that suspicion by comparing echoes of the motif in the other odes of the sequence. The amazement or wonder that 133 Chapter 4. The Return of Astraea a reader experiences in working out these echoes and allusions appears to be intentional because the powerful emotions that result from the sequence’s architecture end up coloring the perception of the historical principals as well as the national quest. The conceit of Astraea guiding the ship of state is the underlying thread that unifies the ode’s overall organization. The first line of argument (stanzas one through eight) prepares but does not explicitly develop the Marie-Astraea analogy. It has several other important functions to perform. The first is to establish the national dimension of the occasion. Marcus Keller stresses the importance of the mode of address, that is, the pronoun “nous” [we] and the term “peuples” [peoples], in creating an imaginary collectivity “integrated by shared fears and hopes and bound by a common fate” (Keller 109-110). The plural apostrophe which the poet uses to address the audience, “Peuples, qu’on mette sur la tête / Tout ce que la terre a de fleurs” [Peoples of France, let us place on our heads / All the flowers of the earth] (vv. 1-2), evokes the crowd gathered to receive Marie, but also the diverse subjects of all the regions of France. “In the seventeenth century, ‘peuple’ also carried political overtones because it connoted ‘nation’ or ‘pays’ and, used in the plural, could refer to the subjects of the crown” (Keller 109). Indeed, the diversity of the dialects, laws, customs, and cultures subject to the French crown made of the kingdom a polity akin to an empire. Hence the passage from empire or kingdom to nation requires the addition of a unifying element. In my view, the emotions of the first two stanzas are the active forces demarcating the boundaries of what Keller calls “the national ‘nous’” (Keller 109). Malherbe subsumes all diversity of provincial origins under feelings of joy and gratitude. What morphs a concrete and plural particular (“peuples”) into an abstract unity, the French nation, is the stirring up of such feelings arising from the establishment of the new Bourbon dynasty, a branch of the House of France. An attentive reader also experiences these emotions. Whoever in spirit answers the metaphorical invitation to place flowers in one’s hair belongs by definition to the national community, since the gesture signals emotional and therefore political solidarity. Such feelings signal mutual affective ties among loyal subjects and serve to demarcate the boundaries of the nation by excluding those who do not share them. The shared feelings (or not) exclude the possibility of what Keller calls “a national identity differentiated by degrees” (Keller 108). Either one feels joy and thanksgiving, or one does not. As the ode progresses, joy and thanksgiving will evolve into wonder and reverence and will be contrasted with the rage and frustration of the enemies of the new regime. Therefore, either one belongs to the nation or does not. There is no middle ground. 134 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes If the poet invites the national community to cast off the worries caused by years of civil conflict and to raise their cups in joy—“Et soient dans nos coupes noyés / Les soucis de tous ces orages” [And let in our cups be drowned / The cares of all those storms] (vv. 7-8)—it is because Marie’s arrival marks a turning point: “À ce coup iront en fumée / Tous les voeux de nos mutins” [With this stroke, up in smoke will go / All the wishes of our rebels] (vv. 11-12). Keller insists that these “mutins” are not enemies because the ode “leaves aside the question of [their] responsibility for the violent conflict” and instead seeks to foster national reconciliation (Keller 110). No reading could be further from the text. Let’s begin with the word “coup” [stroke, blow, shock]. Although a commonplace word, it is a great example of rhetorical emphasis because it is pregnant with meaning in this context. The “coup” is triple. First, it is Henri’s stroke of genius, his latest political move on the political chessboard. The irregularity of Henri’s marital situation, as well as his advancing age, had been the cause of widespread concern, fueling anxiety that he would die without a legitimate heir. Second, it is the “shock” of a marvelous reversal. The rebels, “mutins,” whose souls are “encor affamées / De massacres et de butins” [still hungry / For slaughter and spoils] (vv. 13-14), must be counted among those whose wishes (“voeux,” v. 12), false prophecies (“Et mentiront les prophécies,” v. 16), and thwarted plans (“le vain étude,” v. 18) have sought the downfall, “l’an climatérique” (v. 19), of the House of France. That sounds very much like the Leaguers who conspired with Spain. Not only does the safe arrival of the new queen, “Cette princesse que la foi / D’amour ensemble et d’hyménée / Destine au lit de notre roi” [This princess which the fidelity / Of love and marriage together / Destines for our king’s bed] (vv. 22-24), deliver a serious setback to the agenda of enemies of the crown, but the rebels cannot be feeling joy and gratitude. The wonder of the reversal is not that their prophecies of doom have turned out to be false, but that the inscrutable destiny of France, the “éternelle fleur de lis” [eternal fleur-de-lis] (v. 20), a traditional symbol of the nation, works its will through Marie. Such astonishment encourages the acceptance of the new dynasty and the new political order. Who can resist destiny? For the “mutins,” it is a question of resignation. If they cannot feel joy and wonder and gratitude and work toward the common good, they are no longer part of the nation. What further argues against any reconciliation is the note of exultation, perhaps even malicious pleasure, that one detects in the image (“iront en fumée,” going up in smoke) representing the failure of their hopes and dreams. Third, the “coup” signals that the poet is awe-struck by “la belle Marie, / Belle merveille d’Étrurie” [the beautiful Maria, / Beautiful marvel of Etruria] 135 Chapter 4. The Return of Astraea (vv. 25-26). Everything about her is wondrous: the circumstances of her arrival, her personal appearance, her illustrious family, and her character. To present Marie’s personal excellence, her extraordinary virtues, is the second function of the ode’s first line of argument. The ode lavishes praise on her physical beauty with the understanding that her beautiful exterior reflects a deeper moral excellence: Le sceptre que porte sa race, Où l’heur aux mérites est joint, Lui met le respect en la face, Mais il ne l’enorgueillit point: Nulle vanité ne la touche: Les Grâces parlent par sa bouche: Et son front témoin assuré Qu’au vice elle est inaccessible, Ne peut que d’un coeur insensible Être vu sans être adoré. (vv. 41-50) [The scepter which her family wields, / Where good fortune is joined to merit, / Adds majesty to her face, / But it does not make her arrogant: / She is free from vanity: / The Graces speak from her lips, / And her forehead, trustworthy witness / That she is inaccessible to vice, / Cannot except by a hard heart / Be seen without being adored.] In this portrait, Marie possesses majesty, merit, and self-confidence. The “respect” lodged in her face reflects the spectators’ veneration for her family’s “sceptre,” a symbol of sovereignty. Neither arrogant nor vain, she knows her true worth. The reference to the Graces evokes the character traits of joyfulness and charm as well as the elegant speech and manners that come from the study of the liberal arts. The architectural connotations of the word “front” (Fr. façade, fronton), the forehead, that part of the face where activities of the soul (feelings, thoughts, will) become visible, suggest that Marie is a citadel of virtue, since vice can find no access. Her virtues are so superlative, so astonishing, so awe-inspiring, that her presence evokes the same response that one has toward divinity. The poet frames the public response in terms of religious worship: only those with unmovable hearts refuse to adore her. That would be the rebels. The ode implies that such an extraordinary woman as Marie deserves to be queen, and while Malherbe does not say it outright, the congruity of great virtue and elevated social rank makes her magnanimous. This view places Malherbe on the cutting edge of cultural trends in France, as it was highly unusual to consider women magnanimous, a traditionally masculine category. 136 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes In later odes, Malherbe will underscore Marie’s practical wisdom, representing the queen regent as Minerva. In this early ode, Marie is magnanimous because her extraordinary merit fits her for the crucial role she will play in the regime and the life of the nation. Following the review of her virtues, the first line of argument concludes with the observation that Marie has been underestimated before now: “Et la présence des merveilles / Qu’en oyaient dire nos oreilles / Accuse la témérité / De ceux qui nous l’avaient décrite, / D’avoir figuré son mérite / Moindre que n’est la vérité” [And the presence of these marvels, / Which our ears heard about, / Accuse the temerity / Of those who had described her / For having estimated her merit / Less than the truth] (vv. 75-80). This is not flattery but rather a justification of the hyperbole of deification and adoration. Hyperbole is warranted “when the subject on which we have to speak is abnormal” and “when the magnitude of the facts surpasses all words” (Quintilian 8.6.76). It implies that no words may do her justice. A form of significatio, such hyperbole strikes the reader’s imagination and spurs an inference. It thus belongs to the rhetorical tool box of wonder. The hyperbole, the copious profusion of imagery, the dense and convoluted syntax, and the hinting at Marie’s divinity are all appropriate to her great virtue and high rank. What is more, the proper recognition of her virtue demonstrates the poet’s own magnanimity. The recognition of magnanimity in others implies the ability to make the same judgment correctly about oneself. One’s judgment is not clouded by self-love, envy, or resentment. Rather, such a person has the right concern with honor, which is the condition of magnanimity. In modeling this act of recognition, the ode invites readers not to make the same mistake as those who underestimated Marie, or as the hard-hearted rebels who refuse to adore and to celebrate her now, but rather to demonstrate their own magnanimity by honoring her extraordinary virtue. As the encomiastic portrait of Marie suggests, moreover, her Italian origin is not mentioned as something that excludes her from the French nation. Keller stresses Marie’s foreignness, claiming that “she joins ranks with other foreigners evoked in ‘À la reine’” (Keller 114). However, if her Italian origin matters, it is to underscore the inscrutable workings of the destiny of France and to illustrate the new model of nationhood based not on blood and soil but on the ship of state, that is, one’s membership in the nation determined according to one’s civic contribution to the collective good. In stark contrast to the rebels who come from France, Marie’s extraordinary contribution to the regime and the nation would be sufficient to make her French, even if her marriage to Henri and the transcendent forces working through her had not already divested her of her foreign origins and merely human traits. 137 Chapter 4. The Return of Astraea 5 See Campbell, Hero 1.2.2, “The Meeting with the Goddess” (99): “The meeting with the goddess (who is incarnate in every woman) is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the boon of love (charity: amor fati), which is life itself enjoyed as the encasement of eternity.” The sacralization of Marie results from the hyperbole of deification and adoration. The ode’s first eight stanzas also begin, unobtrusively, the process of turning the historical actors and events into myth. In stanza three, for instance, the sun is called on to bear witness to Marie’s physical beauty: La voici la belle Marie, Belle merveille d’Étrurie, Qui fait confesser au Soleil, Quoi que l’âge passé raconte, Que du Ciel depuis qu’il y monte, Ne vint jamais rien de pareil. (vv. 25-30) [Behold the beautiful Marie, / The beautiful wonder of Etruria, / Who makes the Sun confess, / Despite what former epochs tell, / That from the Sky, as long as he has been rising there, / Nothing equal to her has ever come.] This elaborate hyperbole says that Marie is the most beautiful woman ever. More subtle, however, is the image of her coming “du Ciel,” from the sky or heaven. Such a conceit plants the seed of her divinity and prepares the later key comparison to a star, i.e. Astraea. Her celestial origin is reinforced in the next stanza by the series of comparisons to three goddesses. Marie is more “pompeuse” [magnificent] and “parée” [adorned] than Venus, outshines the moon-goddess Diana, and is fresher than Aurora (vv. 31-40). The queen shares their divine attributes but surpasses them all. While Marie de Médicis was publicly recognized for her beauty, this series of hyperboles subtly initiates the transformation of the historical personage into the mythological bride-goddess whose union with the hero represents a critical episode in the hero’s (and the nation’s) voyage to utopia. 5 The motif of the “mystical marriage” will become activated in the ode’s third line of argument. Another passage from the ode’s first section, one that has garnered negative critical attention, also contributes to the translation of Marie into a quasi-divine personage. Stanzas six and seven represent in allegorical terms a genuine historical fact, the ten-day delay of Marie at Portofino due to high seas. The two stanzas imagine Neptune smitten with burning love for the beautiful Marie and ready to swap his aqueous kingdom for her. He whipped up a storm to impede Marie’s arrival in France: 138 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes Mais à la fin, soit que l’audace Au meilleur avis a fait la place, Soit qu’un autre démon plus fort, Aux vents ait imposé silence Elle est hors de sa violence, Et la voici dans notre port. (vv. 65-70) [But finally, whether audacity / Gave way to better judgment, / Or another, more powerful daemon / Quieted the winds, / She is beyond his violence, / And here she stands in our port.] The two stanzas were apparently added at the same time as the last eleven, that is, after the reception at Aix, and they have been criticized as the sort of far-fetched conceit for which Malherbe famously censured Desportes. Critics have also panned them for breaking the ode’s unity. But a reading attentive to the ode’s underlying mythological pattern, which, incidentally, finds fullest expression in the last eleven stanzas, answers both these charges. As David Lee Rubin shows, the mythological pattern underlying Malherbe’s first ode is “the union of goddess or demigoddess with hero or prince, and the birth of a son destined to become a great hero” (Rubin 31). From Marie’s comparison to Venus (vv. 31-34), and Henri’s comparison to Achilles (vv. 171-180), Rubin identifies two implied mythological pairs—Venus and Anchises, Peleus and Thetis—whose stories constitute variants of the pattern. It is not so much that Henri or Marie should be identified with one particular figure of the pair, as that the royal couple itself is another variant. The Neptune episode reinforces this pattern in a negative way. Besides the fact that Neptune has abducted a great many goddesses and mortal women, the god represents the might and destructive power of water, both sea-storm and flood. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses (I.275 ff.), while it is Jupiter who decides to destroy humanity by water, it is Neptune who releases the seas and rivers from their established boundaries. Malherbe’s odes repeatedly use water imagery— high seas, storms, and floods—to represent political chaos. The Neptune digres‐ sion recapitulates in miniature the political challenges besetting the French ship of state. Like an overbold great noble, Neptune, reacting to his passions, attempts to meddle with the destiny of France. But a higher power intervened: “un autre démon plus fort, / Aux vents ait imposé silence” [Another, more powerful daemon / Quieted the winds] (vv. 67-68). A “daemon” is a spirit that inhabits the region between heaven and earth, able to cross over the boundary that separates them. This daemon, which will reappear in “Ode sur l’attentat” (1605; 1606), represents an intercessor watching over the destiny of France. Keller’s 139 Chapter 4. The Return of Astraea English formula, “the spirit of France,” is not a bad translation, provided one understands the word “spirit” to be something akin to a guardian angel with the power to intercede in history (Keller 118). In medieval France, saints and angels were alleged to have interceded on the nation’s behalf in times of crisis, and the faithful prayed to them for help (Beaune 17). Malherbe retains the myth of a national destiny without naming the intercessor in Christian terms. The daemon personifies the transcendent forces supporting the patrie [fatherland, nation, country], unmentioned throughout the ode but alluded to in multiple passages. The arrival of Marie therefore has the imprimatur of destiny, and it marks a crucial turning point in Henri’s piloting of the ship of state. Up to now, Henri has navigated the troubled waters of discord without a copilot. The marriage of the goddess with the hero marks a new stage in the political adventure, raising utopian political expectations. The ode’s ninth stanza, which begins the second line of argument, shifts the address from the nation to Marie directly: Ô toute parfaite princessse, L’étonnement de l’univers, Astre par qui vont avoir cesse Nos ténèbres, et nos hivers: (vv. 81-84) [O absolutely perfect princess, / Astonishment of the universe, / Star by whom will cease / Our darkness and our winter.] The tone becomes grave, reverent. The word “astre” means star, but it is particularly apt because Malherbe uses a pun (Astre / Astrée)—another instance of significatio—to crystallize the allegory that has so far remained implicit. The arrival of Marie, France’s new “star,” promises to end “darkness” and “winter,” that is, the collective despair and suffering engendered by decades of civil war. To banish winter is to evoke eternal spring, a metonymy for the Golden Age (Ovid, Metamorphoses I.107: “ver erat aeternum”). Before proceeding to celebrate the utopian consequences of Marie-Astraea’s return, the poet asks a rhetorical question: Example sans autres exemples, Future image de nos temples, Quoi que notre faible pouvoir En votre accueil ose entreprendre, Peut-il espérer de vous rendre Ce que nous vous allons devoir? (vv. 85-90) 140 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes [Example without example, / Future image of our temples, / Whatever our feeble capacity / Dares to attempt at your reception, / Can it hope to repay / What we will owe you? ] The implicit answer is no. The debt which the nation will owe the queen can never be repaid. Such indebtedness and the tone of astonished reverence announce the transformation of Marie from an individual, that is, with physical attributes and personal merits, however extraordinary, to a collective person at one with the life of the nation. This is the divine aspect of Marie. Through her, and thanks to her, the nation will be reborn. The voyage to utopia will succeed. Stanzas ten through twelve imagine in vivid detail the new Golden Age: “Ce sera vous qui de nos villes / Ferez la beauté refleurir, / Vous, qui de haines civiles / Ferez la racine mourir: / Et par vous la paix assurée / N’aura pas la courte durée” [It will be you who our cities’ / Beauty will cause to flourish again, / You who, our civil hatred’s / Root will stamp out: / And peace, guaranteed by you, / Will not be of short duration] (vv. 91-96). These images of peace and prosperity depict the general welfare of the nation. The repetition of “vous” stresses Marie as the cause of this earthly paradise. A wondrous cause begets wondrous effects, and their identity shows that the nation itself has become sacralized. Marie embodies France’s cultural and political renewal because of two crucial roles she will play. First, with the birth of a “Dauphin,” or crown prince, she will legitimate the continuity of the new dynasty and preserve the new political order: “Par vous un Dauphin nous va naître, / Que vous-même verrez un jour / De la terre entière le maître, / Ou par armes ou par amour” [From you a Crown Prince will be born, / Whom one day you yourself will see / Master over the whole earth, / Whether by arms or by love] (vv. 101-104). The son will himself be a great hero, extending France’s empire to “Liban,” “le Bosphore,” and “Memphis.” “Ô combien lors aura de veuves / La gent qui porte le turban! ” [O how many widows then / Will the people who wear turbans have] (vv. 111-112). Keller is surely right to stress that the irreducible otherness of this out-group marks the boundary of the nation, and it may be that the ode threatens to confiscate Frenchness from all those who act “infidèlement” toward the crown (Keller 114). But the language of conquest in the twelfth stanza undoubtedly recalls the heroic deeds of Alexander the Great or Saint Louis. This aspect of the national renaissance should therefore be seen as the return of France’s European dominance, a nostalgia for better days that haunts the early modern imagination. The Dauphin will return the nation to an imaginary hegemony that touches the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire—recalling the sweeping imperium of Rome or Carolingian Christendom. A grand future, imagined as a return to greatness, awaits France under the leadership of Henri, Marie, and their progeny. If there 141 Chapter 4. The Return of Astraea is any glimmer of reconciliation in the ode, as Keller insists, it surely rests on the stark contrast between the French and the Muslims, thereby downplaying the sectarian differences between Frenchmen with a shared allegiance to king and commonwealth. Here, at the end of the second line of argument, the new national myth that will unify the sequence of odes comes into clear focus. Henri IV has successfully conducted the ship of state through the stormy waters of civil war. The arrival of Marie de Médicis, like a bright star, announces clear skies and smooth sailing: justice, peace, and prosperity. In the first two sections of the ode, Malherbe has contrasted the storms, the winter and the darkness of political discord, with the peace, the eternal spring, and the bright skies of political stability. The poet has set up a clear choice. Either Henri, Marie, and the future Dauphin will pilot France to a new Golden Age that includes a return to empire, or “nos rebelles courages” [our rebellious braves] (v. 9), “nos mutins” [our rebels] (v. 12), “Ces Français qui n’ont de la France / Que la langue et l’habillement” [these Frenchmen who have from France / Only the language and the clothing] (vv. 99-100), will chart the course: supporting the placement of a Spanish monarch on the throne, or at least one beholden to Spain and Rome, they caused widespread suffering and nearly wrecked the ship of state. This image of Frenchmen who are French in outward appearance only, but not in their hearts, has been borrowed from Leaguer propaganda (which attacked Huguenots in identical terms) but here has been turned against the enemies of the new regime. They are traitors, and the great harm they have done to their country is the sort of cause that excites anger and hatred (Rhet. 2.2.20, 25; 2.4.5). Calling them “ours” [“nos rebelles courages,” “nos mutins”] is surely ironic. They are “ours” only by default, because they speak the same language, inhabit the same territory, and dress like Frenchmen. One almost hears the poet sneer with that demonstrative adjective: “Ces Français” [Those Frenchmen]. I fail to see how this national identity is differentiated by degrees (Keller 108). The brimming over with love, joy and gratitude toward Marie, and the hatred and anger directed toward internal and external enemies, drive a wedge down the middle of the ode’s first person plural, the national “nous” [we], and defines the identity of true Frenchmen by their support for the eternal fleur-de-lis and by their placement of the welfare of the nation before every other allegiance. The enemies plotting the destruction of the House of France have failed, and while they still reside within the territory, destiny has passed them by. If they refuse to support Marie, Henri, and the new regime, and if the speaker of the ode directs anger and hatred toward them, where is the reconciliation (Keller 110)? They would have to have a profound change of heart to rejoin the national community. 142 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes The second crucial role that Marie will play in the rebirth of the nation is the pacification of Henri the heroic warrior: Cependant notre grand Alcide, Amolli parmi vos appas, Perdra la fureur qui sans bride L’emporte à cherecher le trépas: Et cette valeur indomptée De qui l’honneur est l’Euristée, Puisque rien n’a su l’obliger À ne nous donner plus d’alarmes, Au moins pour épargner vos larmes Aura peur de nous affliger. (vv. 121-130) [In the meantime, our great Alcides, / Softened among your charms, / Will lose the unbridled fury / Driving him to seek out death: / And this indomitable brave heart, / Whose honor is Eurystheus, / Since nothing has been able to compel him / To cease from scaring us, / If only to spare your tears, / Will fear to dismay us.] This Henri-Hercules analogy marks the beginning of the ode’s third line of argument. Henri’s sense of honor has been driving him the way King Eurytheus drove Hercules to one death-defying labor after another. A popular image of Henri IV, Malherbe will continue to develop other aspects of the Hercules analogy in later odes. Here the poet underscores Henri’s indomitable courage as well as the fear of his loss gripping the nation, thus making Marie’s seductive charms all the more powerful and necessary. She alone will prevail over Henri where everyone else has failed. As mentioned, the reason she must pacify the Herculean warrior is that his death would represent a catastrophe for the nation: “Puisqu’il sait qu’en ses destinées / Les nôtres seront terminées” [Because he knows that with his destiny / Our own will come to an end] (vv. 165-166). Henri has tied the destiny of the nation to his own. These intertwined destinies suggest that the king’s mystical body, the nation, cannot survive without the head. Feelings of fear and dread at the prospect of such great harm arise alongside the other powerful emotions in the ode (Rhet. 2.5.1-2). The other reason she must pacify Henri is that the public good of France going forward will depend on his political leadership—a role that he cannot fulfill if he is off fighting somewhere or killed in action. The implicit comparison of Henri to Achilles in stanza eighteen functions as an example to support the argument that it is time for Henri to stop conducting his own military campaigns: 143 Chapter 4. The Return of Astraea Cet Achille de qui la pique Faisait aux braves d’Ilion La terreur que fait en Afrique Aux troupeaux l’assaut d’un lion, Bien que sa mère eût à ses armes, Ajouté la force des charmes, Quand les Destins l’eurent permis, N’eut-il pas sa trame coupée, De la moins redoutable épée Qui fut parmi ses ennemis? (vv. 171-180) [The Achilles whose sting / Inspired the brave Trojans / With the terror that in Africa / The assault of a lion inspires in herds, / Although his mother to his weapons / Added the force of magic, / When the Fates had permitted it, / Did he not have his thread cut, / By the least formidable sword / That was among the enemy? ] The inference, which the reader is left to draw, is that no hero, however great, is invulnerable to death. No virtue, however great, may defy misfortune. Henri has achieved immortal glory and proven his worth before all the world. Now is the time to retire from the battlefield before it is too late: “Les Parques d’une même soie / Ne dévident pas tous nos jours” [The Parcae, with the same thread, / Do not unwind all our days] (vv. 181-182). If Achilles can be cut down by “la moins redoutable épée” [the least formidable sword], so can Henri. Were this to happen, Henri’s achievements and the kingdom’s bright future would evaporate. Another sort of test, or trial, therefore awaits Henri. Now that he has won the crown and attained the immortality of glory—“Lui de qui la gloire semée / Par les voix de la renommée / En tant de parts s’est fait ouïr, / Que tout le siècle en est un livre” [He whose glory spread / By the voices of renown / In so many regions has been heard, / That the whole century reads like a book of his exploits] (vv. 135-138)—he must master himself. He must change if he is to assume his new responsibilities. However, in the mythological pattern identified by Rubin, a danger lurks: “the couple’s separation caused by male pride” (Rubin, Higher 31-32). The pattern typically has a tragic outcome: male pride mars, and even undermines, the union of goddess and hero that leads to the birth of a son destined for greatness. As Rubin observes, the ode presents to the royal couple the possibility of breaking “the tragic cycle of pride and separation that trapped their legendary predecessors” (Rubin 36). This overcoming would be the true basis of Henri’s and Marie’s greatness and their exemplarity: “by [breaking the cycle] they will transform themselves into personages uniquely worthy of veneration by contemporaries and by posterity. Indeed, they will become the 144 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 6 See Ernest Barker’s commentary on this passage in his The Politics of Aristotle, “Note B” (New York: Oxford UP) 7-8. principals of a new and felicitous model for relations among those who, superior in kind and degree to ordinary men, control the destiny of nations” (Rubin 36). In Joseph Campbell’s hero cycle, the sexual union of hero and goddess constitutes one variation of “the supreme ordeal” whose successful fulfillment earns the hero the gift he came to seek before returning to the everyday world (Campbell 211). The goddess represents “the paragon of all paragons of beauty, the reply to all desire, the bliss-bestowing goal of every hero’s earthly and unearthly quest” (Campbell 92). The gift she bestows in her union with the hero is “the bliss that once was known” (Campbell 92). But this bliss is more than pleasure. For those with a deeper understanding of the nature of the cosmos, it is the knowledge, bestowed in her embrace, that the goddess incarnates both creation and destruction, “Cosmic Power, the totality of the universe, the harmonization of all the pairs of opposites, combining wonderfully the terror of absolute destruction with an impersonal yet motherly assurance” (Campbell 95). “Only geniuses capable of the highest realization can support the full revelation of the sublimity of the goddess. For lesser men she reduces her effulgence and permits herself to appear in forms concordant with their undeveloped powers” (Campbell 97). However, if the hero answers her call and follows where she leads, the couple “will be released from every limitation” (Campbell 97), that is, together they will know and live the bliss that incorporates life and death, suffering and joy, time and eternity. Campbell’s analysis of the union of hero and goddess adds a cosmic or universal dimension to the pattern underlying “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601). The historical principals, Henri and Marie, act out the historical drama of the nation, but also that of every man and woman. If the reader of the ode is no king or queen, he or she must still take a similar journey. The exemplarity of the principals invites the reader to release himself, or herself, from the limitations that hold back the realization of true bliss, one of the preconditions for the return of the Golden Age in France. The sexual union of Henri and Marie, of hero and goddess, therefore represents a transformational event that tests Henri’s character in two ways. First, he must allow himself to rejoice in his achievement: “N’est-il pas indigne de vivre / S’il ne vit pour se réjouir? ” [Is he not unworthy of life / If he does not live to rejoice? ] (vv. 139-140). Such happiness, such bliss, is the product of autarkeia, self-sufficiency, and makes life worth living. In Aristotle’s Politics, it is the highest end of the state and only achievable by and within a political association (Politics 1.2.8 1252b25-1253a; NE 1.7.7). 6 What is the point of all the 145 Chapter 4. The Return of Astraea fighting, of securing the good life for himself and his people, if he does not stop to rejoice? Second, with the arrival of peace, new necessities and new avenues of glory have opened up. Marie should focus Henri’s ambition on the begetting of a male heir: Et puisque selon son dessein Il a rendu nos troubles calmes, S’il veut davantage de palmes, Qu’il les acquerre en votre sein. C’est là qu’il faut qu’à son Génie, Seul arbitre de ses plaisirs, Quoi qu’il demande il ne dénie Rien qu’imaginent ses désirs: C’est là qu’il faut que les années Lui coulent comme des journées Et qu’il ait de quoi se vanter, Que la douceur qui tout excède, N’est point ce que sert Ganymède À la table de Jupiter. (vv. 147-160) [And since, according to his intention, / He has calmed our upheavals, / If he desires more honors, / Let him acquire them in your bosom. / / There, his Genius, / The sole arbiter of his pleasures, / Whatever it asks, must not be denied / Anything which his desires imagine: / There must his years / Pass by for him like days, / And there must he have reason to boast / That the sweetness which surpasses all / Is not what Ganymede serves / At the table of Jupiter.] This stanza, the sixteenth, strikes a mystical tone. The “sein” [bosom, but also womb] of Marie takes on the proportions of the cosmos, encompassing time and space and meeting the hero’s every desire. The unfettered pleasures of Eros represent neither an abdication of responsibility nor a loss of honor, since love making is the only way to beget a legitimate heir to the throne. The hyperbolic conceit that ranks such pleasures above ambrosia, the food of the gods served by Ganymede, suggests that “la douceur qui tout excède” [the sweetness that surpasses all] is a this-worldly bliss that goes beyond divine pleasure. Why is this a test? To experience such bliss, Henri will have to put the general welfare of the nation ahead of his own fear about losing face and above his own desire to win more glory. He will have to shift his focus and his energy away from warfare toward dynastic and civic affairs. Marie’s blissful pacification of Henri will induce this necessary transformation from heroic warrior to head of state. 146 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes The ode’s last four stanzas offer specific examples of the military challenges presently facing the kingdom and give Malherbe the chance to express his opinion on the proper role to be played by the nobility in the new regime. The ode mentions several active theaters of armed conflict related to the duchy of Savoy. A source of irritation for Henri, and a strategic territory used by the Spanish to run supplies and munitions to their armies in Holland, the duchy of Savoy presented pressing strategic concerns. Charles Emmanuel, duke of Savoy, had reneged on his promise, stipulated in the peace of Vervins, to hand over “Carmagnole” (v. 191), that is, the marquisate of Saluzzo. The ode’s recognition that the crisis, a matter of pride for Henri, would be yet another opportunity for the monarch to display his military genius and to win glory—“Je sais bien que sa Carmagnole / Devant lui se représentant, / Telle qu’une plaintive idole / Va son courroux sollicitant, / Et l’invite à prendre pour elle / Une légitime querelle” [I know that his Carmagnole / Appearing before him / Like a plaintive image / Excites his anger, / And invites him to take up on its behalf / A legitimate quarrel] (vv. 191-196)—frames the delegation of this responsibility to the great nobility in the terms of emulation, a powerful civic emotion mentioned by Aristotle in the Rhetoric, which spurs the great-souled to attain for themselves the honor and other good things which others like them have attained (Rhet. 2.11.1). The king could win more glory for himself, or he could give the other great souls of the kingdom the chance to win some for themselves. In August, 1600, Henri dispatched Biron to take Bresse and ordered Lesdiguières to attack Chambéry, the old capitol of Savoy. Both campaigns were a success, although Charles Emmanuel remained at a safe distance in Turino. Accordingly, Malherbe predicts that Henri may safely delegate the attack on Turino to Soisson and the assault on Nice to Guise, both former rivals to Henri for the crown. “In one stroke,” writes Rubin, “Malherbe demonstrates that others may successfully pursue the king’s foreign military objectives, and he suggests that the king need not fear internal strife, since old rivals, now reconciled to the crown, successfully execute its external policies” (Rubin, Higher 36). Such contemporary historical examples coming at the end of the ode show the great souls of the nobility channeling their desire for glory into military service pro rege et patria. This would be the only avenue for reconciliation in the ode, if there is any. But again, such heroic striving on the part of old rivals presupposes their total transformation. These contemporary historical examples also become raw material for the transformation of history into the timelessness of myth. One of the ode’s most sublime moments comes in the antepenultimate stanza, which sums up the whole third line of argument: 147 Chapter 4. The Return of Astraea Si vos yeux sont toute sa braise, Et vous la fin de tous ses voeux, Peut-il pas languir à son aise En la prison de vos cheveux? Et commettre aux dures corvées Toutes ces âmes relevées, Que d’un conseil ambitieux La faim de gloire persuade D’aller sur les pas d’Encélade Porter des échelles aux cieux? (vv. 201-210) [If your eyes are all his kindling, / And if you are the end of all his desires, / Can he not languish at ease / In the prison of your hair? / And give the difficult labors / To these towering souls whom, / With ambitious counsel, / The hunger for glory persuades, / To follow the steps of Enceladus, / Raising their ladders to the skies? ] This stanza is a fine combination of charm and force achieved through striking metaphors and mythological example. The rhetorical question has two parts. The first uses the traditional tropes of fin amor: prison, fires, and sworn fidelity to the lady. The image of Marie’s hair as a prison, where the hero “pleasurably languishes,” stoking his passion with her eyes, suggests a scene of love making. The tresses hanging down around him are the bars. Two oxymorons, “vos yeux sont toute sa braise” [your eyes are all his kindling], where water = fire, and “languir à son aise” [languish at ease], where suffering = pleasure, evoke the strange harmony of opposites that poets from Petrarch to Sappho have used to describe the experience of being in love. In the second part, the diction becomes more elevated, and the allusion to Enceladus, one of the giants who stormed Olympus, shifts the register toward epic poetry. The mythological example, taken from book 1 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, creates an allegorical image for the reader: the great nobles, “ces âmes relevées” [these towering souls], motivated by ambition, and hungry for glory, are imagined as the giants scaling heaven, “Porter des échelles aux cieux” [raising ladders to the skies]. This last image is sublime because it is impossible. “Cieux” is a metonymy, standing for the great height of Olympus (or city walls). But the reader literally sees ladders soaring into an empty sky—an image that captures the energy, ambition, and boldness of the French nobility who will lead the assault against Savoy. Their success “Changera la fable en histoire / De Phaéton en l’Éridan” [will change the myth into history / Of Phaethon in the Eridanus river] (vv. 219-220). They will precipitate the arrogant duke of Savoy, like Phaethon, into the Po. The combination of enchantment, terror, and thrill provoked by this stanza is 148 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes calculated to transport the reader beyond logical demonstration to support the union of king and queen and the campaigns against Savoy. The ode invites the projection of these images onto the historical actors and events. History becomes myth, and myth becomes history. Not to be forgotten is the implicit example of Malherbe himself. One can hardly conceive a better way to serve the new political regime than by writing such a majestic ode. Malherbe has rendered Henri IV and Marie de Médicis an invaluable service. It is not simply that the ode praises them, publicly acknowledging their preeminence and their virtue. Rather, the ode lifts the historical particulars of the occasion out of their spatiotemporal limits and transfers them to the symbolic space of classical literature. The tools which the ode uses to praise and to persuade—example and metaphor—operate on the reader’s imagination, transforming the historical into the mythological, conjuring a national community from the image of the ship of state, and creating the expectation of a new Golden Age ushered in by Henri and Marie. The political implication being drawn throughout the ode is that setting the new dynasty on a firm foundation is good for France, and that is why everyone should welcome this marriage. An end to the suffering and devastation caused by “nos haines civiles” [our civil hatreds] (v. 93) is within sight, if only nobles on both sides of the conflict will redirect their energies away from resentment and toward emulation pro rege et patria. The ode is itself an example of doing so. Writing poetry thus becomes a special way to display one’s magnanimity in the new regime, as it joins the power and pleasure of eloquence to the right conduct of the heroes and heroines who control the destiny of nations. 149 Chapter 4. The Return of Astraea 7 See David Buisseret, Henri IV (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984) 110: “Spanish agents were constantly active among the French nobles, and received an exceptionally favorable reception from the maréchal de Biron. [] But he was by no means the only great French noble in Spanish pay; about July 1599 the duc de Guise was well hooked, and in 1601 the duc de Bouillon was also negotiating with Spanish representatives.” 8 Psalm 72 in the King James Bible. In the French version of Malherbe’s day, it was Psalm 71. See Jean-Pierre Chauveau and Benoît de Cornulier, “Malherbe émule de Bertaut, Chapter 5. The Trials of the King Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin (1605; 1607) Ode sur l’attentat en la personne de sa majesté (1605; 1606) The next two odes in the sequence respond to genuine political crises. In “Prière pour le roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607), it is the eve of the king’s departure to put down a rebellion orchestrated by the duke de Bouillon, a former Protestant ally. 7 In “Ode sur l’attentat commis en la personne de Sa Majesté” (1605; 1606), an attempt on the king’s life has revealed the fragility of the political order. Both use the commonplace of the ship of state to organize the various other mythological motifs within each ode and to link these crises to the overarching quest cycle of the sequence. The Dauphin foretold in “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601) has been born, but this joyful gift attained in the bosom of the bride-goddess, Astraea, has not been accepted by recalcitrant nobles. The storms of political discord have returned. The hero, Henri, undergoes trials of great magnitude, but the French nation may not be up to the challenge of rebirth. With so much at stake, Malherbe invokes higher powers, “Dieu” [God] (“Prière,” v. 1) and a “Grand démon d’éternelle marque” [Great daemon with the mark of eternity] (“Ode sur l’attentat,” v. 151), seeking guidance and protection at this crucial juncture. But the Malherbian poet does not forsake his toga for the vestments of a prophet or a priest. Such invocations are a shrewd persuasive tactic that pits national sentiment against private interests. Malherbe adopts the ethos of the great soul on both occasions, modeling loyalty and emulation, and unleashing a hitherto untapped gravitas to rescue the “Empire français” [French realm] (“Ode sur l’attentat,” v. 134) from total ruin. 1. Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin (1605; 1607) This particular ode is unique in the sequence. What sets it apart is the intertext that structures it. Without abandoning allusions to classical literature (Virgil, Ovid), it is modeled after Psalm 72. 8 A psalm, like a hymn, is a public form 150 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes ou: qui loue mieux? Un nouveau regard sur ‘la Priére pour le Roy allant en Limozin,’” RHLF, no. 2 (1993) 163-171. of prayer. Before it was fashionable for Catholics to publish translations of the Psalms, they were sung in secret at Protestant congregations. Clément Marot (1496-1544) did an early translation of them at great personal risk to himself. The choice of a psalm as the model for this ode pays tribute to Henri’s Protestant origins and, by extension, makes an overture to his Protestant brethren. The final stanza’s foretelling of the destruction of Spain would have pleased the enemies of the Holy League (even if many great nobles, including some Huguenots, were in the pay of Spain). On the other hand, the portrayal of an absolute Catholic monarch bearing down on a recalcitrant Huguenot would have appealed to former Leaguers and supporters of the Counter-Reformation. The ode’s intertexts, both biblical and classical, therefore seek to bridge the sectarian divide by evoking a flawed pattern which, to be overcome, requires the cooperation of all subjects. Yet this “prayer” is less a declaration of faith placing the poet in one religious camp or the other and more the creation of French solidarity. A strong national sentiment pulses throughout the ode. Spain is a Catholic power, but here it plays the role of the enemy of France. The concept of the nation (la patrie), while unmentioned, lurks underneath this prayer. The ode provides clues to draw it out (i.e. the ship of state, images of a new Golden Age, and the vision of empire restored). This figure, whether significatio, which “leaves more to be suspected than has been actually asserted” (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.53.67), or emphasis, which obliges the reader to extract “latens aliquid,” some hidden meaning (Quintilian 8.3.83, 9.2.64), attempts to implicate the reader in the national community. The active reading modifies the reader’s cognitive and affective dispositions by presenting a choice between emotionally charged alternatives: chaos and order, affliction and felicity, decadence and empire etc. The ode urges Henri’s subjects, greater and lesser, but particularly the great nobility, to put the common good of the nation above personal ambition and confessional loyalty. The choice of a psalm is significant also because it signals the ode’s incorpo‐ ration of the plainer variety of Hellenistic grandeur. Early modern theorists of sacred eloquence from Trebizond (1433) to Caussin (1617) redefined grandeur in terms of solemnity, emotional intensity, and conceptual loftiness to include the Bible and the Psalms, with their un-Ciceronian style, among the models of eloquence (Shuger 155-159). The ode in no way abandons the verbal copia and figurative richness associated with Ciceronian eloquence, but the solemnity and gravitas of the submerged psalm create an atmosphere of reverence, fear, 151 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King and wonder. By this means Malherbe endows the occasion and the details of the ode with a suggestive intensity they might not otherwise have. The stakes of Henri’s departure to put down a rebellion could not be higher, and the ode parlays these feelings of apprehension into an impassioned patriotism. The full-stopped alexandrines convey the gravitas and grandeur appropriate to the office of monarch and to the solemnity of the occasion (departure for war), while the clarity of diction, the metrical exactitude, and logical argument embody the restraint which keeps the language from slipping into bombast or sophistical refinement. The ode’s main argument is straightforward: because the nation’s felicity depends on Henri’s navigation of the ship of state through dangerous waters, the poet asks God to inspire the king with divine wisdom. The image of the ship underscores that a common fate and a collective interest, more than religious or blood ties, bind the subjects of the nation. They will sink or reach utopia together. It is less a question of Frenchness than loyalty to king and commonwealth. Feelings of gratitude, fear, and reverence at this critical juncture separate true Frenchmen from enemies of the regime who are feeling discouraged, spiteful, and impatient. The request for divine guidance repeats with variations, amplifications, and digressions throughout the ode. David Lee Rubin does an excellent job of revealing the ode’s logical structure despite its non-sequential development (Rubin, Knot 18-19). The amplifications and digressions are not non sequiturs but rather offer supporting material for the main argument. The ode may be divided into five parts: 1) stanzas one through four state the request and set up the ode’s underlying conceit; 2) stanza five initiates the first explanatory digression, returning to variants of the request in stanzas seven and eight; 3) stanzas nine through fifteen depict the utopian consequences of God answering the request; 4) stanza sixteen initiates the second explanatory digression to arrive, in stanza nineteen, at the final iteration of the request; 5) the last two stanzas, twenty and twenty-one, look to the future, imagining the victory of Henri and the Dauphin against Spain. The ode begins in the midst of the political crisis, at the point where the speaker raises up his voice to pray to God. The first four stanzas, therefore, quickly inform the reader about the problem facing the nation and present the main argument in the form of a conceit. The situation is this: God has taken pity on the sufferings of the national community, marked by Keller’s national “nous” [we] (“Ô Dieu, dont les bontés de nos larmes touchées,” [O God, whose goodness, touched by our tears] v. 1), and he has brought the overweening rebels back to their senses (“rangé l’insolence aux pieds de la raison,” [brought insolence to the heels of reason] v. 3). But true felicity has not yet taken hold. What is worse, 152 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes noble conspiracy and agitation in the Limousin have called up fears of a return to the lawlessness that prevailed during the Wars of Religion. Rendered by images of suffering, decadence, and destruction, this fear is palpable throughout the ode. The core request made of God takes the form of an enthymeme whose premises and consequences generate all the other stanzas (Rubin, Knot 18): “Puisque’à rien d’imparfait ta louange n’aspire, / Achève ton ouvrage au bien de cet empire, / Et nous rends l’embonpoint comme la guérison” [And since your praise aspires to nothing imperfect, / Complete your work for the good of this empire, / And give us back flourishing good health as well as recovery] (vv. 4-6). “The speaker takes for granted,” writes Rubin, “that God (who is doubly perfect, i.e., both complete and flawless) contemplates only such action as reflects His nature and thus adds to His greater glory” (Rubin, Knot 18). The metaphors “embonpoint” and “guérison,” moreover, evoke the health of a body. Thus, while acknowledging the blessing of recovery, the poet asks God to bring His work to completion, that is, to restore the body politic to a flourishing state of health. To avoid the appearance of ingratitude, a concession (“Certes,” [To be sure] v. 13) immediately follows the request. The ode acknowledges with gratitude the arrival of a savior for the nation. God, in His generosity, has sent an extraordinary king, “si vaillant, si sage” [so courageous, so wise] (v. 7), who “a fait l’apprentissage, / De toutes les vertus propres à commander” [Has completed the apprenticeship / Of every virtue proper for leadership] (v. 8). Henri’s “force,” [strength, power] (v. 18), the virtue which quieted the raging storms of discord, is an object of gratitude and wonder: Certes quiconque a vu pleuvoir dessus nos têtes Les funestes éclats des plus grandes tempêtes Qu’excitèrent jamais deux contraires partis, Et n’en voit aujourd’hui nulle marque paraître, En ce miracle seul il peut assez connaître Quelle force a la main qui nous a garantis. (vv. 13-18) [To be sure, whoever has seen raining on our heads / The deadly cloudbursts of the greatest storms / That two opposed factions ever incited, / And today sees no trace of them appear, / In this miracle alone he can sufficiently recognize / What strength is possessed by the hand that has preserved us.] This stanza is a fine example of significatio per similitudem, that is, sparking an inference through the presentation of one half of an analogy (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.54.67), while the hyperbole (“plus grandes tempêtes,” “jamais,” “nulle marque”) excites fear and wonder. The storm imagery (“pleuvoir,” “éclats,” “tempêtes”) represents the civil war and the nation’s suffering (“dessus nos têtes”) caused 153 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King by Huguenots and Leaguers (“deux contraires partis”). From this hyperbole the reader infers the magnitude of the danger that threatened the ship of state, which is a cause for fear, and its complete effacement in turn suggests the magnitude of Henri’s power or force, a cause for wonder. The word “main” [hand] is a metonymy that suggests more than it says, a form of rhetorical emphasis (Quintilian 8.3.83). It evokes Henri’s arm, that is, his sword, a symbol of his military prowess, but also the hand on the wheel, helm, or tiller steering the metaphorical ship. These distinct activities, warfare and governance, imply distinct virtues (courage and wisdom, cf. v. 7). Similarly, the “force” animating the hand could be human or divine. Such imagery hints at the ode’s underlying conceit which arrives in stanza four. Henri’s military prowess, miraculous as it is, will not be enough “en des nuits si profondes” [in such profound darkness] (v. 22) to steer the ship of state “Parmi tant de rochers que lui cachent les ondes, / Si ton entendement ne gouverne pas le sien” [Among so many rocks hidden by the waves, / If your understanding does not govern his] (vv. 23-24). The great harm which such lurking danger could inflict is certainly a cause for fear. Here is the crux of the prayer. France will survive—and thrive—only if God illuminates Henri’s judgment. Military prowess has brought peace, but only practical wisdom can bring about true felicity. The ode gratefully acknowledges the king’s martial valor, but ardently requests God’s wisdom for Henri. Variants of the request recur in the seventh stanza: Et comme sa valeur, maitresse de l’orage, À nous donner la paix a montré son courage, Fais luire sa prudence à nous l’entretenir. (vv. 40-42) [And as his bravery, master of the storm, / Displayed his courage to give us peace, / Illuminate his judgment to preserve it for us.] And again in the eighth stanza: L’aide qu’il veut avoir, c’est que tu le conseilles: (v. 46) [The assistance he wants to receive is your counsel] The whole conceit could have been inspired by the different meanings of the verb “gouverner” (v. 24), which include navigation and government, but also nurturing influence. If God’s wisdom inspires Henri, then Henri will successfully navigate the ship of state through dangerous waters, and the body politic will be able to achieve its fullest health. Rubin sees here an acknowledgment of innate human deficiency remedied by God’s grace (Rubin, 154 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes Knot 18). One cannot rule out such an interpretation. The ode certainly supports the view that Malherbe contrasts God’s perfection, which is complete and flawless, with Henri’s exceptional but merely human qualities, thereby setting up the possibility that, only with God’s help, can Henri and the French overcome the pitfalls that have plagued other kingdoms (Rubin, Knot 18). Overcoming this flawed pattern is crucial to the ode’s ideological message. But there is another way to read this contrast between divine and human. Courage and strength are insufficient to overcome political challenges. The king will need to use his higher human faculties, “entendement,” “prudence,” “conseil,” all aspects of practical wisdom (phronēsis). The request made of God to illuminate Henri’s phronēsis is noteworthy because the ode could have chosen to celebrate God for the king’s achievements, or it could have chosen to place total faith in God’s providence. Jean-Pierre Chauveau and Benoît de Cornulier have compared Malherbe’s “Prière,” Psalm 72, and the translation of Bertaut, a poet contemporary with Malherbe. They show that Bertaut’s version, much more faithful to the letter of the psalm, exhibits total confidence in God’s saving grace, whereas Malherbe’s ode subtly shifts agency to the human sphere by focusing the glory on Henri’s achievement (“Malherbe émule de Bertaut,” 168). By asking God to work through Henri, Malherbe valorizes human agency and underscores the king’s irreplaceability. The assurance that Henri will accomplish “marvels” with God’s help (v. 47) sets up a clear choice for the subjects of the new nation, especially the great nobility. The ode’s purpose is not simply to aggrandize Henri—although it does that. It also seeks to redirect competing interests and noble pride, including any lingering animosity between Catholic and Protestant, away from internecine struggle toward a common purpose, a utopia of peace, prosperity, and justice imagined as the restoration of a great empire. One tactic for moving the greater and lesser subjects of the nation toward cooperation—we just saw it—is to align France’s full recovery with God’s will (so that any opposition is futile and wrong). The ode’s third part (stanzas nine through fifteen), which takes up the theme of the return of the Golden Age, constitutes another powerful tactic. It makes an appeal to the public good, that is, the interests of the commonwealth. By evoking the theme of the ship of state, and by contrasting the collective benefits of supporting Henri with the collective suffering of civil war, the ode encourages the inference that support for the public good best promotes individual happiness. The long digression celebrating the return of the Golden Age (stanzas nine through fifteen) illustrates this point. It contrasts the evils of the old order with the marvels of the new. A series of antitheses conveys the astonishing reversals 155 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King that Henri will bring about when sustained by God’s wisdom. First, he will stamp out rebellion and sedition: “Les fuites des méchants, tant soient-elles secrètes, / Quand il les poursuivra n’auront point de cachettes” [The flights of evil-doers, however secret they may be, / When he pursues them will have no hiding places] (vv. 49-50). This achievement, less physical than moral and intellectual, opposes light to darkness. Despite subterfuge and stratagems, the light of phronēsis will disrupt and eradicate the conspiracies of the wicked, reaching into the dark recesses of their hearts and minds (“les desseins qu’ils feront pour lui nuire, / Aussitôt confondus comme délibérés” [the plans they will make to harm him, / As soon thwarted as contemplated] vv. 53-54). The effects of their bad intentions will be their own shame (v. 52). Such omnipotent luminosity, recalling the creation in Genesis and the triumph of the hosts of light over the rebel angels, and delivered with four antitheses, aims to fill the reader’s mind with awe and reverence. Second, with God’s illumination, Henri will restore justice. The rule of law will replace lawlessness; the weak will be lifted up; and the oppressor will be chastened: La rigueur de ses lois, après tant de licence, Redonnera le coeur à la faible innocence, Que dedans la misère on faisait envieillir: À ceux qui l’oppressaient, il ôtera l’audace: Et sans distinction de richesse, ou de race, Tous de peur de la peine auront peur de faillir. (vv. 55-60) [The exactitude of his laws, after so much license, / Will lift the hearts of the weak and the innocent, / Made to grow old in misery: / Of those who oppressed them, he will remove the audacity: / And regardless of wealth, or family, / Each from fear of punishment will fear to err.] This passage evokes two important conditions for the return of the nation’s general welfare: scrupulousness in the application of the law (“rigueur” [se‐ verity, exactitude]), and newfound respect for the law by the wealthy and the well-born. As the great nobles were widely held responsible for the depredation and destruction of private property so prevalent during the Wars of Religion, the new fear of the king’s justice probably refers to them. In protecting the weak against the strong and liberating the innocent from their former lives of fear and hardship, the king performs one of his traditional duties as sovereign. Such images of the restoration of justice are calculated to inspire hope. Third, with conspiracy eradicated and justice restored, peace and prosperity can take hold: 156 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes La terreur de son nom rendra nos villes fortes, On n’en gardera plus ni les murs ni les portes, Les veilles cesseront aux sommets de nos tours: Le fer mieux employé cultivera la terre, Et le peuple qui tremble aux frayeurs de la guerre, Si ce n’est pour danser, n’aura plus de tambours. (vv. 61-66) [The terror of his name will make our cities strong, / Their walls and gates will no longer be guarded, / And the watches posted on the heights of our towers will cease: / Iron, put to better use, will cultivate our fields, / And our people trembling at the fears of war, / If it is not for dancing, will have no more drums.] The unguarded walls, gates, and towers vividly illustrate the arrival of a new era of utopian safety and security, while the transformation of “le fer” (iron) from a sword to a plough and the conversion of “tambours” (drums) from military to musical instruments signal the return to a happier, more prosperous way of life for the French people. The echo of Isaiah 2: 4, “And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,” serves to evoke the coming of a universal peace, and it adds a touch of grandeur in the plain style. The effect is miraculous. A fortiori, it provokes fearful wonder for the man whose mere name is the cause. What is more, anyone who opposes such marvels which benefit the whole country becomes an enemy of the commonwealth. The binary opposition here as elsewhere in the ode presents a stark choice. Either one participates in the national renaissance, or one is a wicked oppressor, one of those “esprits nés à la tyrannie” [minds born for tyranny] (v. 103) who has been profiting from “des misères publiques” [public sufferings] (v. 28). Fourth, the restoration of peace, prosperity, and justice will engender a moral and cultural rebirth: “Les vertus reviendront de palmes couronnées, / Et ses justes faveurs aux mérites données, / Feront ressuciter l’excellence des arts” [Virtues will come back crowned with palms, / And his just favors given to merit / Will revive the excellence of the arts] (vv. 70-72). The contrast between the banishment of vices that led the nation to the brink of destruction and the monarch’s recognition of true merit represents the total transformation of the “moeurs de son siècle” (v. 67), that is, the change which Henri causes in the customs, habits, and character of his contemporaries. Magnanimity is the new rule—yet another cause for wonder. This renaissance presents a new opportu‐ nity for the nobility. The caste was forever complaining that its virtues went unrecognized. Malherbe uses the shift from war to peace to suggest a new outlet for noble energies. The monarch’s magnanimous recognition of excellence could include traditional avenues of honor, like military or administrative service. But 157 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King the antithesis of the “derniers hasards” [ultimate dangers] (v. 69) of civil war and the “excellence des arts” [excellence of the arts] (v. 72) revived under Henri suggests a third way. Nobles assembled at court will participate in its cultural life and compete for honors in the arts. Malherbe implicitly offers himself and his poem as examples of merit recognized by the king, and the patronage from Bellegarde on Henri’s behalf would have reinforced the point. Fifth, Henri will practice and promote the true faith: “la foi de ses aïeux” [the faith of his ancestors] (v. 73). This stanza, the thirteenth, contains not a single antithesis. This plainness becomes conspicuous in context, and it raises the suspicion that the “meaning is other than the words imply” (Quintilian 9.2.65). The letter of the text promises the establishment of a temporal kingdom of God. On the one hand, the imagery stresses Henri’s personal faith. The fear and love of God that Henri carries in his heart (“ton amour, et ta crainte, / Dont il porte dans l’âme une éternelle empreinte” [your love, and your fear, / Whose eternal stamp he carries in his soul] vv. 73-74) suggests an unmediated connection to God. Where is there mention of the Pope or the Catholic Church? On the other hand, a distant era when there was only one “universal” faith is recalled by the phrase “la foi de ses aïeux,” but also by Henri’s thirst for acts of piety (v. 75), and by the dissemination of divine glory coextensive with Henri’s authority (“Il étendra ta gloire autant que sa puissance: / Et n’ayant rien si cher que ton obéissance, / Où tu le fais régner il te fera servir” [He will spread your glory as far as his power: / And holding nothing so dear as obedience to you, / Where you establish his reign, he will have you obeyed] vv. 76-78). There is nothing to keep each religious faction from seeing in the stanza what it wishes. What is clear is that the new political order will serve God’s will. Noble leaders will no longer be able to use confessional loyalty as a pretext for sedition. The solemnity and the dignity of this stanza are most in keeping with the rhetoric of a psalm, and the wonder derives from the conceptual grandeur of a temporal kingdom of God. Stanzas fourteen and fifteen conclude the utopian interlude. In stanza four‐ teen, the antithesis of “nos douces destinées” [our sweet destinies] (v. 79) to the “fâcheuses années” [frustrating years] (v. 80) of civil war depicts the depth of the transformation wrought by Henri. One image in particular leaves no doubt that the political felicity imagined by the ode marks the return of the Golden Age: “La moisson de nos champs laissera les faucilles” [The harvest of our fields will neglect the scythe] (v. 83). There is such abundance, one no longer needs to work the fields. One has simply to pluck. It is as if the fields harvested themselves. Stanza fifteen, summing up the third line of argument (“La fin de tant d’ennuis dont nous fûmes la proie, / Nous ravira les sens de merveille, et de joie” [The 158 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes end of such torments that preyed on us, / Will ravish our sense with wonder, and joy] vv. 85-86), restates the ode’s request with a slight variation, asking God to keep from harm the man responsible for “notre aise” [our well-being] (v. 89). All the elements of the ode’s underlying pattern are now in place for the reader to combine them. David Lee Rubin proposes a pattern of unfulfillment supplied by Psalm 72 and, notably, Virgil’s fourth eclogue, a major locus classicus (besides Ovid’s Metamorphoses) for commonplaces on the Golden Age (Rubin, Knot 21-28). Psalm 72, which is dedicated to Solomon, suggests the following analogy: Henri = Solomon, France = Israel. “It is not Henri IV as a modern Solomon that Malherbe implicitly portrays, but Henri IV as a less flawed, more fully realized version of the Solomon prototype set forth in the psalm” (Rubin, Knot 24). In similar fashion, Virgil’s fourth eclogue also evokes a parallel: Rome = France; Pollio = Henri; the child = the Dauphin. “Some of the elements contributed by this analogy, however, are oxymoronic. Neither Pollio nor the child is personally responsible for the return of the Golden Age. [] By contrast, it is Henri IV himself, aided by God’s gifts of advice, longevity, and a successor in his own image, who will radically alter the life of France” (Rubin, Knot 27-28). These analogies are sufficient to suggest the following pattern: many of David’s hopes as well as the predictions of Virgil are unfulfilled: Solomon fails to raise his people’s standard of living and eventually yields to greed and impiety (Kings 9-12); Rome does not see the return of the Golden Age during the consulship of Pollio (Rubin, Knot 28). Rubin concludes that God will intervene in France’s history and reverse the pattern of decadence when he inspires Henri with divine wisdom. The general tenor of this interpretation seems correct, although Rubin places too much emphasis on God’s implacable will. The ode’s focus on Henri’s—and the Dauphin’s—glory suggests that human freedom has not been eliminated from the overall picture. If God does not send his grace, France will fail. If God does, France may still fail. If and only if Henri, the great nobility, and the French people act wisely (i.e. with phronēsis), will they have the chance to correct the flawed patterns of Rome and Israel. The choice between rebellion and order, affliction and felicity, presented by the ode thus far argues not just for the acceptance of Henri IV but for the nation’s active support of the regime. To act wisely in this case is to act in concert for the sake of the commonwealth. Such active choices constitute a subject’s membership in the nation. A series of alternatives comes into focus in the fourth part of the ode, stanzas sixteen through nineteen. These stanzas contrast the public good of the nation with the private interests of unworthy leaders. In portraying Henri as the 159 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King salvation of France, “des bons roi l’éternel exemplaire, / Qui de notre salut est l’ange tutélaire” [The eternal paragon of good kings, / Who is the guardian angel of our salvation] (vv. 97-98), the ode contrasts him with two foils: 1. the bad king (“un roi fainéant, la vergogne des princes, / Laissant à ses flatteurs le soin de ses provinces” [a do-nothing king, the shame of princes, / Leaving to his flatterers the care of the provinces] (vv. 91-92), and 2. overweening great nobles, like the Guise brothers, or the duke de Bouillon leading the revolt in Limousin, “esprits nés à la tyrannie” [minds born for tyranny] whose “cruelle manie” [cruel madness] and “conseils” [advice] have led to “notre affliction” [our affliction] (vv. 103-105). The choice is stark. The subjects of the nation can side with a worthy and gifted king, which is the path to prosperity and greatness, or they can plunge France back into chaos under the leadership of cruel and tyrannical lords. The ode does not present the choice as morally neutral. At the same time, the ode does not spell anything out. Just as Henri is free to fail, so the reader is free to make the wrong choice. The ode’s subtle appeal to the reader’s sense of honor, justice, and more crucially, practical wisdom, still necessitates a series of inferences which the reader must make: for instance, that contributing to the nation’s welfare is more honorable than contributing to its ruin, or that the best way to win glory is to support Henri in his quest to restore France to greatness, or that mutual recognition and emulation are signs of magnanimity. There is a still deeper pattern of unfulfillment which Rubin does not mention. Psalm 72 casts Henri, inspired by God, in the role of the wise Solomon, but the hydra image, “la rébellion plus qu’une hydre féconde” [rebellion more fecund than a hydra] (v. 33), portrays the king as the tireless, invincible Hercules. This dual characterization of Henri, condensed in the formula “si vaillant, si sage” [so courageous, so wise] (v. 7), evokes the dyadic archetype of the hero that Ernst Robert Curtius analyzes in European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (Curtius 171-174). Courage and wisdom are usually embodied separately in two heroes, such as Roland (“preux,” brave) and Olivier (“sage,” wise)—or here, Hercules and Solomon. But Charlemagne, “great in counsel and craft of war,” according to a Carolingian epitaph cited by Curtius, is the rare instance of an archetypal hero who unites these two virtues (Curtius 175). The fact that the ode unites them in Henri suggests that the example of the great Frankish emperor is the deeper pattern underlying the heroization of Henri and unifying the classical and biblical imagery. This example serves not simply to glorify Henri’s reign, but more important, to evoke Charlemagne’s legendary empire which ultimately split apart. The implication is that Henri and the Dauphin have the chance to restore France to its mythological greatness. Such dominance, of course, has only ever existed in imagination, nurtured by stories and legends derived from 160 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes the Chanson de Roland, which draws a straight line, however anachronistically, between the Carolingian empire and “sweet France.” The defeat of Spain foretold in the ode’s final stanza thus has a mythological significance: “Par sa fatale main qui vengera nos pertes, / L’Espagne pleurera ses provinces désertes, / Ses châteaux abbatus, et ses champs déconfits” [By his deadly hand, which will avenge our losses, / Spain will weep for its deserted provinces, / Its razed fortresses, and its massacred fields] (vv. 121-123). Spain and the Habsburgs represent an inveterate enemy of the “fleur de lis,” having plagued French monarchs from Charles VIII to Henri II, and having aided and abetted the Catholic League against Henri IV. They are the de facto dominant European power, and their defeat would represent a real strategic victory. In this instance, however, the vengeance operates at a symbolic level, since it was “Spanish” treachery that destroyed Roland, Olivier, the noble peers, and Charlemagne’s entire rearguard, inaugurating the decline of his empire. Henri and the French nation have the chance to rectify this flawed example and thus to build an empire that rivals Charlemagne’s. The temporal kingdom of God hinted at in stanza thirteen harkens back to this legendary French empire. The implicit example comparing Henri to Charlemagne suggests, albeit in an unobtrusive way, another reason why the subjects of the nation, especially the great nobility, should support Henri: the king’s absolute sovereignty. As Nannerl O. Keohane explains in Philosophy and the State in France, the political theory of absolutism, by no means novel in Malherbe’s day, acquired new impetus after the Wars of Religion. Whereas absolutism was once obliged to compete with constitutionalist theories of the polity, radical Huguenot treatises “closed off certain possible avenues of constitutionalist argument to orthodox jurists, because those arguments were associated with heresy and civil dissension; and they encouraged the formation of more extremist absolutism in response to the radicalism of the popular sovereignty they proclaimed” (Keohane 49). The ode’s portrayal of Henri reflects absolutist theory’s claim that the will and power of the king serve as “the cement and structure of society, just as God’s will and power construct the universe” (Keohane 18). As the comparison to Charlemagne suggests, the king is not simply a more powerful seigneur, primer inter pares. He is “the feudal suzerain des suzerains” (Keohane 54), restraining the despotism of “les esprits nés à la tyrannie” [minds born for tyranny], i.e. the seignurial nobility: “Que s’ils tiennent la bride à leur impatience, / Nous n’en sommes tenus qu’à sa protection” [If they keep their impatience bridled, / We are preserved from it only by his protection] (vv. 107-108). He does not simply administer justice; he is the source of law. He does not simply have the power to make war; he is defender of the people, and of the commonwealth. He represents the 161 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King manifestation of God’s will on earth, with the responsibility to defend and to spread the faith. This deeper example thus operates on several levels. It argues for Henri’s absolute sovereignty, ties together various images of the monarch’s powers, and unifies the ode’s biblical and classical motifs. It also contributes another binary opposition to the choice which the ode asks the nation’s subjects to make, contrasting decadence with greatness and empire. God’s grace will not be sufficient without the human will to act. The nation must decide whether it will actively support Henri to bring about all these marvels. The character of the speaker models this active support although, unlike in later odes, it remains in the background. It has to be deduced from the ode’s overall argument and the choice of examples. The argument itself suggests a shrewd understanding of the stakes of the political situation. The choice of the ship of state motif to structure the prayer displays the speaker’s awareness of the intertwined fates of Henri’s diverse subjects, while the opposition of destructive private interests to the nation’s general welfare encourages the reader to identify the public good with his or her individual happiness. This realignment presupposes and exploits national sentiment as well as a sense of honor. Only an enemy of the nation would choose the misery caused by a do-nothing king, his tyrannical minions, and a predatory great nobility over the utopian felicity ushered in by Henri. The choice of examples is no less shrewd. Comparing Henri to Hercules recognizes the monarch’s tireless efforts on behalf of France, while the comparisons of Solomon and Charlemagne hold up a mirror of kings to Henri, that is, an ideal for him to emulate and to surpass. Such examples point to the speaker’s magnanimity, since recognition of great virtue is a key condition of magnanimity. The speaker’s own example invites the reader to submit to Henri’s transformative influence and to join a new nation bound for the greatness of empire. Certainly Malherbe was not naive enough to think that Bouillon and his supporters would have an immediate change of heart after reading the ode. The ode is more clever than that. While trying to move the great nobility toward acceptance and cooperation, it simultaneously does an end-run around them by appealing to the good of the nation in the form of a prayer. While it is difficult to imagine an ode as complex as this having the impact of a political pamphlet (Malherbe’s odes took a long time to write and were often published years after their occasions), its majestic eloquence attains to a permanence that is beyond the scope of a pamphlet. Its ideological goals and rhetorical tactics could produce short-term effects, but its mythological apparatus lifts the particulars out of history and transposes them to the symbolic order of the Bible and classical 162 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes literature. To the extent that it is remembered and reread for its eloquence, the ode becomes a highly effective means to substitute political mythology for history. This political myth is that the brave and wise hero piloting the ship of state is undergoing yet another trial, having to navigate the treacherous waters of governance. The poet intercedes to ask for divine assistance. The collective adventure is by no means over. But it is not just the hero that needs God’s wisdom. The nation and its noble elites must choose between chaos and felicity, rebellion and cooperation, civil war and empire. Because the nation is not simply a passive actor, it is also being tested. Troubling signs point to insurmountable obstacles: “Un malheur inconnu glisse parmi les hommes, / Qui les rend ennemis du repos où nous sommes; / La plupart de leurs voeux tendent au changement” [An unknown misfortune steals into men’s hearts, / Which makes them enemies of the peace we have now; / Most of their wishes tend toward change] (vv. 25-27). Malherbe has stepped up to lead the nation toward the right choice, but there are no guarantees. 2. Ode sur l’attentat en la personne de sa majesté (1605; 1606) In fact, catastrophe strikes. The nation appears almost beyond redemption in this second ode dealing with the trials of the king, which is certainly Malherbe’s darkest, with the possible exception of “Sur la mort de Henri le Grand” (1610; 1630). The occasion is the failed assassination by Jacques des Isles, which the ode sees as a foreboding sign since it repeats Jean Châtel’s previous attempt on Henri’s life in 1594 (“De pareilles armes s’apprête / À faire un pareil attentat” [Similar weapons are readied / To launch a similar assault] vv. 59-60). On a first reading, the ode exhibits a bewildering complexity. It is a mix of blame and praise and includes four apostrophes to distinct entities: 1. “races futures” [future generations] (v. 1); 2. “Ô Soleil” [O Sun] (v. 61); 3. “belles fugitives” [beautiful refugees] (v. 12); and 4. “Ô bienheureuse intelligence” [O felicitous intelligence] (v. 131), also called the “Grand démon” [great daemon] (v. 151). According to Rubin, such disparate elements are unified by two classical intertexts, Seneca’s Thyestes and the Ages of Man from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. These furnish the motifs of darkness, drought, chaos, and evil and establish the underlying pattern of degeneration and rebirth (Rubin, Higher 45). The ode’s unifying conceit is this: while Henri, the Herculean hero, has escaped harm, this third and most recent assassination attempt has revealed the moral degeneration of the nation, represented by darkness and cannibalism, and it hints that destructive forces beyond human control are to blame. This latter possibility prompts the poet to 163 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King call on the “daemon of France” to watch over Henri and the Bourbon family tree. The ode’s argument divides into three parts: 1. stanzas one through nine introduce the crisis, express shame and indignation, and allude to the pattern of degeneration that must be overcome; 2. stanzas ten through thirteen present a reassuring pastoral interlude that dispels the atmosphere of impending chaos; 3. stanzas fourteen through twenty-two, addressing a prayer to the daemon of France, offer stoic consolation, entrusting the safety of Henri and his family to destiny. The ode’s last three stanzas end on a positive note, invoking the superhuman grandeur of the scions issuing from the royal marriage, and foretelling the Dauphin’s heroic exploits. Despite the threatening storms of political upheaval—perhaps even the threat of annihilation by supernatural forces—the ode never gives up trying to galvanize the support of the nation’s subjects for the embattled hero piloting the ship of state. It continues to offer Henri’s subjects a choice between chaos and order, despair and hope, shame and pride, and it continues to define membership in the nation as loyalty and service pro rege et patria. The argument is framed, albeit inconspicuously, by the ship of state motif. The political allegory of storm occurs early on, and the name of France mentioned in the second stanza (“La France devant ces orages” [France facing these storms] (v. 15) shows that there is nothing imaginary about the geopolitical referent (Keller 108). What must be imagined is the national community that transcends this nadir. The storms are visited on the monarch by an ungovernable body politic, indicated by the pronoun “nous” [we] (“Toujours nous assaillons sa tête, / De quelque nouvelle tempête” [We are forever assailing his head / With some new tempest] vv. 45-46). Late in the ode, the complementary allegory of calm waters (“une bonace continue” [a continuous lull] v. 208) occurs when the birth of the Dauphin, under the watchful eye of the great daemon, secures the halcyon seas of dynastic stability (“Et tiens par elle [la vie du Dauphin] ensevelis, / D’une bonace continue, / Les Aquilons dont sa venue, / A garanti les fleurs de lis” [And by his life, keep buried, / With continual halcyon seas, / the Aquilons, from which his arrival / Has preserved the fleurs-de-lis] vv. 207-210). The opposition of storm and calm would make no sense without the unstated ship of state motif. A common fate implies a shared responsibility—yet another meaning for the pronoun “nous” [we]. Either the “perfide” [traitor] (v. 55) and the “infidèles esprits” [traitorous minds] (v. 144) will drag everyone down with them, or Henri and all good Frenchmen will find a way forward after this reckless act of self-destruction. The implication is that the nation will rise or sink together. Something better must indeed be presupposed or imagined. But it is not an 164 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes object of faith. It is an object of choice and requires an ethical commitment to king and commonwealth (see Keller 112-113). The image of the ship of state also makes an appearance in the fourth stanza, where a synecdoche, “naufrage” [shipwreck], argues that Henri’s accession is both necessary and just: Et que si de cette couronne, Que sa tige illustre lui donne, Les lois ne l’eussent revêtu, Nos peuples d’un juste suffrage Ne pouvaient sans faire naufrage Ne l’offrir point à sa vertu? (vv. 35-40) [And if, with this crown, / Which his illustrious birth gives him, / The laws had not adorned him, / Our peoples, by a just suffrage, / Could not, without shipwreck, / Fail to award it to his virtue? ] Beginning with the conditional “si,” this enthymeme asserts that Henri, because of his outstanding virtue, would have been acclaimed king by popular suffrage, even if his birth had not given him a legitimate claim to the throne. Henri is legally entitled to the crown, but he also earned it by his victories. Not to give it to him would have been to wreck the ship of state (“faire naufrage”). A less capable person would then be at the helm navigating treacherous political waters. The civil war might have continued, and the most virtuous man in the kingdom would then be leading the Huguenot resistance. Henri’s accession all but guarantees the safety of the state, which is necessary to promote the general welfare of the nation. These scattered images of the ship of state, strategically placed throughout the ode, thus serve to evoke the political adventure and the shared interests of the commonwealth. However, they also link the ode to the larger sequence, situating this tragic setback in the series of events that constitute the quest cycle. The return of the Golden Age cannot yet occur because the hero’s gift has not been accepted by society. In such cases, Joseph Campbell explains, the supernatural forces that have been guiding the hero are often called on to intercede (Campbell 186). The solicitation of supernatural aid in the form of a prayer to the daemon of France in the ode’s final stanzas indeed conforms to this episodic variation of the quest cycle. For the hero to succeed in his quest, he may need more-than-human help. According to Rubin, what underlies and ties together the ode’s seemingly disparate parts is the pattern of “moral decline from one generation to another, followed by the advent of a new race” (Rubin, Higher 45). Rubin locates its 165 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King 9 Seneca, Thyestes, in Six Tragedies, trans. by Emily Wilson (Oxford World’s Classics, 2010). archetype in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: “The oblique and half-buried analogy between the Ages of Man and the generations of the French serves to evoke the possibility of a social and political disaster comparable to the Flood in its potential for devastation” (Rubin, Higher 45). He interprets the ode’s various images of storm as harbingers of flood. The other identified image of social and political disaster, “the Giants’ revolt against Zeus” (Rubin, Higher 47), occurs roughly in the same passage of the Metamorphoses. Seneca’s Thyestes complements this cluster of motifs, supplying the image of the sun reversing its course and the “darkening world,” symbols of moral decline (Rubin, Higher 48). Malherbe’s ode indeed contains all this imagery, and its overall progression from degeneration to rebirth follows a similar thematic development in Ovid: the Ages of Man (decline), the Giants (revolt), Lycaon (savage hubris), the Flood (destruction), Deucalion and Pyrrha (rebirth). But there are two problems with this reading. First, while “Ode sur l’attentat” contains images of storm, there is no flood. Second, Deucalion and Pyrrha repopulate the earth by throwing stones, whereas “Ode sur l’attentat” uses arboreal imagery (“souche” [trunk], “scions” [offshoots], “feuillage” [foliage], vv. 196-198) to represent rebirth. Such inconsistencies raise the possibility that Rubin has unintentionally misidentified the ode’s structuring intertext. Given that the ode’s images of social and political disaster are also found in Thyestes, one could try using Thyestes as the matrix of the ode and let the Metamorphoses play only a supporting role. An interesting change to the mythological pattern results. The theme of rebirth no longer belongs to it, but rather to its historical overcoming. Moral degeneration is what the historical actors have the chance to overcome. When Thyestes is used as the structuring intertext for the ode, the inconsistencies are removed. The Thyestes pattern has to do with moral degeneration caused by civil war, and the depth of depravity is exemplified by the cannibalistic feast—the flesh and blood of Thyestes’ sons which Atreus serves up to his unsuspecting brother. There is no hint of rebirth or redemption in the play. Its palpable atmosphere of evil is personified by the ghost of Tantalus, grandfather of Atreus and Thyestes, who speaks these chilling lines: “Now from my family line a swarm of children / creeps out, who will surpass their ancestors. / They will make me look innocent. No one has dared such deeds” (Thyestes, vv. 18-20). 9 In his day Tantalus was also guilty of preparing a cannibalistic feast. He killed his son, Pelops, and in wanton insolence tried to feed him to the gods. However, his grandsons’ 166 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 10 See also Thyestes, vv. 1006-09: “Earth, can you allow / such atrocity? Will you not break and sink / into the Styx and shadows of Hell, rip open and tear away / the kingdom and the king down into empty chaos? ” acts of cruelty, impiety, and obscenity (“let eternal sin / enter the hearts of his offspring,” Thyestes, vv. 28-29), especially those committed by Atreus, have attained a new threshold of outrage, opening up the depths of annihilation: “everything is shaken and may topple / into disaster, chaos come again, / to overwhelm humanity and the gods” (Thyestes, vv. 830-832). 10 It is this downward spiral into chaos that Malherbe’s “Ode sur l’attentat” evokes with images and other figures of thought and then wards off by the same means. For instance, a crucial element of the underlying pattern is the ghost of Tantalus. The description of Jean Châtel, Henri’s first assassin, as “cet esprit farouche” [this savage specter] (v. 51), “sorti des ombres d’enfer” [issued from the shadows of hell] (v. 52), hints at a parallel with Tantalus, whom a Fury compels to leave the underworld and to spread “hatred, murder, death” (Thyestes v. 52). Such an obscure analogy is an example of significatio per similitudem (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.54.67), and fearful wonder is the appropriate emotion provoked by the recognition of some great evil. The parallel between the two assassins is further suggested by the image of receding water. The Fury says to Tantalus: “Now earth grieves / to feel the burden of your feet. Do you not see / how water is pushed back into the ground, and how the banks / stand dry? ” (Thyestes vv. 106-109). Similarly, with the attempted assassination of Henri: “Le Dieu de Seine était dehors / À regarder croître l’ouvrage / Dont ce prince embellit ses bords: / Il se resserra tout à l’heure / Au plus bas lieu de sa demeure” [The River God of the Seine was outside / Watching the progress of the construction / With which this prince embellishes his banks: / He quickly withdrew / To the deepest part of his dwelling place] (vv. 91-96). Again, this is significatio per similitudem, because the obscurity of the analogy fills the reader with the suspicion that more is being said than is actually stated. The image of the fleeing river god stirs up feelings of alarm, perhaps even dread, akin to the fearful wonder caused by strange natural phenomena (Biester 12). Despite evocations of storm, the ode does not in fact allude to flood, rather only to fluvial contraction. What the Jean Châtel-Tantalus analogy signifies is the presence of evil. But this is more than atmosphere. Rubin rightly sees a Manichean struggle between forces of darkness and light (Rubin, Higher 48). As the ode itself suggests, “Mais quand le malheur veut nous nuire, / De quoi ne vient-il à bout? ” [But when misfortune wills to harm us, / What does it not bring to pass? ] (vv. 169-170). Such darkness rises to the level of a supernatural force beyond the human power to withstand. 167 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King By far the most important element of the pattern, however, is the analogy between regicide and the cannibalistic feast, which Malherbe hints at and develops by degrees. The ode begins in medias res, with the first stanza registering shame and outrage at the attempted assassination: “Races futures,” intones Malherbe, Lirez-vous sans rougir de honte, Que notre impiété surmonte, Les faits les plus audacieux, Et les plus dignes du tonnerre, Que firent jamais à la terre, Sentir la colère des cieux. (vv. 5-10) [Will you read without blushing for shame / That our impiety surpasses / The most audacious acts, / And the most worthy of being struck by lightning, / Which on earth ever provoked / The anger of the heavens.] The future generations serve to judge the enormity of the crime, and the source of the their shame should be the source of the nation’s own. The action is dishonorable, illegal, and sinful, and future generations presumably will be ashamed to recall such lawlessness and impiety (Rhet. 2.6.2). The person of the king was sacred and inviolable. Attacking him was tantamount to attacking God. There is no metaphorical impiety here. If the attempted assassination represents a “rejection of faith in the community” (Keller 113), it is because it violates one of the fundamental laws of the kingdom. The images, “dignes du tonnere” and “la colère des cieux,” recall a classical example of hubris, that is, the giants’ assault on Olympian Zeus. The analogy between the rebels and the giants, and Henri and Zeus, uses hyperbole to place the attack on Henri beyond comparison (Quintilian 8.6.67-76). To the extent that the reader shares this judgment, he or she may experience some measure of the divine anger and indignation that the attempted assassination allegedly arouses (Rhet. 2.9.2, 11). In Thyestes, moreover, the eruption of the giants from the chthonic depths occurs when darkness descends in broad daylight (Thyestes vv. 804-809). Such terrors announce the collapse of the kingdom. “If there is no honor, / no reverence for law, no trust, no faith, no goodness, / the kingdom cannot stand” (Thyestes vv. 215-217). Because both former thematic elements are present in “Ode sur l’attentat,” one also expects the latter. A sense of foreboding arises. The implication is that the crime of regicide represents a descent into moral darkness beyond which catastrophic forces await. This third attempt on Henri’s life is said to mark a new depth in the nation’s moral decline: 168 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 11 See Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, eds. T.F. Earle and K.J.P. Lowe (Cambridge UP, 2005): Jean Michel Massing, in “The image of Africa and iconography of lip-plated Africans in Pierre Desceliers’s World Map of 1550,” 48-69, shows how “Geographical information is clearly mixed with natural history and mythology” (58), and Anu Korhonen, in “Washing the Ethiopian white: conceptualizing black skin in Renaissance England,” 94-112, documents the association of black skin with violence and cannibalism (105). “In many texts of the Renaissance,” writes Korhonen, “black Africans are actually referred to as ‘devils,’ and the link between blackness, vice, and sin is graphically emphasized” (106). La France devant ces orages, Pleine de moeurs, pleine de courages, Qu’on ne pouvait assez louer, S’est fait aujourd’hui si tragique, Qu’elle produit ce que l’Afrique Aurait vergogne d’avouer. (vv. 15-20) [Faced with these storms, France, / Full of character, full of virtuous men, / Which one could not praise enough, / Has become so tragic today, / That it produces what Africa / Would be ashamed to avow.] What is the sense of the adjective “tragique” [tragic]? A proud nation, with a deserved reputation for heroic virtue, has suffered a reversal of fortune through its own fault. As we saw in “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607), the king with God’s help will steer the ship of state through treacherous waters to a new Golden Age. To kill the king is to change order and felicity to chaos and suffering. It is the wrong choice, a self-destructive choice, made in a fit of hubris. The regicide and his supporters believe that they know better than the obscure forces guiding the destiny of France. The nation, like the protagonist of a tragedy, would bring about its own destruction, and this is a cause for fearful wonder. The rhyme tragique / Afrique, moreover, unifies several key thematic threads: degeneration, darkness, and savagery. Although the locus classicus for this view of Africa is almost surely Pliny’s Natural History, numerous Renaissance texts, including a 1550 map by Descelier, reveal the cultural prejudices of early modern Europeans with regard to the continent. 11 Africa was not just the land of perilous deserts and jungles filled with wild animals. Its inhabitants were considered devils that practiced cannibalism. Their dark skin somehow reflected their moral degeneration. The ode’s hyperbole asserts that the crime of regicide is blacker, more savage, and more barbarous than anything that comes from Africa. To be worse than Africa is to be worse than the worst. What makes regicide worse than cannibalism is the unstated notion of the king’s two bodies. Whereas cannibalism usually entails devouring 169 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King the other, the act of regicide is self-devouring. The body politic devours its own head. The ode must compare such barbarity to something outside the boundaries of Europe, so that the attempt on Henri’s life may outdo any act of moral outrage found in the Metamorphoses or Thyestes. It puts France beyond the accepted limits of civilization. It is worth noting that the collective blame for the attack (“notre impiété [our impiety] v. 6) and the powerful emotions of shame and guilt signal membership in the nation. At different points during the Wars of Religion, Huguenots and Leaguers both flirted with political arguments justifying regicide. The climate for such moral and political atrocity had been long in the making. However, only true Frenchmen, that is, those loyal to king and commonwealth, would feel such emotions: enemies of the regime might blame Henri alone or welcome the attack as just desserts, and they would experience feelings of joy or vindication. The national “nous” [we] is more than a pronoun. It is a community defined by a common fate, shared interests, and powerful emotions (see Keller 109). Once again, affective demarcations separate true Frenchman from enemies of the nation, and the ode, by exciting the appropriate emotions, moves the reader into the national community. The two stanzas praising Henri’s extraordinary virtue, inserted in the midst of the first part excoriating the nation, underscore the injustice of the attack. Of all kings, the ode asserts, Henri is the least deserving of such treatment: “Quelles preuves incomparables / Peut donner un prince de soi” [What other incomparable proofs / Can a prince give of himself] (vv. 21-22), Et qui peut nier qu’après Dieu, Sa gloire qui n’a point d’exemples, N’ait mérité que dans nos temples On lui donne le second lieu? (vv. 27-30) [And who can deny that, after God, / His glory, which has no examples, / Deserves in our temples / To be given the second place? ] Such “incomparable proofs” of his merit presumably include: the surrender of Mayenne and the defeat of the Spanish, the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes, the marriage to Marie de Médicis and the birth of the Dauphin, and the winning over of rebellious great nobles and governors who once supported the Catholic League. Stanza four sounds a familiar theme: Henri combines the greatest valor with practical wisdom (vv. 31-34), and as we saw above, even if he were not the legitimate heir to the throne, the nation would elect him king for the sake of its own survival (vv. 35-40). The man of superlative virtue deserves to be king. Even if one accepted at face value the justifications for killing 170 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes a tyrant, how would they apply to Henri IV, whose actions have repeatedly demonstrated his commitment to the public good? His sovereignty, “second to God,” stems from his birth, his great virtue, and from his role as protector of France. This praise for Henri as magnanimous and deserving of the crown continues Malherbe’s campaign to bolster support for the embattled monarch, and it turns the recognition of Henri’s merits into a test of the reader’s own magnanimity. The ode models the values of honor, justice, and gratitude, even as it justifies the emotions of anger, indignation, and shame. Following this explanatory digression on the excellence of the king, the return to the excoriation of the nation is all the more forceful in stanzas five and six. The nation should be grateful to Henri for bringing peace to France: “Toutefois ingrats que nous sommes, / Barbares et dénaturés, / Plus qu’en ce climat où les hommes / Par les hommes sont dévorés: / Toujours nous assaillons sa tête / De quelque nouvelle tempête” [And yet, ungrateful as we are, / Barbarous and debased, / More than in that climate / Where men are devoured by men, / We are forever assailing his head / With some new tempest] (vv. 41-46). The unfavorable comparison of the French to barbarous and debased cannibals clicks into place. The “new tempests” represent political unrest, including the current crisis. The image of assailing the king’s head suggests physical aggression as well as the burden of responsibility. The nation’s fury and recalcitrance (“Et d’un courage forcené, / Rejetant son obéissance” [And with a raving courage, / Rejecting obedience to him] vv. 47-48) deprive Henri of the enjoyment of life which he has given everyone else (“la jouissance / Du repos” [the enjoyment / of tranquility] vv. 49-50), and which the first ode “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601) considers the highest end of the state and the doorway to a mystical bliss. The two regicides in stanza six (“cet esprit farouche” [this savage specter] v. 51, “un autre perfide, / Où la même audace réside” [another traitor, / In whom the same audacity resides] vv. 55-56), the avatars of Tantalus, complete the long drawn-out figure. The savagery of Atreus pales in comparison. Malherbe punctures his own hyperbole, however. The retreat of the sun and the descent of darkness at noon following Atreus’ horrific deed in Thyestes—“O all-enduring Sun, though you retreated / and drowned the broken day in the middle sky, you set too late! ” (vv. 776-778), “why is dark night / risen at noon? (vv. 790-791)—reappear in stanza seven of Malherbe’s ode: Ô soleil, ô grand luminaire, Si jadis l’horreur d’un festin Fit que de ta route ordinaire, Tu reculas vers le matin: Et d’un émerveillable change 171 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King Te couchas aux rives du Gange, D’où vient que ta sévérité Moindre qu’en la faute d’Atrée Ne punit pas cette countrée, D’une éternelle obscurité? (vv. 61-70) [O Sun, o great luminary, / If once the horror of a feast / Caused you, from your ordinary course, / To recoil toward the morning: / And with a wondrous change, / You set on the banks of the Ganges, / How is it that your severity, / Less than in the case of Atreus’ guilt, / Does not punish this country / With eternal obscurity? ] The sun reversing its course and setting on the banks of the Ganges is a classical commonplace, but is there any more sublime? Such an unnatural occurrence excites the fearful wonder associated with miracles or natural disasters. And yet the force of the rhetorical question must not be lost from sight: such an event did not happen after the attempt on Henri’s life. With self-conscious irony, Malherbe undercuts the conceit that he has been building up over the last seven stanzas. Stanza eight, still addressing the sun, reflects philosophically on the insensibility of nature, that is, the sun’s lack of consciousness: “Ta nature n’est point capable / Du trouble qu’une âme ressent: / Tu dois ta flamme à tout le monde” [Your nature is not capable / Of the disturbance which a soul feels: / You owe your flame to all the world] (vv. 73-75), and stanza nine notes the historical impropriety of the commonplace, as the assailant waited till after sunset (vv. 85-90). The poet attributes the loss of judgment implied by this incongruity to his own “juste excès de colère” [just excess of anger] (v. 83). This ironic conclusion to the first part of the ode’s argument presents interpretive difficulties, especially as Malherbe returns immediately in the ode’s second part to pathetic fallacy (i.e. the River God of the Seine and his Nymphs fleeing to safety). An explanation can fall back on the century’s nascent rationalism and Malherbe’s critique of far-fetched conceits, but such broad generalizations overlook the rhetorical function of self-conscious irony. First, it allows Malherbe to have his cake and eat it too. His indulgence in the sort of thing he usually condemns becomes a sign of his anger, whose excess is justified by the outrageousness of the crime. Consequently, the loss of judgment becomes, paradoxically, a demonstration of it, especially as the speaker subsequently recovers his reason. Second, the speaker’s irony displays a rational self-possession consistent with the stoicism of the ode’s third part. Such inferences as result from this particular use of irony, akin to the argumentative effects of other figures of thought, contribute to the poet’s ethos (and for the same reason: as we saw in Chapter 3, ethos is embodied in the argumentative 172 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes reasoning of the speech). Such a speaker appears to have the right concern with honor, a keen sense of decorum, and the proper feelings about the attempted assassination—all of which point to his good judgment and credibility. These underwrite the reassurance offered by the speaker in the ode’s second section, which begins the process of warding off chaos and assuaging fear. In stanza ten, the beginning of the second part of the argument, the River God of the Seine and his Nymphs flee the violence of the assassination. This flight picks up on the theme of the abandonment of the earth by the gods following Atreus’ crime: “The gods have gone away” (Thyestes, v. 1021). Stanza eleven describes their fear: La terreur des choses passées, À leurs yeux se ramentevant, Faisait prévoir à leurs pensées Plus de malheurs qu’auparavant: (vv. 101-104) [The terror of past events, / Being recalled before their eyes, / Caused them to foresee in imagination / More misfortunes than before: ] Believing Henri killed, they despair that anyone can save the nation from the evils of civil war, to which “la terreur des choses passées” and “Plus de malheurs qu’auparavant” allude. They would rather die than endure the return of chaos and suffering associated with the religious wars (“Le Ciel les aurait obligées / S’il leur eût permis de mourir” [Heaven would have done them a favor / If it had allowed them to perish] vv. 109-110). The deities of this allegory represent an idealized moment in time, if not exactly the Golden Age, then a period of convalescence and renewal. The ode’s pastoral motifs (“eaux” [waters] v. 97, “roseaux” [reeds] v. 100, “chapeaux de fleurs” [crowns of flowers] v. 114) serve to dispel the atmosphere of impending doom that had been built up. Malherbe would have been familiar with the psychological motives for the recent turn to pastoral themes and literature in French letters. “Pastoral,” writes Fumaroli, “through a kind of sympathetic magic, evokes simultaneously the spirit of harmony and the energies of vital re‐ generation, fertility, fecundity, the joys of peace” (Fumaroli, Précis 53). Although the fear of descending into anarchy chases away these harbingers of peace and prosperity, the paternal reassurance of stanzas twelve and thirteen coaxes them back. “Revenez, belles fugitives: / De quoi versez-vous tant de pleurs? ” [Come back, beautiful refugees: / why so many tears? ] (vv. 111-112). The change from despair to encouragement derives as much from the presentation of factual evidence as from the speaker’s cajoling tone. The poet pleads with the Nymphs to resume their festive attire (“Remettez vos chapeaux de fleurs” [Put back 173 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King on your crowns of flowers], v. 114) and joyful disposition (“Pucelles, qu’on se réjouisse” [Maidens, let us rejoice], v. 121), assuring them that their panic is unfounded (“Mettez-vous l’esprit en repos” [Calm your troubled minds], v. 122). The assassin underestimated “que peut un visage d’Alcide” [What the face of Hercules can endure] (v. 118). The king lives—“le roi vit,” a declaration repeated twice (v. 115 & v. 125). So reassured is the speaker by this fact, he allows himself to predict a long life for Henri, “les destinées / Lui gardent un nombre d’années” [The Fates / still have a number of years in store for him] (vv. 125-126), which will frustrate Spain’s “plans de tyrannie” [tyrannical projects] (v. 129) for the foreseeable future. (Henri was already fifty-two years old, a ripe age in the early seventeenth century.) Such a prediction suggests that the speaker sees Henri’s survival of the assassination as a sign that some supernatural force is watching over the king. What appears to be a prayer for the protection of the king, addressed not to God, but to a “bienheureuse intelligence” [fortunate intelligence] (v. 131), a “Grand démon d’éternelle marque” [Great daemon with the mark of eternity] (v. 151), begins the third part of the ode, one of the more enigmatic passages in Malherbe’s corpus. We already encountered a reference to the “démon” in “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601), “un autre démon plus fort” [some more powerful daemon] (v. 67), and the entity will reappear in Malherbe’s last ode to Louis XIII, “Pour le Roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois” (1627; 1635), where it is called the “démon de la France” [the daemon of France] (v. 5). Keller rightly calls it “a spirit or an unnameable divine power” (Keller 119). Translating the phrase as “the spirit of France,” Keller treats this enigmatic entity as the personification of the French nation, a sort of divine being that is the object of a “secular faith” (Keller 108, 120). But Keller’s focus on the modern idea of a secularized nation blinds him to the older messianic mythology that used to link the monarchy to national identity. If the nation is sacralized, it is because it is the king’s spiritual body. Such a sacralization is not new. Rather, its renewal has become all the more urgent after the attack on the authority of the monarchy during the Wars of Religion, and, one might add, the literal attack on the king’s physical body by Jacques des Isles. What is novel, however, is the relative secularization represented by the term “daemon.” Clearly, as Keller notes, the word cannot mean demon in the theological sense of evil spirit (Keller 119). Looking up “démon” in the Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française (1694), we find this definition: “It is sometimes taken in the sense which the ancients gave it, meaning Genius [Génie], spirit, either good or bad. A good daemon inspired me. The daemon of France.” Cross-referencing the word “génie,” we discover: “One says, The genius of France, to mean, The Guardian Angel of 174 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes France.” Keller usefully refers to the article “daimon” in The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature: “‘[it] describes an aspect of divine power which cannot be identified with a particular god [] It is this power which gives a man good or bad fortune at any time, and thus daimon approximates in meaning to irresistible fate’” (Keller 186, n. 20). Therefore, rather than call on an intercessor from the sacred pantheon (Saint Denis, Saint Clovis, Saint Louis, or Saint Michael), saints who have been the traditional object of veneration in times of national crisis, Malherbe finds a classical substitute to name the transcendent forces that allegedly guide and protect the French monarch and the nation. It is essentially a personification of what is otherwise an abstract and impersonal force and should be considered synonymous with the “intelligence” evoked in the ode: “Ô bienheureuse intelligence, / Puissance, quiconque tu sois, / Dont la fatale diligence / Préside à l’Empire francais” [O most fortunate intelligence, / Power, whoever you are, / Whose fatal diligence / Watches over the French empire] (vv. 131-134). The adjective “bienheureuse” [fortunate, happy] qualifies not only the unknown, rational power working through history, but also its outcome or product. It is like an impersonal phronēsis that has presided over the rise of the kingdom of the House of France, here called by the older term “empire,” imperium, to underscore its autonomy and the diversity of peoples who pledge their allegiance to the French king. Such an impersonal rationality has stoic connotations to it. For the stoics, the universe was inherently rational: “Whether humans want it or not, the things that happen happen necessarily. Universal Reason cannot act or proceed otherwise than it does, precisely because it is rational” (Hadot 203). When Malherbe implores this rational power to guide and protect Henri, he is wishing for the preservation of the general welfare of France even as the poet detaches himself from the outcome. Such a prayer is the expression of the poet’s good intentions, of his will to do good in a universe whose causes and effects are beyond human control. “The stoic always acts ‘conditionally,’ saying to himself: ‘I will to do this, if destiny allows.’ If destiny does not allow it, he will try to succeed in some other way, or he will accept destiny by ‘willing what happens’” (Hadot 209). In this context, choosing to respond to adversity in the right way is itself the exercise of virtue. “Error, but also freedom, are located in the value judgment which I attribute to events. The right moral attitude consists in recognizing as good or bad only that which is morally good or bad and in considering as neither good nor bad, thus indifferent, what is morally neither good nor bad” (Hadot 206). It is this moral autonomy—the power to will what is morally good, and to treat with non-attachment what is morally 175 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King indifferent—which potentially provides relief from the fear that dominates the first part of the ode. The ode’s third and final part, therefore, implores the rational spirit that personifies the destiny of France to protect the monarch against forces of darkness which are beyond the power of human beings to resist. Stanza fifteen regrets that the king’s bodyguard, “Ces archers aux casques peintes” [the archers with painted helmets] (v. 141), cannot possibly foresee and prevent “les feintes / De tant d’infidèles esprits” [The tricks / of so many treacherous minds] (vv. 142-143), and stanza seventeen concedes that even the king’s renowned justice (“Il fait demeurer la malice / Aux bornes de quelque devoir” [He keeps the malicious / Confined to their duty], vv. 163-164), supported by his invincible sword (“elle met la frayeur partout” [his sword inspires universal terror] v. 167), cannot forestall every last instance of the will to do harm (“le malheur veut nous nuire,” [misfortune wills to harm us] v. 169). Stanza eighteen asks the daemon to bless the royal family, and this litany of blessings carries the ode to its conclusion. Besides defending Henri against ambushes when his guard may be down (that is, when he is praying “devant un autel” [before an altar], exercising “à la barrière” [in the lists], meditating “dans la chambre” [in his room], hunting “aux bois” [in the woods], vv. 171-176), the daemon is asked to bless the queen (stanza nineteen) and the royal marriage (stanza twenty) as well as to protect and guide the Dauphin (stanzas twenty-one and twenty-two). As one might expect, the good wishes for the Dauphin (happiness, long life) culminate in imagining his triumph over the Spanish with Henri and Marie as witnesses: “Fais-leur ouïr cette nouvelle / Qu’il a rasé l’Escurial” [Cause them to hear the news / that he has razed the Escorial] (vv. 221-222). “The Escorial is the edifice that commemorates Philip II’s defeat of France in 1557 at St.-Quentin” (Rubin, Higher 49). The invocation of the “fortunate intelligence” is a stoic’s prayer, and it should be understood as being uttered “conditionally,” that is, if the destiny of France allows. It not only underscores the hero’s, the poet’s, and the reader’s moral autonomy, it also reminds the king and the subjects of the nation that they serve something larger than themselves. It seems to say: even in the face of overwhelming odds, moral autonomy matters more than personal achievement. Self-sacrifice matters more than victory. Trials and obstacles make a hero, or a nation of heroes, and every heroic deed requires sacrifice for the greater good. By suggesting that the outcome is less important than how one endures the trials, the ode suggests a new standard for measuring achievement. The conceit of praying to the daemon of France for the protection of the king portrays Henri as a vehicle of destiny—a necessary vehicle, but a vehicle nonetheless. 176 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 12 See Denise Carabin, Les Idées stoïciennes dans la littérature morale des XVIe et XVIIe siècles (1575-1642) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004). The quasi-divinity of the king recedes in this ode, and instead there stands a hero that is personal, human, and vulnerable. No virtue, however great, is able to overcome destiny. True virtue, so the ode appears to argue, resides in moral autonomy, that is, the will to do good if destiny allows, while true glory resides in self-sacrifice to the destiny of France. This sort of stoicism appears whenever adversity strikes, and the stoic tenor of this ode is something of an anomaly in the sequence. Usually, Malherbe embraces the passions and celebrates human agency, especially the superlative virtues of the monarch, who normally does not resemble the stoic sage in any way. In this instance, however, the fallback to stoicism presumably lifts the fear of adversity because the reader, that is, the French subject, is free to will the success of Henri if the destiny of France allows, and if not, to will what the destiny of France wills. Protestants and Catholics alike were touched by the neo-stoic revival of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, 12 but its impact was felt primarily among the professional castes, that is, those whose employment depended on their education, such as theologians, doctors, parlementaires, and other administrators (Carabin 567). Montaigne, Du Vair, and Charron brought its themes and ideas to the less cultured sword nobility. Thus, while the ode’s stoic transformation of the ethos of magnanimity is addressed to Henri and all subjects of the nation, its specific target may be the robe nobility. “Ode sur l’attentat” attempts to generate broad support among elites for the idea of self-sacrifice to the destiny of France. Notice how it does not mention religion but equates the attack on Henri with an attack on the state: “Comme si détruire l’État / Tenait lieu de juste conquête” [As if destroying the State / Were the same as just conquest] (vv. 57-58). It is appealing to the shared interests of the French and asking all parties for moderation. Its movement from outrage to stoic prayer is itself a model of self-control. Interestingly, the ode does not look to Henri or the French people as the historical actors responsible for overcoming the moral degeneration caused by civil war. Rather, it looks to the progeny of Henri and Marie. If destiny allows, their descendants will rejuvenate the nation and bring about a moral renaissance. This imagery occurs in stanza twenty: 177 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King 13 William H. Groser, Scripture Natural History: The Trees and Plants Mentioned in the Bible, vol. 1 (The Religious Tract Society, 1888) 47-48. Bénis les plaisirs de leur couche, Et fais renaître de leur souche Des scions si beaux, et si vers, Que de leur feuillage sans nombre, À jamais ils puissent faire ombre Aux peuples de tout l’univers. (vv. 195-200) [Bless the pleasures of their bed, / And cause from their trunk / Offshoots to be reborn, so beautiful, so green, / That with their numberless foliage, / They may forever shade / The nations of the universe.] Rubin reads this passage as evoking “the advent of a new people,” casting Henri and Marie as Deucalion and Pyrrha, with the “nation’s patroness” playing the crucial role in the nation’s mythological redemption (Rubin, Higher 45). However, with no reference to the stones that Deucalion and Pyrrha throw to repopulate the earth, is there a way to support this interpretation? Another intertext must be sought. The Bible is the most likely source. One of its most emblematic trees is the cedar of Lebanon, renowned for its thick green foliage providing shade. “The cedars were the type of power and majesty, of grandeur and beauty, of strength and permanence : --‘trees of Jehovah’ planted by His right hand among the ‘great mountains; ’ masterpieces of his creative skill; matchless in lofty stature, wide-spreading shade, perpetual verdure, refreshing perfume, and unfading fruitfulness. Some of the finest imagery in Old Testament song is drawn from this oft-repeated source. The mighty conquerors of olden days, the despots of Assyria and the Pharaohs of Egypt, the proud and idolatrous monarchs of Judah, the Hebrew commonwealth itself, the warlike Amorites of patriarchal times, and the moral majesty of the Messianic age, are all compared to the towering cedar in its regal loftiness and supremacy (See Isaiah ii.13, Ezek xvii.3, 22, 23; xxxi 3-18; Amos ii.9; Zecch. xi.1, 2, &c.).” 13 Of the many passages where this image occurs, Ezekiel 31: 3-6 seems the most appropriate. It uses the image of the cedar to describe the greatness of Pharaoh, raised up and then cut down by God. In Malherbe’s ode, the arboreal imagery evokes the superhuman grandeur of the Bourbon descendants issuing from the union of Henri and Marie, that is, the hero and the bride-goddess. A new race of kings will be born whose power, majesty, and supremacy will shelter and protect the French nation and the peoples of the earth (“faire ombre / Aux peuples de l’univers” vv. 199-200). The intertext also suggests that the flourishing of this family tree is conditional. 178 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes What sustains the flourishing of kings and empires is righteousness: “Those who trust in their riches will fall, / but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf ” (Proverbs 11: 28), “They will grow like a cedar of Lebanon” (Psalm 92: 13). Thus, while alluding to earthly power and glory, the image of the cedar contains a subtle warning against hubris: “The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; / the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon” (Psalm 29: 5-6). Such arboreal imagery could easily be interpreted to include the rebirth of the nation. Royal propagandists from the mid twelfth-century on had used an emblem, “the Tree of France,” to represent the dynasty as well as the French kingdom and people (Beaune 297-298). Malherbe is revising this traditional symbol of the monarchy and the nation. The royal progeny will “shade the nations” (“faire ombre / Aux peuples de tout l’univers”) both because they tower over their subjects and because they shield and protect them. But the image of the tree has to do less with space and more with time: it looks backward and forward. It connects the new Bourbon dynasty to the monarchies of antiquity and to the indigenous origins of the French monarchy even as it projects it into the future. As the many biblical echoes suggest, however, all flourishing is conditional. If God or destiny allows, the monarchy will flourish and the nation will prosper. As the monarchy is inextricably tied to the nation, the destruction of the first would mean the destruction of the second. The odes takes the failure of Jacques des Isles as a positive sign that the destiny of France favors Henri. The fearful wonder of resignation, however, is gradually replaced by a sublime moral autonomy. The submission of the individual will to a higher, necessary will is a form of transcendence. The prayer to the daemon of France attempts to overcome the supernatural forces of darkness with the equally transcendent force of Universal Reason. But this is not pure abstraction. “Ode sur l’attentat” wills the good of the nation, if destiny allows, by choosing moral autonomy, rational self-possession, and self-sacrifice to the destiny of France. It tries to model them for, and inspire them in, the reader. It may be the destiny of France to succumb to chaos, but the ode’s argument, with its images and figures, attempts to move the hearts and minds of the nation to make the best choice under any circumstance. 179 Chapter 5. The Trials of the King Chapter 6. Triumph and Death Ode au feu Roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan (1606; 1607) À Monseigneur le duc de Bellegarde (1608; 1609) Sur la mort de Henri le Grand (1610; 1630) The next three odes in the sequence still belong among the trials which the hero must undergo to achieve the regeneration of the nation, but each constitutes a special case. “Ode au feu Roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan” (1606; 1607) declares Henri’s ship of state arrived in safe harbor following the aborted insurrection of the duke de Bouillon, urging the king to settle old scores in Savoy and Lombardy while fortune favors him. In the midst of praise and thanksgiving, however, the ode sounds a somber note, not an impending doom, but a memento mori whose shadow can only be dispelled by the light of glory. The second ode, “À Monseigneur le duc de Bellegarde” (1608; 1609)—while not technically a royal encomium, being addressed to Henri’s close friend and political ally—nonetheless deserves to join the sequence in virtue of an implicit analogy between the ship of state and the Argo. Both odes are special cases of the hero’s achievement because they are complementary occasions of triumph. “Ode au feu Roi” illustrates the defeat of a seditious great nobility, while “À Monseigneur” celebrates the positive contribution of the caste in the new regime. The third ode, “Sur la mort de Henri le Grand” (1610; 1630), Horatian rather than Pindaric in form, laments the untimely death of the hero. Although it has not until now been included in the canon of royal odes, it belongs in the sequence for two reasons: 1. it is written as though spoken by Bellegarde, and 2. it performs the unthinkable loss of Henri feared by the early odes. The political adventure, symbolized by the ship of state, has foundered. From a mythological perspective, however, death may represent a special instance of the achievement phase of the hero cycle, since it is often the catalyst that brings renewal to the community. The nadir of despair marked by the short Horatian ode is at the same time, potentially at least, the salvation of the nation. The ode’s symbolic resurrection of Henri entrusts the political adventure to the queen regent, who in the next stage of the cycle takes on the functions of the king and thereby realizes a higher, androgynous form of the hero. The movement of the three odes, from triumph to despair but with the promise of imminent rebirth, caps one storyline of the cycle while announcing the next stage of the political adventure. 180 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 14 Although the ode was composed in 1606 and first published in 1607, Antoine Adam, the editor of Malherbe’s complete works, adopts the version from the Recueil des plus beaux vers (1627). By then Henri was indeed “le feu Roi,” the late king. The title may not be Malherbe’s, as editors of seventeenth-century poetry anthologies freely assigned titles to poems and often changed them without permission. 1. Ode au feu Roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan (1606; 1607) 14 After high hopes and discouraging setbacks, what is missing from the sequence thus far is a pure triumph celebrating Henri. Malherbe, prompted by the king, decided that the revolt and submission of Bouillon in 1606 would be an appropriate occasion. Its symbolic significance derives from contemporary political events. The duke of Biron had organized a conspiracy that implicated many nobles, both Leaguers and Huguenots, with the duke of Bouillon among them. When the conspiracy was stamped out and Biron executed, Bouillon fled to Geneva, eventually retreating to his sovereign estate in Sedan. His renewed attempts to incite rebellion among disgruntled nobles in Quercy and Périgord compelled Henri to assemble 22,000 infantry and 50 canon and to march directly on Sedan. Bouillon’s support evaporated immediately, and the duke surrendered without a fight. The submission of Sedan thus marks the culmination of Henri’s efforts to impose his authority on a recalcitrant great nobility that had colluded with Spain since the 1590s. The ode’s exhortation to settle old scores with Savoy and Milan also has its roots in long-standing Franco-Spanish hostility. Spanish proxies in northern Italy, having sided with the League during the Wars of Religion, continued to stir up trouble on France’s southeastern flank. From this political backdrop is drawn the conceit of the ode: the submission of Sedan without a fight shows that Henri is greater than the greatest heroes of antiquity, and the privileged relationship that Henri apparently enjoys with fortune bodes well for the security of the nation. The ode thus presents the submission of Sedan as a celebration and an opportunity: with peace firmly established at home, the king can now turn his attention to thwarting Habsburg imperial ambitions by reestablishing French hegemony in Europe. The argument divides into three parts: 1. stanzas one through nine, addressed to the nation, use metaphor and comparison to portray Henri as an epic hero whose victory elicits joy, confidence, and admiration; 2. stanzas ten through nineteen address the king directly, compare him favorably to Hercules, and encourage him to attack Savoy and Milan; 3. stanzas twenty through twenty-two glorify Malherbe’s poetry as uniquely capable of immortalizing the king’s achievement. Although fairly conventional, the self-promotion of these final 181 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death stanzas signals a new self-confidence, as Malherbe asks Henri and the nation to recognize the eloquence of the royal odes as essential to the man of action whose moral greatness is threatened by impermanence without the poet’s gift of immortality. The commonplace of the ship of state, with its associated tropes, occurs in the first stanza, although it subsequently disappears. As we have seen, it serves several functions: it links the odes together in a unified sequence; it posits a common good and argues for the interconnected fates of Henri and his subjects; and it casts the political challenges facing Henri and the nation as a journey or quest, situating the occasion of each ode at a particular stage of the hero cycle. In the ode’s fist stanza, somewhat unexpectedly, and perhaps prematurely, the political adventure is declared over: Enfin après les tempêtes Nous voici rendus au port: Enfin nous voyons nos têtes Hors de l’injure du sort. Nous n’avons rien qui menace De troubler notre bonace: Et ces matières de pleurs, Massacres, feux, et rapines, De leurs funestes épines Ne gâteront plus nos fleurs. (vv. 1-10) [At last, after the storms, / Here we are, delivered to safe harbor: / At last, we see our heads / Protected from the injury of fortune. / There is nothing that threatens / To upset our halcyon days: / And the substance of our tears, / Massacres, fires, pillaging, / With their deadly thorns / Will no longer spoil our flowers.] Beginning in medias res, the first two lines imagine the ship of state already in safe harbor. Of course, the reader must infer the image of the ship from the metaphors “tempêtes,” “port,” and “bonace.” Such a deliberate omission is a form of rhetorical emphasis (Quintilian 8.3.85). The conspicuous position of the adverb, “enfin” [finally, at last], and its repetition in line three convey a sense of relief but also recall the fearful uncertainty of the previous stages of the journey. The expression “nous voici” suggests that the speaker addresses the whole nation, and the collective identity of the pronoun “nous” [we] is later made explicit: “tes labeurs, d’où la France / A tiré sa délivrance” [your labors, whence France / Has drawn its salvation] (vv. 95-96). The plural passive participle, “rendus” (“delivered”), indicates that the nation, “nous” [we], owes the safety and calm which now prevail to the ship’s captain—Henri. The past 182 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes sufferings of civil war (“Massacres, feux, rapines” [Massacres, fires, pillaging], v. 8) are contrasted with the present pleasures of peace. The metaphor “nos fleurs” [our flowers] (v. 10), another instance of rhetorical emphasis, is pregnant with meaning (Quintilian 8.3.83; 9.2.64). It could represent economic prosperity, joyful occasions, the flourishing of the arts, the kingdom’s youth, or the descendants of the House of France. To be “hors de l’injure du sort,” beyond the reach of injurious fortune, is a hyperbole, but a no less extraordinary claim, considering that misfortune is the one force capable of vanquishing the greatest virtue of the greatest hero. As Aristotle notes, a feeling of confidence (tharsos) can stem from the removal of the causes of fear (Rhet. 2.5.16). The ode enthusiastically expresses confidence in Henri’s ability to overcome all challenges to the peace and security of the nation. Such an abrupt introduction creates a sense of suspense, the expectation that this achievement needs to be explained. Thus, as Rubin writes, the ode justifies the new state of affairs by focusing on “the king’s inner grandeur,” that which “permits him to attain to the highest level of moral perfection and secular authority” (Rubin, Higher 65). In other words, all is well because the ship of state has been steered to port by the great-souled hero. And yet how could the political adventure be over when the second part of the ode’s argument urges Henri to avenge the wrongs done to France by Savoy and Milan? This apparent contradiction points to the ode’s underlying pattern, which is more complex than the straightforward declaration of triumph by the first stanza. The solution to the riddle will be revealed by the ode’s implicit comparisons of Henri to epic heroes and the explicit comparison to Hercules, which the analysis will reach in due course. The first part of the ode’s argument closely ties the joy of triumph (“Nos prières sont ouïes, / Tout est réconcilié: / Nos peurs sont évanouies, / Sedan s’est humilié,” [Our prayers are answered, / All is reconciled: / Our fears are evaporated, / Sedan has humbled itself] vv. 11-14) to admiration for Henri, who is the pattern of kingship (“ô merveille! / Mon roi, l’exemple des rois,” [O marvel! / My king, the pattern of kings] vv. 31-32). The joy resides in the fulfillment of wishes and the dissipation of fears. The feeling of wonder comes from an unexpected reversal: Bouillon surrendered without a fight. The expectation was that the gravity of the conflict would lead to a long and bloody siege: Qui n’eût cru que ses murailles Que défendait un lion, N’eussent fait des funérailles Plus que n’en fit Ilion: (vv. 21-24) 183 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death [Who would not have thought that its walls (i.e. those of Sedan)/ Defended by a lion, / Would not have made for more funerals / Than were held at Troy.] This comparison of the Sedan campaign to the Trojan War undoubtedly exaggerates. What is noteworthy, however, is the epic diction of the hyperbole, “murailles,” “lion,” “funérailles,” and “Ilion,” underscored by the rhyme scheme. An implicit analogy compares Henri to the greatest hero of antiquity. If Sedan is Troy, then Bouillon is Hector, and Henri is Achilles. The hyperbole expresses the speaker’s enthusiasm and underscores the extraordinary nature of the hero (Quintilian 8.6.76). The wonder of the effect points to the wondrous nature of the cause, and the claim that more deaths than those at Troy would have resulted suggests that present historical actors and events surpass the examples of antiquity. Indeed, Henri’s virtue is so great, he did not even have to fight, almost as if it exerted power at a distance. The rest of the ode’s first part amplifies the admiration for Henri with implicit comparisons of him to multiple classical heroes and gods, with the understanding that the historical present outdoes the mythological past. An epic simile extending over stanzas five and six (vv. 41-60) likens the king’s martial fury to a flooded river sweeping away all obstacles in its path. Such an image of the furious warrior occurs in Homer, who describes Diomedes (Iliad 5.87-92) and Ajax (Iliad 11.492-497) as swollen torrents tearing across the plains of Troy. The emotion it inspires is the fearful wonder of destructive natural phenomena. The explicit comparison of Henri to Mars (“Son front avait une audace / Telle que Mars en la Thrace” [His brow displayed such daring / As Mars in Thrace], vv. 55-56) and the implicit comparison to Jupiter (“Et les éclairs de ses yeux / Étaient comme d’un tonnerre, / Qui gronde contre la terre, / Quand elle a fâché les cieux” [And the flashing of his eyes / Was like that of the thunder / Which chides the earth / When it has angered the heavens], vv. 56-60) both add the attribute of terrifying divinity to Henri, whose fearful aspect presumably explains Bouillon’s decision to lay down his arms without a fight. The revolt of the giants concludes this suite of heroic comparisons: “Comme la rébellion, / Dont la fameuse folie / Fit voir à la Thessalie / Olympe sur Pélion” [Like the rebellion, / Whose famous madness / Caused Thessaly to see / Olympus on Pelion] (vv. 65-70). A favorite of Malherbe, this Ovidian commonplace assigns the role of the rebellious giants to the great nobility while Henri plays the role of the avenging Jupiter. Such images of deadly omnipotence are sublime because the reader enjoys without personal risk the fear and terror they excite. Such mythological allusions cannot be dismissed as merely “decorative or allegorical” (Bannister, Condé 9). Just like the generation of writers after 1630 whose encomia Bannister chronicles in Condé in Context, Malherbe compares 184 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes men and women of the contemporary world with an idealized model, elides the boundaries of fact and fiction, and claims that the living example is superior. Malherbe also has no compunction about attributing heroic virtues to the historical actors of his day and holding them up as models to be imitated (Bannister, Condé 10). He thus anticipates and perhaps even contributes to “the optimism of impending greatness” that would imbue the reign of Louis XIII (Bannister, Condé 10). Unlike many panegyrists, however, Malherbe leaves the essential unsaid, and “Ode au feu Roi” is no exception. The reader must draw out the logical implications of the comparisons, another instance of significatio (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.53.67): for instance, the battle for Sedan would have been more deadly than the Trojan War; the combatants, Bouillon and Henri, are more heroic than Hector and Achilles; Henri’s martial fury is greater than Diomedes’ or Ajax’s; Henri is more daring than Mars; his righteous anger is more terrifying and more deadly than Jupiter’s. It is such inferences as these, present only in the reader’s mind, that constitute the mythologized portrait of Henri. The moral qualities portrayed, moreover, fall well within the parameters of magnanimity because of their implied magnitude. The superlative degree of the better known term of each comparison (i.e. Trojan War, Achilles, Jupiter, etc.) implies the superlative degree of the corresponding attribute. The battle of Sedan is (or would have been) deadlier than the Trojan War (the most deadly of wars); Henri is more courageous than Achilles (the best of the Greeks); Henri is more terrifying than Jupiter (the most powerful of the gods), and so on. In fact, the ode so elevates Henri’s virtues, they appear superhuman, even quasi-divine. Such deification is an inference which the ode draws from the wondrous outcome: “ô merveille! / Mon roi [] / L’a su tellement presser / D’obéir et de se rendre, / Qu’il n’a pas eu pour le prendre / Loisir de le menacer” [O marvel! / My king / Knew so well how to pressure him / To obey and to surrender / That he didn’t even have, while capturing him, / The luxury of threatening him] (vv. 32-40). “‘What is omnipotence,” asks Jacques Morel echoing Jean Starobinsky, “but the privilege of having only to show oneself to be obeyed? ’” (Morel, “Héroïsation” 7). Like a miracle or some wondrous natural phenomenon (earthquake, eclipse, tides), some obscure divine force is supposed to be at work. Bouillon’s surrender without a fight implies the presence of divine power, whether in the person of the king or accompanying him—or both. It is not by chance that the passage evokes, attendant upon Henri, “un génie / Qui les volontés manie” [a spirit / That directs the wills of others] (vv. 35-36). This could be Henri’s character or disposition. But it could also be the daemon, the guardian angel of France, encountered in “Ode sur l’attentat.” In either case, the miraculous surrender of 185 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death Bouillon is the premise of Henri’s alleged special relationship to fortune as well as France’s insurance policy against the reversals of misfortune. Equally wondrous is Henri’s clemency: “Voyez comme en son courage, / Quand on se range au devoir, / La pitié calme l’orage / Que l’ire a fait émouvoir” [See how in his courage, / When the offender comes back to his duty, / Pity calms the storm / Which anger set in motion] (vv. 71-74). Although Henri often pardoned political adversaries, his clemency on this occasion is presented as a coup de théâtre which directly follows the allusion to Troy, the epic comparison of Henri to a destructive river, and the punishment of the giants by the lightning of Jupiter. Anger on this occasion would have been justified. The ode uses the pardon to complete the portrait of Henri as the pattern of kingship, both brave and wise. While Henri’s march against the revolt of Sedan demonstrates prowess, courage, and honor, this unexpected display of clemency shows that he knows how to govern. The cause for celebration is certainly the defeat of the insurrection, which symbolizes the submission of the great nobility to Henri’s monarchal authority. But it is also Henri’s willingness to move forward, putting aside personal and political resentments for the good of the nation. The king’s clemency signals that France will not return to the destructive chaos of civil war: “Arrière vaines chimères / De haines, et de rancoeurs: / Soupçons de choses amères / Éloignez-vous de nos coeurs” [Get behind us, vain chimeras / Of hatred and resentment: / Suspicions of bitter things, / Distance yourselves from our hearts] (vv. 81-84). Whereas his martial virtues guarantee the maintenance of peace and security, his clemency is a precondition of France’s return to greatness, since it overlooks personal grievance for the sake of restoring national unity. The ode’s first nine stanzas, therefore, argue that Henri is no ordinary mortal, but a hero whose magnanimity surpasses the models of antiquity. He is the living pattern of kingship. Malherbe invites the reader to draw a further series of inferences regarding magnanimity and emulation. While the recognition of Henri’s superlative virtue implies submission to his authority, the difference between the king and his great-souled subjects is not one of kind but of degree, so that submission need not preclude emulation. The admiration for Henri which the ode’s heroic imagery seeks to inspire may also excite “a kind of distress” experienced by those who “think themselves deserving of goods they do not have” (Rhet. 2.11.1). The virtuous admire benefactors and others honored for their virtue, and the virtues themselves are the appropriate objects of emulation (Rhet. 2.11.4). The active comprehension demanded by the ode allows the recognition of Henri’s virtue, the admiration for it, and the emulation it inspires, to emerge from the reader’s own mind. Whether one feels resentment or is 186 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 15 Plutarch, Plutarch’s Lives, trans. Bernadette Perrin (Loeb Classical Library, 1948). stirred to emulation is a test of one’s own character. The ode certainly models the latter, and it proposes an outlet for the striving after glory in the campaigns against Savoy and Milan. The second part of the ode’s argument, beginning at stanza ten and directly addressing Henri with the apostrophe “Ô roi” (v. 91), pauses momentarily before going on to urge military campaigns abroad. An explicit comparison of Henri to Hercules, the conceptual heart of the ode, caps the earlier parallels: Si tes labeurs, d’où la France A tiré sa délivrance, Sont écris avecque foi, Qui sera si ridicule Qui ne confesse qu’Hercule Fut moins Hercule que toi? (vv. 95-100) [If your labors, whence France / Has drawn its salvation, / Are recorded faithfully, / Who will be so ridiculous / As not to admit that Hercules / Was less Hercules than you? ] The Henri-Hercules parallel, traces of which have appeared in the previous odes, was widespread in the encomiastic literature and visual arts dedicated to the glorification of the new king. “Henri IV, admired as the hero who had achieved the superhuman feat of bringing peace to France, was most frequently compared to Hercules because of the allegorical possibilities offered by the slaying of the hydra of heresy, the freeing of the kingdom from the monsters of discord and betrayal, and the imposing of peace through strength” (Bannister, Condé 9). Malherbe was alert to all these possibilities, especially to the labors as images of the king’s heroic and superhuman perseverance in the face of countless obstacles. In this comparison, however, Malherbe takes the parallel to the next level. This particular hyperbole, in which the superlative term is surpassed, defies logic to capture the unsayable magnitude of Henri’s virtue, while its compressed syntax and harsh sounds exemplify the plainer variety of Hellenistic grandeur, which emphasizes loftiness of conception and uses jagged rhythm to express passionate utterance. What is more, David Lee Rubin plausibly holds that the hyperbolic com‐ parison of Henri to Hercules in stanza ten implicitly alludes to Theseus. In Plutarch’s Life of Theseus, the Greek hero aspires to surpass the achievements of Hercules (Plutarch 6.7), and he subjugates men whose “monstrous insolence” respected neither justice nor righteousness (Plutarch 6.4). 15 The “Ode au feu 187 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death 16 See Arrian, The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander 3.3.2, 4.8.3, 5.3.2, 5.26.5, ed. James Romm, trans. Pamela Mensch (New York: Anchor Books, 2012). Roi” uses almost identical language in stanza eleven to express gratitude for Henri’s subjugation of a rebellious great nobility: “Et qu’aurait fait l’innocence, / Si l’outrageuse licence, / De qui le souverain bien / Est d’opprimer et de nuire, / N’eût trouvé pour la détruire / Un bras fort comme le tien? ” [And what would innocence have done, / If outrageous license, / Whose sovereign good / Is to oppress and to harm, / Had not found, to destroy it, / An arm strong as your own? ] (vv. 105-110). For Rubin, this buried Theseus-Henri parallel constitutes the ode’s underlying pattern (Rubin, Higher 60-61): just as Theseus achieved political consolidation for his people only to squander these gains by his participation in ill-considered foreign conquest, so Henri’s achievement is threatened by impermanence. The kingdom’s precipitous decline could follow the hero’s unexpected death, or it could be caused by reckless decisions while still alive. The ode proposes remedies against both. To preserve against death: 1. the Dauphin will continue his father’s labors, and 2. the eloquence of Malherbe’s poetry will immortalize the hero. “Without the posthumous fulfillment of Henri IV’s policies, in all their ramifications,” writes Rubin, “such everlasting praise would serve only as a bitter reminder of incomplete achievements and promises unkept. The reference to the dauphin [] is thus indispensable to the inversion of the posterity motif ” (Rubin, Higher 63). The inversion referred to is the perfection of the flaw implicit in the pattern. In Rubin’s reading, the son will preserve, even surpass, the father’s achievement, and “Ode au feu Roi” certainly supports this interpretation. However, the ode also suggests that Henri may forestall decadence and impermanence while still alive. Another flawed pattern embedded in stanza six must still be considered, that of Alexander. The Greek conqueror was known for his terrifying anger as well as his clemency, and his empire, assembled by grueling campaigns of foreign adventure, suffered division and decline following his unexpected death. The comparison between Henri and Hercules could just as easily evoke Alexander who considered Hercules his ancestor. Arrian records that Alexander, openly locked in a rivalry with the demi-god, welcomed the parallel by flatterers and close friends alike. 16 The submerged example of Alexander informs the glorification of Henri’s clemency, and it accords with the references to the Dauphin’s conquest of Egypt and the expansion of the French empire still further east (vv. 134-140). If the pattern of Alexander offers one advantage, it is that the ode does not advise Henri to preserve his achievements at home by refusing conquest abroad—as one might 188 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes expect if Theseus was the model. Rubin has correctly identified the existence of an underlying pattern, but he has mistaken the way the protagonist overcomes it. If Alexander’s life offers a cautionary tale, it is that a sudden reversal of fortune exposes the hero and the empire to ruin. If it does not apply to Henri, it is because the French king’s labors have revealed the special favor that fortune reserves for him. Henri indeed has an heir to back him up, but more important is Henri’s quasi-divine transformation brought about by the trials he has been undergoing. Such transformation is a major theme of Campbell’s hero cycle, and it is the deeper meaning of the Henri-Hercules comparison. Where Alexander failed, Henri will succeed. There is some supernatural force looking out for Henri; or to put it another way, Henri appears to exert some kind of influence over forces that are usually beyond the control of ordinary human beings. And so, because the political quest will not be complete until France has regained its European political hegemony, there is yet one more labor that awaits the Hercules of France. If fortune’s love for Henri will provide an iron-clad guarantee against recklessness, there is no reason for Henri to rest on his laurels. Therefore, the political adventure is only half over. Domestic peace and security (“notre bonace” [our halcyon days], v. 6) are the necessary conditions for Henri to return France to European dominance. The reader thus understands the historical overcoming of the ode’s flawed pattern in this way: whereas the Dauphin represents a kind of insurance policy to secure the future, Henri’s seduction of fortune promises a successful outcome for any campaign of foreign conquest that he may wish to undertake right now. The second part of the argument proposes the military campaigns against Savoy and Milan, but approaches the idea obliquely by first providing justifica‐ tions for them. Stanza twelve intitiates the oblique argument, deftly turning the logic of magnanimity back on the hero himself: “Mon roi, connais ta puissance, / Elle est capable de tout, / Tes desseins n’ont pas naissance, / Qu’on en voit déjà le bout” [My king, recognize your power, / It can achieve anything, / Your plans are not hatched / And we already see their fruition.] (vv. 111-114). Not only must the king recognize the true magnitude of his power after his latest victory over Sedan, but his projects achieve their objectives as soon as they hatch! A felicitous conceit, however far-fetched. In addition, Henri is said to enjoy an unusual, even astonishing relationship with fortune: “Et la fortune amoureuse / De ta vertue généreuse, / Treuve de si doux appas / À te servir, et te plaire, / Que c’est la mettre en colère / Que de ne l’employer pas” [And fortune, in love / With your magnanimous virtue, / Finds such sweet attractions / In serving you, and pleasing you, / That you will anger her, / If you do not make use of her] 189 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death (vv. 115-120). The adversarial relationship that traditionally exists between the hero and fortune has been turned on its head. Fortune is now Henri’s admiring lover, and Henri will please her by attempting new heroic feats, thus giving her the opportunity to display her favor. Such a far-fetched conceit, using personification and the familiar terms of courtly love to represent the obscure forces that seem to favor Henri, was likely suggested by Henri’s remarkable string of military victories. Stanza thirteen amplifies the theme of invincibility with another striking image: “Où que tes bannières aillent, / Quoi que tes armes assaillent, / Il n’est orgueil endurci, / Que brisé comme du verre, / À tes pieds elle n’atterre, / S’il implore ta merci” [Wherever your banners go, / Whatever your arms assail, / There is no pride so hardened, / That like broken glass, / At your feet falls to the ground, / When it implores your mercy] (vv. 125-130). Noble pride smashes like glass at Henri’s feet. The comparison looks behind to Sedan’s submission and forward to the surrender of Savoy and Milan. Interestingly, the pride of Henri’s adversaries is smashed not by military force but by clemency. It is Henri’s moral grandeur, not physical prowess, that outstrips all rivals. The blandishments do not stop there. The ode then downplays the risk of the so-far unmentioned military venture by evoking the future heroic exploits of the Dauphin: “Je sais bien que les oracles / Prédisent tous qu’à ton fils / Sont réservés les miracles / De la prise de Memphis” [I know that all the oracles / Predict that to your son / Belongs the miracle / Of capturing Memphis] (vv. 131-134). The Dauphin is Henri’s ace in the hole. Imagined as a new Alexander or Saint Louis conquering Egypt, he will surpass his father’s exploits and roll back the “infidèle Croissant” [infidel Crescent] (v. 140), the encroaching empire of the Ottoman Turks. In the meantime, while awaiting the Dauphin’s coming-of-age, “L’âge où de ses destinées / La gloire doit commencer” [The age when his destiny’s / Glory must begin] (vv. 143-144): Que fais-tu d’une armée À te venger animée, Tu ne mets dans le tombeau Ces voisins, dont les pratiques De nos rages domestiques Ont allumé le flambeau? (vv. 145-150) [What are you doing with an army / Aroused to avenge you, / Why don’t you put in the grave / Those neighbors whose actions / The flames of our domestic / Hatred ignited? ] The speaker asks Henri a direct question. Paratactic syntax and the personal pronoun “tu” [thou, you] impart the feel of spoken French to this passage, so 190 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes that one detects a tone of familiarity and frankness—indeed, almost a note of impatience. Such foreign policy advice was probably a widely held opinion, and Henri was likely already considering what is being urged. But the tone makes it seem as though Malherbe were inciting the king to settle an old score. “The army is primed, what are you waiting for? ” The vengeance is more than personal, however. This passage clearly lays the blame for fanning the flames of discord at the feet of “ces voisins” [these neighbors] (v. 149), an ironic term for the enemies of France. The call for their death as payback reveals the feelings of anger and hatred bubbling below the surface, and such emotions directed toward hostile foreign powers serves to mark the boundary of the nation as much as any physical frontier. To feel such feelings is to be a subject of the French nation. The whole passage exhibits a strong national sentiment. Extending the conceit of obscure forces that favor Henri, stanza sixteen minimizes the logistical difficulties of sending an army through the Alps: “Qui verront-elles venir, / Envoyé sous tes auspices, / Qu’aussitôt leurs précipices / Ne se laissent aplanir? ” [Whomever they see approaching, / Sent under your auspices, / Will their precipices immediately / Not flatten themselves out? ] vv. 157-160). Just as all obstacles have been removed for the hero, the darling of fortune, so the Alps will flatten themselves for him—or his lieutenant. Malherbe then adds this bit of advice: Crois-moi, contente l’envie Qu’ont tant de jeunes guerriers, D’aller exposer leur vie Pour t’acquérir des lauriers: Et ne tiens point otieuses Ces âmes ambitieuses. (vv. 161-166) [Trust me, satisfy the desire / Of so many young warriors / Who would risk their lives / To acquire you laurels: / And do not keep idle / These ambitious souls.] This sentiment—indeed, this whole line of argument—echoes the last four stanzas of the first ode, “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601). There Malherbe was urging caution, asking Henri to stand down and let others take the lead against Savoy and Milan while the king focused on governance and begetting a legitimate heir. Here Malherbe is urging immediate action. The rationale is similar: focus the energies of the warrior class on a foreign conflict, thereby providing an external outlet for their ambition, but also, bolster the sense of national unity with a war against external enemies. So it is that Malherbe rallies the kingdom’s great-souled subjects pro rege et patria. The bold timeliness of this advice displays the speaker’s own phronēsis and magnanimity. 191 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death Stanzas eighteen and nineteen, the last two of this second part of the ode’s argument, imagine the military venture as already accomplished. The ode mythologizes the rivers associated with each duchy—the Ticino (“le Tessin” v. 171) for Milan, and the Po for Savoy—and depicts both river gods anticipating Henri’s victory. Milan served as a strategic military base for the Spanish. The Ticino, filled with melancholy (“tout morne” [all sad] v. 171), resolves to hide himself, fearing lest Henri pillage his cornucopia. To cut off the allegorical abundance of the Ticino’s waters is therefore to constrict the flow of Spanish troops and supplies along the Spanish Road. The Po, for its part, having retreated to his grotto, “Tenant baissé le menton” [with chin lowered] (v. 177), a sign of his resignation, “s’apprête à voir en son onde / Choir un autre Phaéton” [prepares to witness in his currents / The fall of another Phaethon] (vv. 179-180). Just as Jupiter’s lightning bolt blasted the over-ambitious Phaethon from the sky, so Henri’s artillery will bring down the overweening duke of Savoy. Such mythological allegories, once recognized by the reader, cast the unknowable outcomes of Henri’s military enterprise in terms that are familiar and certain, so that the ode can predict with confidence: “L’astre, dont la course ronde / Tous les jours voit tout le monde, / N’aura point achevé l’an, / Que tes conquêtes ne rasent / Tout le Piémont, et n’écrasent / La couleuvre de Milan” [The orb, whose circular course / Every day sees the whole world, / Will not have concluded the year, / But your conquests will raze / The entire Piedmont and crush / The serpent of Milan] (vv. 185-190). The sun, “l’astre,” marks the swiftness of the victory and serves as witness to Henri’s superlative exploits. Another instance of significatio per similitudem (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.54.67), the allegorical serpent, “couleuvre,” resonates with latent possibilities: it could represent the heraldic symbol of Milan; it could be the Count of Fuentes, the Spanish governor of Milan; it could suggest the evil of the Habsburg menace encircling France; or it could allude to the eleventh labor of Hercules, when he killed the serpent-like dragon guarding the golden apples. The French Hercules will outdo Theseus and Alexander with this last feat, and the flawed pattern will be perfected in history. At the same time, this and the other mythological motifs transpose what might otherwise be minor and local conflicts to the timeless realm of literature, eternalizing the glory of Henri’s restoration of France to European dominance. The ode’s final three stanzas, thought to be a late addition to what seems an otherwise complete argument, glorify Malherbe’s craftsmanship and celebrate the royal odes’ unique capacity to immortalize the hero’s achievement. Henri’s victory over Savoy and Milan, or so the poet claims, will be the occasion for his final and most beautiful ode: “Ce sera là que ma lyre, / Faisant son dernier effort, / Entreprendra de mieux dire, / Qu’un cygne près de sa mort” [That will 192 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes be the moment when my lyre, / Making its final effort, / Will undertake to speak more eloquently / Than a swan about to die] (vv. 191-194). This mixed metaphor—a lyre speaking more eloquently than a dying swan—encapsulates Malherbe’s poetic project. Both the lyre and the swan evoke the musical origins of lyric poetry (the lyre was the musical instrument that accompanied the singer’s words, and the swan traditionally sings a beautiful song before it dies). Many of Malherbe’s lyric poems were put to music, and like Horace, Malherbe never abandons the musical tropes of lyric poetry. However, the royal odes are clearly meant to be read and not sung. They are highly elaborate orations whose argument and style are intended to cause cognitive and affective modifications with a view to renovating the monarchy and forging a new nation. The comparative phrase “mieux dire” [to speak better] recalls the most famous definition of eloquence: ars bene dicendi (Quintilian 2.15.38), “l’art de bien dire,” the art of speaking well. The strange image therefore suggests that Malherbe’s poetry, i.e. his lyre, is the comparative degree of speaking well, and his eloquence is more beautiful than the incomparable beauty of the swan song. The image of the swan also announces the theme of immortality. In Horace, Odes 2.20, the poet’s metamorphosis into a swan represents the deathless fame conferred on him by his poetry. To sing better than the swan is to outdo Horace and, therefore, to achieve immortality. Malherbe’s ode reinforces this theme in the next stanza with another Horatian commonplace: exegi monumentum (Horace, Odes 3.30): “Tous ces chefs-d’oeuvres antiques / Ont à peine leurs reliques: / Par les Muses seulement / L’homme est exempt de la Parque” [All these ancient masterpieces / Have hardly any remains: / Through the Muses alone, / Man is exempt from Fate (i.e. death)] (vv. 205-208). This variation becomes more specific in the final stanza, where Malherbe dedicates the immortality of his poetry to the task of preserving the memory of Henri’s greatness: “Je défendrai ta mémoire / Du trépas injurieux” [I will defend your memory / From injurious death] (vv. 213-214) and “Ta louange dans mes vers / D’amarante couronnée / N’aura sa fin terminée / Qu’en celle de l’univers” [Your praise in my verse, / Crowned with amaranth, / Will reach its end / Only with the termination of the universe] (vv. 217-220). As Rubin notes, the crown of amaranth symbolizes both perfection (because it is a circle) and immortality (its conventional significance) (Rubin, Higher 67). It is not just any poetry, but the esthetic perfection of Malherbe’s poetry, which guarantees against oblivion. These conventional themes concluding the ode point to some intriguing implications for Malherbe’s poetic project. First, it little matters whether Henri or any of his contemporaries will be around to verify Malherbe’s grandiose claims. The immortality pledged to Henri is offered to the living, for the living, 193 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death in the here and now. It serves to reinforce the king’s prestige and therefore his authority in the eyes of his contemporaries. Second, the promise of immortality raises the specter of death. Underlying the promise of immortality is the impermanence of all things. One detects a sense of urgency in the advice to avenge France by launching attacks against Savoy and Milan, almost a carpe diem urging the king to act now while he still can. If death and oblivion did not threaten the hero, there would be no need for the ode to memorialize him. As Malherbe was to declare a year later in a sonnet written for Henri, who had fallen ill: “Quoi donc c’est un arrêt qui n’épargne personne / Que rien n’est ici-bas heureux parfaitement” [So then it is a verdict that spares no one, / That nothing in this world is perfectly happy] (vv. 1-2). The summit of achievement attained by the hero is subject to human impermanence. If Henri’s achievement is impermanent, it will be imperfect. The esthetic grandeur of the Muses, the daughters of memory, completes the moral grandeur of the hero, paradoxically, by fixing the achievement in time. “By his poetics of grandeur,” writes Rubin, “Malherbe enabled Henri IV to attain the resplendent eminence of an ideal type, a norm against which all other sovereigns would be measured” (Rubin, Higher 67). Such an ideal image of Henri is created by the ode and preserved in it. Therefore, to the poet’s traditional functions, namely, to dispense glory (“en l’aise de la victoire / Rien n’est si doux que la gloire / De se voir si bien louer,” [In the joy of victory, / Nothing is so sweet as the glory / Of seeing oneself so well praised] vv. 198-200), and to immortalize the hero (“Et ce qui porte leur marque, / Demeure éternellement,” [And whatever bears their mark (i.e. of the Muses), / Endures forever] vv. 209-210), Malherbe’s royal odes add a new utopian function: the perfection of happiness on earth. Third, Malherbe has been self-effacing in his odes up to this point. Antoine Adam notes that Desportes had recently died, and so the last three stanzas may represent Malherbe’s attempt to claim his rightful place as the greatest living poet in France (Malherbe, Poésies 265). It is Henri’s turn, and the nation’s, to recognize Malherbe’s virtue. The final stanzas of “Ode au feu Roi” ask Henri and the nation to recognize Malherbe’s eloquence as restoring something essential to the man of action, whose moral greatness cannot appear as what it is, in life or in death, without the poet’s unique contribution. The claim rests on the assumption that eloquence is the twin of action and, like action, emerges from the poet’s own magnanimity and phronēsis. The logic of magnanimity demands such reciprocity. Finally, the ode’s last three stanzas raise a question regarding Malherbe’s poetics, that is, the mix of rhetoric and poetry underlying the royal odes. A twenty-first-century reader may be forgiven for not seeing the puzzle here. The 194 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes last three stanzas foreground the ode’s formal perfection as the guarantee of immortality, as if eloquence were merely a question of technique, making no mention of the poet’s character or virtue. But this apparent contradiction is the condition of any “civic art.” Coined by Eugene Garver in Aristotle’s ‘Rhetoric’: An Art of Character, the term “civic art” encapsulates the assertion that “rhetoric lies between the activities of practical reason, for which moral character is enough, and instrumental activities which can be bought, sold, and taught” (Garver 6). Not simply a question of technique which any commoner could learn, “the right performance of civic activities is a matter of birth, of habit, and of education through imitating one’s elders and betters” (Garver 7). It is ethos, or character, that underwrites any civic art, legitimating the powers of making, of craftsmanship, by bringing them within the scope of doing good and doing well (Garver 15). Malherbe’s royal odes partake of this uneasy compromise between virtue and craft. They have a clear civic purpose (to renovate the monarchy and to forge a new nation); they are grounded in character (the megalopsychos), which itself is a function of virtue; and they have an argumentative form (enthymeme, example, comparison, etc.). So, although the last three stanzas of “Ode au feu roi” underscore the importance of esthetic perfection, the central role played by judgment in Malherbe’s poetry (considered in combination with its civic purpose, its argumentative form, and its rhetorical ethos) presupposes that the odes subordinate poetic craft to the virtues of character and, in the case of phronēsis, of intellect. Their esthetic perfection, their craftsmanship, including Malherbe’s obsession with grammar and versification, must be read as signs of aristocratic taste and judgment. Such techniques are not known to just anybody, but they could be. In calling attention to the esthetic perfection of his art, Malherbe implicitly sets this against the character and the virtues presupposed and revealed by the royal odes. In “Ode au feu Roi,” the Golden Age is presented as nearly actualized. One more labor by the hero will transform the nation. But the ode also contains depictions of this political utopia, and these include the pacification of the great nobility, the defeat of Savoy and Milan, the establishment of a French empire by the Dauphin. Nor should the recognition of the social and political importance of the poet be overlooked. The restoration of eloquence to the man of action implies a central place for the poet in the new Golden Age. Such recognition should probably be subsumed under the broader question of the proper place of the nobility given the caste’s alleged superiority, but it certainly argues for the elevated position Malherbe believes he should occupy in the new political order. Whatever sardonic remarks that Malherbe enjoyed making to friends about his 195 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death own and other poets’ irrelevance to the regime, he clearly imagines an exalted role for the poet in “Ode au feu Roi.” 2. À Monseigneur le duc de Bellegarde (1608; 1609) This encomium to Bellegarde is a patronage text, that is, it symbolically repays the duke for his financial support. The poet shows his gratitude by leveraging the eternal glory of his eloquence to immortalize Bellegarde for posterity—but clearly, too, for contemporaries. The argument is that Bellegarde’s extraordinary virtues, both courtly and martial, deserve public acknowledgement, especially as the duke’s magnanimity has helped secure the nation’s future. It divides into three parts: 1. stanzas one through four declare Bellegarde’s merit too long overlooked while claiming objectivity in praising him; 2. stanzas five through twenty-two offer a detailed exposition of Bellegarde’s social graces and military prowess; 3. stanzas twenty-three through twenty-six reaffirm Malherbe’s per‐ sonal affection for Bellegarde. Not a favorite of critics, “À Monseigneur” has been faulted for its long-winded, fulsome and contrived praise. The quid pro quo of its occasion would seem to preclude any possibility of sincerity, while its structure too closely hews to the encomiastic guidelines of a schoolbook like Rhetorica ad Herennium. The ode’s alleged esthetic flaws, however, in no way detract from its con‐ tribution to the overall unity of the poetic sequence. In “À Monseigneur,” the commonplace of the ship of state for the first time assumes the form of a specific epic adventure, the voyage of the Argo: “avecque Jason / Jamais Argonaute semblable / N’alla conquérir la toison” [With Jason, / Never did such an Argonaut / Travel to conquer the fleece] (vv. 118-20). This comparison is the nucleus of the underlying conceit of the ode: the heroic Bellegarde, like a crew member of the Argo, has performed marvels in the quest epic on behalf of the nation, not least of which is Bellegarde’s steadfast allegiance to Henri IV. The wonder of his loyalty points to the more wondrous nature of the cause that inspires it. Bellegarde’s willing submission to Henri’s political authority is a major contribution to the civic community of the new nation, while his wondrous example serves to excite feelings of emulation in the kingdom’s other great souls, particularly the grandees from the oldest and most powerful families. The presence of the Argo myth has two consequences. First, it creates a link to the first ode, “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601), the seed of the entire sequence. This resonance throws all nautical imagery in the light of the Greek quest epic, thereby contributing key textual evidence to justify 196 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes using Campbell’s hero cycle to interpret the political adventure that unifies the sequence. Granted, the quest appears suspended in “À Monseigneur,” as the ode casts a retrospective glance at Bellegarde’s service pro rege et patria. The most a reader may infer is that, as declared by the “Ode of feu Roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan” (1606; 1607), the adventure is over since the ship of state has arrived in safe harbor. Second, the comparison of Bellegarde to an Argonaut in this ode implies several additional analogies—Henri = Jason, Malherbe = Orpheus, Marie de Médicis = the Golden Fleece—although the logical consistency of such ancillary parallels goes only so far. The most important of them likens Bellegarde and his brother to the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux. “From the metaphorical structures,” writes David Lee Rubin, “there emerges an unexpected identification of the brothers Bellegarde with the celebrated pair of mythological twins” (Rubin, Higher 77). It is this implicit comparison that sets up the flawed pattern which the ode’s historical protagonists have the opportunity to overcome. The flaw to be perfected is the betrayal, even unwitting, of the bonds of patron-client friendship. The ode, therefore, does more than express Malherbe’s gratitude to his patron. It proposes the ethos of magnanimity as the proper basis for the new civic community of emulation pro rege et patria, even as it affirms the traditional vertical ties that subordinate great nobles to the king, and all nobles of lower rank to those of higher rank. Affirmed at the ode’s conclusion are not simply Bellegarde’s merits and Malherbe’s gratitude, but a just social order permeating and sustaining the nation. Malherbe must have been acutely aware of the appearance of insincerity in writing an ode to his benefactor. The first four stanzas clarify the rationale for the occasion while taking pains to establish the poet’s credibility. Beginning in medias res, the ode pretends to break an unjust silence obscuring the glory that Bellegarde deserves: À la fin c’est trop de silence En si beau sujet de parler: Le mérite qu’on veut celer Souffre une injuste violence: Bellegarde unique support Où mes voeux ont trouvé leur port, Que tarde ma paresse ingrate, Que déjà ton bruit nonpareil Aux bords du Tage, et de l’Euphrate, N’a vu l’un et l’autre soleil? (vv. 1-10) 197 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death [This is finally too much silence / On a such a fine subject for a speech: / The merit that some would keep hidden / Suffers an unjust violence: / Bellegarde, unique support / Where my desires have found safe harbor, / Why does my ungrateful laziness delay, / So that already your unparalleled reputation, / On the banks of the Tagus and the Euphrates, / Has not seen one and the other sun? ] The poet blames himself for the situation, calling out his own “ungrateful laziness” as responsible for Bellegarde’s “unparalleled reputation” not yet reigning from the Euphrates to the Tagus, a hyperbole evoking an empire on which the sun never sets. The third and fourth verses, “Le mérite qu’on veut celer / Souffre une injuste violence” [The merit that some would keep hidden / Suffers an unjust violence] (vv. 3-4), constitute a maxim whose function is to shape the reader’s perception of the speaker’s character. Its self-evidence aims to depict the poet as the kind of person who shares the reader’s values and beliefs. The notion that great virtue deserves public recognition is one of the premises of magnanimity. The recognition of Bellegarde’s virtue, however tardy, shows that the poet is also a great soul (since the megalopsychos has the right concern with honor). Thus the ode subtly deflects attention away from Malherbe’s personal indebtedness. Although this first stanza acknowledges the poet’s gratitude for Bellegarde’s patronage (“unique support,” v. 5), it attempts to show that a higher obligation than financial and political protection—namely, bestowing honor on great virtue—motivates the decision to compose the encomium. The affirmation of patron-client friendship also appears in the first stanza. The decision to speak up in praise of Bellegarde suggests that the poet should be included as one of the historical actors overcoming the mythological pattern of betrayal (which has not yet appeared). The later recognition of Bellegarde’s loyalty pro rege et patria implies that the poet has studied the duke’s example. This theme concerning the relations of patrons and clients runs throughout the ode, and it begins with the image of Bellegarde as the “port” (harbor) for the poet’s “voeux” (aspirations). The metaphor is picked up at the conclusion when the poet refers to the ode as a skiff (“ma barque” [my skiff] v. 221). The financial and political security which Bellegarde affords Malherbe allows him to devote his best hours to writing poetry. Not only does Malherbe’s attainment of safe harbor in Bellegarde represent in miniature the nation’s salvation in Henri, but the virtuous reciprocity between patron and poet in the first stanza prefigures the relationship between Bellegarde and Henri depicted later in the ode, setting up a chain of cause and effect. Just as Henri protects Bellegarde, who reciprocates with his military and diplomatic service, so Bellegarde protects Malherbe, who reciprocates with this encomium and the larger sequence of odes. All these actions are done pro rege et patria. Thus Malherbe’s poetry is the fruit 198 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes of noble generosity that descends from the apex of the social ladder and returns there in the form of praise, which repays the debt by apportioning glory where it is due. The demonstration of the reciprocated obligations that exist between monarch and great nobility, and between greater and lesser nobles, suggests that the unbroken bonds of patron-client friendship constitute the backbone of the civic community of great souls. The ode’s introduction further seeks to mitigate any personal bias on Mal‐ herbe’s part by appealing to the poet’s authority and reputation. These make him the necessary choice to celebrate Bellegarde—in spite of his affection and indebtedness. In stanza two, the poet’s authority to speak frankly and truthfully derives from the Muses: “Les Muses hautaines et braves / Tiennet le flatter odieux, / Et comme parentes des dieux / Ne parlent jamais en esclaves” [The Muses, haughty and bold, / Consider flattery detestable, / And as relatives of the gods, / Never speak as slaves] (vv. 11-14). Their divine parentage justifies the poet’s noble pride and precludes any servile flattery. At the same time, the Muses are not so proud as to refuse the support of an admirer: “Mais aussi ne sont-elles pas / De ces beautés dont les appas / Ne sont que rigueur, et que glace: / Et de qui le cerveau léger, / Quelque service qu’on leur fasse, / Ne se peut jamais obliger” [But also they are not / Like those beauties whose charms / Are only rigor and ice, / And whose shallow mind, / Whatever service one renders them, / Can never accept to be obliged] (vv. 15-20). The vehicle of this negative comparison are the beautiful women at court whose unworldliness prevents them from accepting the services of a courtier. Such obligation might raise questions about their honor. While the comparison is somewhat unfair, since early modern women had to guard their reputations more jealously than men, it conveys the message that a poet follows, without impropriety, the Muses’ example of virtuous reciprocity. It also serves to bring these divine beings to earth. By the beginning of the third stanza, the conceit of inspiration gives way to the mundane idea of erudition: “La vertu, qui de leur étude / Est le fruit le plus précieux, / Sur tous les actes vicieux / Leur fait haïr l’ingratitude” [Virtue, which of their study / Is the most precious fruit, / Of all vicious acts, / Makes them hate ingratitude] (vv. 21-24). The word “étude” [study] suggests that the Muses are merely the books of Greco-Roman antiquity that comprise the humanist encyclopedia. Thus Malherbe’s authority to celebrate Bellegarde derives from the virtue cultivated by the poet’s study of the liberal arts—an attitude expressed in Montaigne’s essay “De l’institution des enfans” [On the Education of Children] (Essais 1.26). In short, the poet’s virtue makes him fit to recognize the hero’s virtue. 199 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death What makes Malherbe the necessary choice to crown Bellegarde with eternal glory, however, is the alleged fame of the poet’s eloquence, which stretches from the Euphrates to the Tagus, a hyperbole calculated to inspire feelings of sublimity, both for its vast expanse and for its antiquity. While such boundaries evoke the Roman imperium at its height, their purely symbolic nature suggests that what they define exists only in the realm of imagination. Through his choice of classical intertexts, Malherbe grafts the royal odes on the literary branch of the humanist encyclopedia, a symbolic remnant of the classical world. So when Malherbe speaks of poets as the Muses’ “learned sucklings” (“doctes nourrisons,” v. 26) who know how to “charm destiny” (“charmer les destinées,” v. 27), or when he promises to make the universe fall in love with Bellegarde’s reputation (“je rendrai cet univers / Amoureux de ta renommée” [I will make the universe / Fall in love with your fame], v. 39), the immortality offered Bellegarde is a symbolic afterlife grafted on the deathless fame which Malherbe’s poetry allegedly enjoys in the imaginary empire of literature. Such immortality, of course, enjoyed while one is still alive, constitutes a source of enormous prestige in the eyes of one’s contemporaries. The second part of the ode’s argument dwells in detail on Bellegarde’s merits, making “À Monseigneur” by far the longest of Malherbe’s odes. The order of presentation is rather straightforward, going from the least to the most important of Bellegarde’s qualities. Stanzas five and six declare the poet perplexed by such an abundance of virtues. In line with the recommendations of standard rhetorical manuals, stanzas seven and eight begin with the illustrious ancestors of Bellegarde’s family. A transition follows in stanzas nine and ten, praising Bellegarde’s desire to live up to his family name, with the “infamous monster of envy” (v. 91) having to admit the duke’s first rank among “Des grands coeurs, et beaux esprits, / Dont aujourd’hui la France est pleine” [The great souls and fine minds / Which fill France today] (vv. 96-97). Stanza eleven focuses on Bellegarde’s physical prowess in athletic and military exercises. Stanza twelve (where the ode’s central conceit appears) recalls Bellegarde’s journey to Italy to serve as witness in the proxy marriage of Marie, and the comparison of Bellegarde to an Argonaut frames not only Bellegarde’s loyalty to Henri (affirming the bonds of patron-client friendship) but also Henri’s devotion to the nation (the fulfillment of the quest epic). Stanza thirteen stresses Bellegarde’s physical beauty and sartorial splendor during this diplomatic mission. Stanzas fourteen and fifteen mark another transition, using the example of Achilles to downplay external virtues, however impressive and pleasurable, compared with the more important moral virtues. The next two stanzas, sixteen and seventeen, clarify that the most famous of Greek heroes is considered 200 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 17 Apollonios Rhodios, The Argonautika, trans. Peter Green (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). worthy of remembrance only because of his courage and magnanimity. Stanzas eighteen through twenty-two—the final flourish before the conclusion— praise Bellegarde’s acts of valor, stressing his service pro rege et patria in the battles fought during the Wars of Religion. Such a portrait of Bellegarde as the heroic courtier would be only mildly interesting if it were not for the classical examples —the Argo and Achilles—which reveal the ode’s grander designs. The allusion to the story of the Argo in stanza twelve is the major clue prompting the recognition of the ode’s underlying conceit: Quand tu passas en Italie, Où tu fus querir pour mon roi Ce joyau d’honneur, et de foi, Dont l’Arne et la Seine s’allie: Thétis ne suivit-elle pas Ta bonne grace, et tes appas, Comme un objet émerveillable: Et jura qu’avecque Jason Jamais Argonaute semblable N’alla conquérir la toison? (vv. 111-120) [When you went to Italy, / To fetch for my king / This jewel of honor, and of faith, / By which the Arno and the Seine are joined: / Did not Thetis follow / Your alluring grace, and your charms, / Like a marvelous object: / And swore that, with Jason, / Never did such an Argonaut / Travel to conquer the fleece.] A twenty-first-century reader may be forgiven for wondering how to develop the parallels of the analogy “Jamais Argonaute semblable” (v. 119), another instance of significatio per similitudem (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.54.67). In the Argonau‐ tika, 17 Thetis is the spouse of Peleus, one of the many heroes accompanying Jason on his voyage. Summoned by Hera, Thetis plays a minor but crucial role in the quest, safely steering the Argo as it navigates past the Wandering Rocks (Argonautika, 4.783-864). The stanza’s rhetorical question asserts that Bellegarde’s beauty and grace so enraptured the sea-goddess, that she followed Bellegarde on his eastern passage to Italy. Her presence in Malherbe’s ode is a way of saying that Bellegarde’s voyage proceeded without mishap (interestingly, in “À la Reine,” Marie’s return voyage was nearly thwarted by Neptune). Thetis also bears witness to Bellegarde’s exemplarity, as it is she who swears that Bellegarde, an object of marvel, surpasses the example of the Argonauts. If 201 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death Bellegarde is a wonder of beauty, courage, and loyalty, it is equally marvelous that a sea-goddess would fancy him. The far-fetched conceit seeks to excite the sort of feeling associated with a miracle. It suggests that Bellegarde’s superlative virtue has charmed the obscure forces that determine the destiny of a hero or a nation, and Thetis personifies that favor. At this stage of the ode, the parallel appears to be between Peleus and Bellegarde. That will shift in the conclusion, where Bellegarde will be identified with Castor. Here as elsewhere in the sequence, the historical protagonist embodies an iteration of an archetypal pattern rather than a specific mythological personage. The ode’s parallels must nonetheless be selectively interpreted. A fastidious application of the mythological allegory would encounter many inconsistencies. For instance, although the expedition to bring Marie de Médicis to France entailed sailing east to fetch, as it were, a magical prize, there was no Jason (Henri IV) present on this second voyage of the Argo. It was a marriage by proxy. Henri is analogous to Jason only where the ship of state is concerned, with Bellegarde playing an indispensable supporting role. Similarly, any possible parallel between Marie de Médicis and Medea must be avoided, since Medea is a murdering sorceress who betrays her father and her country. What should instead guide the assignment of roles is the purpose of the allusion: the myth of the Argo sets the utopian arrival of Marie in the framework of the quest epic. Stanzas twelve and thirteen create a link between “À Monseigneur” and “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601), dramatizing events that preceded Marie’s arrival in France. This diplomatic mission, second in importance only to Bellegarde’s military service, but perhaps more crucial for securing the nation’s future, introduces a loop in the sequence. It repeats the origin of the current political adventure, and shows the instrumental role Bellegarde played. To the return of the Golden Age is added the quest for the Golden Fleece. Marie is herself this legendary object, symbol of authority and kingship. Just as Jason seeks the Golden Fleece to legitimate his rule in Thessaly, so the arrival of Marie in France represents the turning point for Henri’s fledgling kingship, since only through her can the birth of a male heir secure the stability of the new regime and enhance its legitimacy. From a mystical point of view, Marie is also the bride-goddess in whose embrace the hero comes to know an other-worldly bliss, which not only transforms the hero but has the potential to transform his people as well, helping the nation, in the transition from war to peace, to discover the deeper meaning of all their labors and suffering. Marie, the Golden Fleece, and the magic gift (whether the Dauphin or the wisdom of bliss) are one and the same. 202 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes To perceive the flawed pattern associated with the story of the Argo, we must jump ahead to the ode’s conclusion. In the final two stanzas, the Bellegarde-Pe‐ leus parallel shifts. As Rubin has noted, the nautical imagery, the introduction of Bellegarde’s brother, Termes, and the image of Bellegarde’s forehead touching the stars (“Avoir le front dans les étoiles” [With your forehead among the stars], v. 254) suggest an implicit comparison with Castor and Pollux, the famous twins who also voyaged on the Argo (Rubin, Higher 77-79). Bellegarde should be identified with Castor, “the athlete and patriotic soldier” (Rubin, Higher 80). Rubin interprets the new parallel as intimating that “the heroes deserve a nobler fate than that of Castor and Pollux” (Rubin, Higher 79). Although the mythical brothers were transposed to the heavens as stars in the Gemini constellation, their glory on earth was marred by a violent quarrel with Idas and Lynceus over a cattle-raid: Idas knocked out Pollux and killed Castor. In Rubin’s reading, the ode’s conclusion wishes Bellegarde and his brother uninterrupted honor and felicity, implying that they have thus far surpassed their flawed counterparts. While the ode certainly supports this interpretation, a closer reading of the Argo myth suggests that the flawed pattern underlying “À Monseigneur” has more to do with the violation of social and fraternal bonds. If it need be said, the Argo myth is fraught with violent betrayal, intentional and unintentional. Two such instances involve Castor and Pollux. In the first, the brothers are responsible for protecting the Argo from the wrath of Zeus, incurred for a murder committed by Jason and Medea. The Argonauts were fleeing Zeus not because they stole the Golden Fleece, but because Jason and Medea conspired to ambush and to kill her brother. The answered prayer of Castor and Pollux speed the Argo on its journey to Circe so she can cleanse Jason and his companions of this crime (Argonautika, 4.586-591). In the second, the brothers participate in the unintentional betrayal of guest-friendship. Kyzikos met the Argonauts with friendship and hospitality when the strangers disembarked on the shores of the Doliones, even performing heroic feats with them and celebrating these deeds in the banquet hall. After taking their leave, the Argonauts encountered a storm, lost their bearings, and returned unawares to the land of the Doliones, who, confused by darkness, greeted the unrecognized friends as invaders. In the ensuing battle, Jason and his companions killed their former hosts (Argonautika, 1.961-1077). Valerius Flaccus, in his Latin Argonautica, dwells on this benighted turning of friend against friend: “cur talia passus / arma, quid hospitiis iunctas concurrere dextras / Iuppiter? ” [Why did Jupiter / suffer this fighting, why did right hands joined in hospitality come to blows? ] (Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 3.16-18). Echoing Virgil’s question at the beginning of the Aeneid (“Tantaene animis caelestibus irae? ” [Does such anger dwell in heavenly minds? ], 1.11), 203 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death Flaccus evokes dark forces which human beings cannot overcome. The Argo‐ nautica also underscores the turning of brother against brother in the confusion: “accessere (nefas) tenebris fallacibus acti / Tyndaridae in sese: Castor prius ibat in ictus / nescius, ast illos noua lux subitusque diremit / frontis apex” [They come together (horror) embroiled in the treacherous darkness / Castor and Pollux, the sons of Tyndareus: / Castor, unknowing, was the first about to strike, / but a new light sundered them / a sudden radiance of the forehead] (3.186-189). Flaccus, like Virgil, may be alluding to the Roman civil wars, and these would have suggested to an erudite poet like Malherbe a ready parallel with the Wars of Religion. Guest-friendship, moreover, is analogous to patron-client friendship, and the betrayal of those bonds, whether intentional or not, threatens to undermine the more fundamental bonds of brotherhood. The Bellegarde brothers, by remaining loyal to Henri, overcome this flawed pattern of violence and betrayal, and the ode “À Monseigneur” holds them up as models of fidelity to affirm the social and fraternal bonds of the nation. The other classical example, that of Achilles, occurring in stanza fifteen, serves a more local purpose in the ode’s argument, but one that is no less crucial. It reminds Bellegarde—and the nation—that magnanimity is the only virtue that truly deserves the honor of eternal remembrance. Up to stanza thirteen, the ode has been praising Bellegarde’s external virtues, the many fine qualities that make him an admirable courtier. With the example of Achilles, a sharp distinction is drawn between courtly virtues and military prowess: Achille était haut de corsage: L’or éclatait en ses cheveux: Et les dames avecque voeux Soupiraient après son visage: Tirer de l’arc, sauter, lutter, À nulle autre n’était seconde: Mais s’il n’eût rien eu de plus beau, Son nom qui vole par le monde Serait-il pas dans le tombeau? (vv. 141-150) [Achilles stood tall: / Gold shined in his hair: / And the ladies with wishes / Sighed for his face: / In archery, jumping, wrestling, / He was second to none: / But if he had had nothing more fine, / Would his name that travels through the world / Not be in the grave? ] While this most famous of Greek heroes is transformed into a Frenchman, per‐ haps in terms suggesting Bellegarde’s own physical appearance, the rhetorical question makes it clear that Achilles is not remembered today because of his 204 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes physical beauty and athletic ability, no matter how outstanding. The implication is that such attributes will not suffice for Bellegarde either. What will? A riddle is set up. Amplifying this same argument, stanza sixteen downplays the famous education which Achilles received from Phoenix and Chiron (“Ou de Phénix ou de Chiron,” v. 156) and stresses that the Greek hero’s everlasting fame (“Le mémorable témoignage / Que la Grèce a donné de lui” [The memorable testimony / Which Greece gave of him], vv. 159-160) rests on the military exploits he performed to avenge the dishonor suffered by Menelaus (“S’il n’eût par un bras homicide, / Dont rien ne repoussait l’effort, / Sur Ilion vengé le tort / Qu’avait reçu le jeune Atride” [If he had not with his homicidal arm, / Whose force nothing could repel, / Avenged on Troy the wrong / Which the young son of Atreus had endured], vv. 151-154). The metonymy “bras homocide” [homicidal arm] (v. 151) stands for Achilles’ physical prowess and courage on the battlefield. Absent from this miniature portrait is the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon. Instead, the stanza represents a dutiful Achilles defending the honor of his social superior. Stanza seventeen drives home the point: C’est aux magnanimes exemples, Qui sous la bannière de Mars Sont faits au milieu des hasards, Qu’il appartient d’avoir des temples: (vv. 161-164) [It is to magnanimous examples, / Performed under the banner of Mars / In the midst of dangers, / That temples are dedicated: ] These “temples” are the everlasting monuments of poetry proclaimed by Horace in Odes 3.30, and what Homer did for Achilles (and Horace for Augustus or Maecenas), Malherbe does for Bellegarde. The poet wants to make clear on what basis Bellegarde deserves the ode’s praise. It is not the poet’s personal indebtedness after all, but rather Bellegarde’s fighting alongside Henri IV that justifies this poetic monument. With his usual hyperbole, Malherbe so exaggerates Bellegarde’s magna‐ nimity, that at times the duke appears quasi-divine. Bellegarde is called “un objet émerveillable” [an object to be marveled at] (v. 117), and stanza thirteen amplifies this hyperbole with a comparison between Bellegarde and the god of marriage (“le blond Hyménée” [the blond Hymenaeus] v. 121). His beauty and sartorial splendor are such that “les Nymphes du lieu, / Non sans apparence doutèrent / Qui de vous deux était le dieu” [the Nymphs of the place, / Not without reason doubted / Which of you two was the god] (vv. 128-130). Achilles, to whom Bellegarde is implicitly compared in stanzas fifteen and sixteen, is also a demi-god. This deification of Bellegarde is not mere flattery. Its potential 205 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death contradiction with the deification of Henri points to the true purpose of the hyperbole. Bellegarde’s quasi-divinity reflects the superlative degree of his virtue, but what makes him truly magnanimous, from Malherbe’s point of view, is his submission to Henri. The duke’s list of accomplishments shows that he possesses the same kind of virtue as Henri, perhaps even to the same degree, but his long service to Henri and his willingness to yield political authority to him show that, for Bellegarde, legitimacy, loyalty and patriotism are more important than personal ambition. The ode implies that submission of the great-souled to the legitimate French king is not an abject abasement but a demonstration of practical wisdom. Bellegarde’s recognition of Henri’s “greater” virtue and of the nation’s greater good is an act of magnanimity that affirms the foundation of a new civic community. The ode uses Bellegarde’s acts of valor to inspire feelings of emulation in the kingdom’s other great souls, particularly the great nobles, but theoretically in all those who value honor and courage and desire the same sort of recognition (Rhet. 2.11.1). Stanzas eighteen through twenty-two detail Bellegarde’s heroic service, beginning with Bellegarde’s fidelity to the nation during the Wars of Religion: En ce longtemps, où les manies D’un nombre infini de mutins, Poussés de nos mauvais destins, Ont assouvi leur félonies, Par quels faits d’armes valeureux, Plus que nul autre aventureux, N’as-tu mis ta gloire en estime? Et déclaré ta passion, Contre l’espoir illégitime De la rebelle ambition? (vv. 171-180) [During the long period when the madness / Of an infinite number of rebels, / Incited by our evil destinies, / Satisfied their treachery, / By what feats of military valor, / More adventurous than any other, / Did you not augment your glory? / And declare your passion, / Against the illegitimate hope / Of rebellious ambition? ] Ignoring the sectarian causes of the civil war, this stanza reduces the conflict to a question of loyalty and rebellion. A clear distinction is drawn between glory and infamy, courage and madness, valor and treachery. Here as elsewhere in the sequence, Malherbe does not appear to favor one faith over the other. Rather, by praising Bellegarde’s passion over against illegitimacy and rebellion, the poet elevates fidelity to the nation above confessional loyalty and reduces 206 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes the religious motivations of rebellious great nobles to mere pretext and political opportunism. The expression “mettre ta gloire en estime” stresses that Belle‐ garde’s acts of valor in armed conflict are the basis for his reputation, and the demonstration of this great virtue justifies his position at court (“Grand Écuyer,” Master of the Horse), above and beyond the elevated social status of his noble birth. The glory of his example is a model for other great nobles. The stanza completely glosses over Henri’s former role as leader of the Protestant opposition. One can only speculate that it does so because Bellegarde ended up betting on the right horse. Such a prescient choice could attest to Bellegarde’s magnanimity, since the megalopsychos knows how to recognize great virtue in others, having already recognized it in himself. But an epic comparison lifted from Ovid suggests that there is something wondrous about such unwavering loyalty. Stretching over stanzas nineteen and twenty, it likens Bellegarde’s steadfastness to the untainted waters of the river Arethusa. In Ovid, the beautiful Arethusa was bathing in the river Alpheus when that god became enamored of her. She fled to preserve her virtue and, in her distress, perspired so profusely that she herself turned into a river. As Alpheus began to mingle his waters with hers, the goddess Diana opened up an underground passage for Arethusa to escape. And so it is said that Arethusa’s fresh waters flow under the sea from the region of Elis, in Greece, to the island of Ortygia, near Sicily, without becoming salty (Metamorphoses 5.572-641). What the Bel‐ legarde-Arethusa analogy borrows from the myth is the choice to keep one’s virtue intact—“Tu ne t’es jamais diverti, / De suivre le juste parti” [You never wavered / From following the just side] (vv. 195-196)—despite the proximity of temptation and the opportunity to indulge one’s passions, represented by the analogy between Alpheus’ sexual desire and the rebel conspirators’ “impure licence” [impure license] (v. 197) or their “déloyales humeurs” [disloyal humors] (v. 198). Bellegarde’s fidelity is contrasted with the self-serving ambition of the great nobles who were prepared to sell out the nation. Stanzas twenty-one and twenty-two then proceed to cite examples of Belle‐ garde’s longtime loyalty and military service to Henri, illustrating how the duke’s magnanimity has contributed to securing the nation’s future: Depuis que pour sauver sa terre, Mon roi, le plus grand des humains, Eut laissé partir de ses mains Le premier trait de son tonnerre, Jusqu’à la fin de ses exploits, Que tout eut reconnu ses lois, A-t-il jamais défait armée, 207 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death Pris ville, ni forcé rempart, Où ta valeur accoutumée N’ait eu la principale part? (vv. 201-210) [From the first day that, to save his lands, / My king, the greatest of humans, / Had let escape from his hands / The first bolt of thunder, / Right up to the last of his exploits, / When all had recognized his laws, / Has he ever defeated an army, / Taken a city, or breached a wall, / Where your habitual valor / Has not played the leading part? ] Soit que près de Seine et de Loire Il pavît les plaines de morts: Soit que le Rhône outre ses bords Lui vit faire éclater sa gloire: Ne l’as-tu pas toujours suivi? Ne l’as-tu pas toujours servi? Et toujours par dignes ouvrages Témoigné le mépris du sort Que sait imprimer aux courages Le soin de vivre après la mort? (vv. 211-220) [Whether near the Seine or the Loire, / He was planting the plains with dead: / Or the Rhone beyond its banks / Witnessed his shining glory: / Haven’t you always followed him? / Haven’t you always served him? / And always, through worthy labors, / Demonstrated the contempt for fortune / Which is impressed on the courageous / By the zeal to live after death? ] These two stanzas sum up, in miniature, Henri’s heroic quest on behalf of the nation and acknowledge Bellegarde’s major contribution to the quest. The first stresses Bellegarde’s unwavering loyalty to Henri during his epic career, from the days of Bellegarde’s earliest service, when Henri quarreled with the Spanish over his rights in Navarre, to the more recent battles that Henri waged to press his rightful claim to the French crown. It grants Bellegarde the starring role in the military exploits of the king: defeating an army, taking a city, breaching a wall. The second passage amplifies the first, alluding to the campaigns of Ivry, Chartres, and Rouen (decisive battles won by Henri during the Wars of Religion) and evoking the most recent conflicts in Savoy. The twin rhetorical questions, whose clunky rhyme “suivi/ servi” [followed/ served] intentionally draws the reader’s attention, underscore both Bellegarde’s continuous service and the supporting role which a great noble is expected to play. The right concern with honor keeps pushing Bellegarde to serve Henri, who himself, as seen in previous odes, has been piloting the ship of state to a new Golden Age. 208 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes By fighting alongside Henri, therefore, Bellegarde has also served the nation—he has acted pro rege et patria. Here as in the other odes, the main idea is that the subject of praise deserves the esteem of his peers—and the glorification of this poem—because he has demonstrated great virtue and continues to do so. With the true basis of Bellegarde’s merit firmly established, the third and final part of the ode’s argument concludes by imagining that the ode-skiff has wandered into dangerous waters (“ma barque vagabonde / Est dans les Syrtes bien avant” [My wandering skiff / Is too far in the Syrtes], vv. 221-222). The immediate danger is that of excessive praise: “Je ferai mieux de relâcher, / Et borner le soin de te plaire, / Par la crainte de te fâcher” [I will do better to slacken, / And limit my desire to please you / With the fear of angering you], vv. 228-230). The prodigious length of the ode and its hyperbole risk displeasing Bellegarde, not because the megalopsychos will not accept the praise as deserved, but because excessiveness violates good judgment, cheapening praise and turning it into mere flattery. Both the decision to curtail Bellegarde’s endless praise (“Bellegarde les matelots, / Jamais ne méprisent les flots, / Quelque phare qui leur éclaire” [Bellegarde, sailors / Never sneer at the waves / Whatever light house guides them], vv. 225-227) and the allusion to the “Syrtes” (see Virgil, Aeneid 1.111; Horace, Odes 1.22; 2.12) use nautical metaphors. These set up an analogy between the skiff and the ship of state. Just as the poet must keep the ode within decorous limits, so great nobles like Bellegarde must keep the ship of state clear of treacherous waters like those off the Mediterranean coast of Africa—perhaps a small reminder to remain vigilant for future political dangers to the ship of state, like the recent assassination attempt against Henri. The rest of the conclusion then safely returns to the personal relationship of patron and poet. Malherbe assures his patron that the ode’s only purpose is to please him (“mon offrande te contente” [my present may please you], v. 234) and, just in case it does not, asks Bellegarde to remember that it is inspired by genuine affection (“Ressouviens-toi qu’une action / Ne peut pas avoir peu de mérite, / Ayant beaucoup d’affection” [Remember that an action / Cannot have little merit / When it is done with affection], vv. 238-240). The ode’s final two stanzas recite a litany of good wishes for the brothers Bellegarde, functioning in essence like a secular blessing: may you enjoy ease of living (“tant d’or et de soie” [much gold and silk] v. 242); may you know continual joy (“Nouvelles matières de joie” [New occasions for joy] v. 244); may you acquire new honors and glory proportional to your greatness (“tes honneurs fleurissants / De jour en jour aillent croissants” [may your flourishing honors / Day after day increase] vv. 245-246). As we saw, the metaphor “Avoir le front dans les étoiles” [To have your forehead among the stars] (v. 254) suggests that Bellegarde and Termes 209 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death should be identified with the Dioscuri—whom sailors were wont to invoke in dangerous waters, just as Malherbe, pilot of the wayward ode-skiff, has propitiated the French pair: “vos prospérités / N’iront jusques où je désire, / Ni jusques où vous méritez” [Your success / Will never go as far as I wish, / Nor as far as you deserve] (vv. 258-260). Good wishes for the brothers Bellegarde promise continued advantages for the nation and, of course, for lesser nobles like Malherbe. Bellegarde’s magnanimity, loyalty, and generosity assure a just social order. The poet’s task in this ode has been not just to celebrate Bellegarde, but to model the proper response to great virtue. From the first stanza, Malherbe has been concerned to show that magnanimity is the true basis for the relationship between himself and Bellegarde. By offering immortality to Bellegarde, the poet steers the logic of the ode toward the generosity typical of the magnanimous person, who strives to “return more good than he has received” (NE 4.3 1124b10). Malherbe’s self-confidence in his own poetic talent might look presumptuous, but it is consistent with the character of the megalopsychos: “when he meets people with good fortune or a reputation for worth, he displays his greatness, since superiority over them is difficult and impressive” (NE 4.3 1124b20). Therefore, emulation, not envy, is the proper response to great virtue. Although Malherbe’s social position is much lower than Bellegarde’s, and the poet owes a good part of his livelihood to the Grand Écuyer, each has the opportunity to demonstrate magnanimity in the service of the same goals—pro rege et patria. In Malherbe’s case, that service is accomplished through the writing of poetry. 3. Sur la mort de Henri le Grand (1610; 1630) Henri’s assassination in 1610 stunned the kingdom. The political order was shattered. Whatever grievances one may have had with the Edict of Nantes or Henri’s absolutist-inspired policies, he had managed to keep the peace. Now the worry on everyone’s mind was that the kingdom would fall back into civil war. Malherbe responds to the crisis with “Sur la mort de Henri le Grand” (1610; 1630), an Horatian ode that captures the atmosphere of grief, despair, and foreboding. The ship of state has sunk out of sight. Prematurely declared over, the Bourbon political adventure has failed. Or has it? The absent ship is intertextually implied by the image of the flood, archetypal symbol of catastrophe. Classical and biblical myths of the flood usually also include a moment of rebirth. Out of disaster comes renewal. As we will see, the ode symbolically resurrects the dead hero and re-stages Henri’s coronation of Marie, subtly legitimating the transition of power and announcing the next phase of the quest to establish 210 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 18 See Malherbe’s “Sur la mort d’un gentilhomme qui fut assassiné” (1592; 1593), “Conso‐ lation funèbre à un de ses amis sur la mort de sa fille” (1607), “Consolation à Monsieur du Périer, gentilhomme d’Aix-en-Provence, sur la mort de sa fille” (1607), “À la Reine Mère du roi, sur la mort de Monseigneur le duc d’Orléans” (1611; 1630), “Consolation à Monsieur le premier président, sur la mort de Madame sa femme” (1627). peace, justice, and prosperity at home and to restore French hegemony abroad. Clearly linking the Henri cycle to the Marie cycle, this short ode is indispensable to the overall sequence, although Rubin did not include it in his original corpus (Rubin, Higher 17). The underlying conceit, based on the myth of Niobe in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is that the queen’s grief, while understandably surpassing the affliction of the speaker and all good Frenchmen, will endanger the nation if she remains inconsolable—a distinct possibility that the ode does not rule out. The reader assumes that Malherbe speaks in his own voice, until the final stanza, when a third-person narrator assigns the name “Alcipe” to the first-person voice that had been speaking up to that point: “Ainsi, de cette cour l’honneur et la merveille, / Alcipe soupirait” [Thus, the court’s honor and marvel, / Alcipe was sighing] (vv. 61-62). As Antoine Adam notes (Malherbe, Poésies 298), Racan identified “Alcipe” with the duke of Bellegarde, an interpretation supported by the pseudonym’s etymology (alkê + hippos = strength in horses: Bellegarde’s royal office was Grand Écuyer, Master of the Horse). As we saw, moreover, Bellegarde was Henri’s longtime friend and political ally, enjoying considerable power and prestige at court, whence the description of the speaker as “this court’s honor and marvel.” He was also Malherbe’s patron, and it was not uncommon for poets to compose for their patrons short poems that were considered collaborative efforts. The ode’s first-person voice should therefore be understood as a collective utterance grounded in an ethos of magnanimity. The argument divides into four parts: 1. stanzas one through four declare the speaker’s grief unmatched, with a direct address to the deceased beginning in the third stanza and continuing up to the last stanza; 2. stanzas five through nine then cede to Marie first place for the deepest sense of grief; 3. stanzas nine through twelve propose that Henri return from the dead to console his widowed queen; 4. stanzas thirteen through sixteen conclude by envisioning the failure of all consolation. Disguised as a lamentation, the ode is in fact a clever variation on the consolation poem. Malherbe composed several consolation poems over the course of his career, notable for their use of reasoned argument and stoic maxims to assuage the grief of their addressees. 18 In “Sur la mort de Henri le Grand,” this usual procedure is turned on its head. The speaker, the queen, and the nation all need to be consoled, and Alcipe asks Henri to visit Marie to give 211 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death her the strength and comfort she will need to lead the nation out of crisis. But the speaker himself refuses to be consoled. Such a refusal emphasizes the intensity of the speaker’s feelings and underscores the gravity of the loss, but it also throws into relief the flawed pattern underlying the ode: the salvation of the nation depends on Marie shaking off the world-weariness that afflicts Alcipe. The first stanza establishes the dignity and the gravity of the occasion, imbuing the loss suffered by the speaker with epic grandeur. It answers in the affirmative the metaphysical question that haunts Virgil’s Aeneid, “Tantaene animis caelestibus irae? ” [Can such anger grip celestial minds? ] (1.11): Enfin l’ire du ciel et sa fatale envie, Dont j’avais repoussé tant d’injustes efforts, Ont détruit ma fortune et, sans m’ôter la vie, M’ont mis entre les morts. (vv. 1-4) [Finally the anger of heaven and its deadly envy, / Whose many unjust attempts I had repelled, / Have destroyed my fortune and, without taking my life, / Have placed me among the dead.] This theme of implacable evil appeared already in “Ode sur l’attentat commis en la personne de sa majesté” (1605; 1606), where the “visage d’Alcide” [face of Alcides] (v. 118) survived the deadly blow of misfortune. In this ode, however, heroic virtue has been defeated. The adverb, “Enfin” [finally, at last], and the second verse’s image of self-defense, as if repelling attack from a rampart, signal that this crushing defeat comes at the end of a long struggle. The worst fears of the earlier odes have been realized: Henri is dead. This reversal of fortune is so total that the speaker experiences death-in-life, expressed by the antithesis “sans m’ôter la vie, / M’ont mis entre les morts.” Such a remarkable paradox excites feelings of fearful wonder not simply because the speaker has outlived his reason for being, and this in a sudden and unexpected way, but also because it evokes the identity of opposites. This theme of the loss of the will to live, a profound disgust with life, a sickness-at-heart that causes one to turn away from living, permeates the ode like a poisonous mood. The above stanza’s concluding hemistich, though it completes the suspended meaning of the preceding alexandrine, has the effect of coming up short, as though the effort to contain the emotion brought the period prematurely to a close. The same halting effect will be repeated throughout the ode, reinforced by end-stopped lines and the self-contained meaning of each stanza. The remainder of the ode’s first part presents a striking image of Henri’s downfall. An antithesis between Henri’s god-like virtue (“ce grand Henri, que 212 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes les soins de nature / Avaient fait un miracle aux yeux de l’univers” [The great Henri, whom the attentions of nature / Had made a miracle in the eyes of the universe] vv. 5-6, “Belle âme” [Beautiful soul] v. 9, “beau patron des célestes ouvrages” [beautiful pattern of celestial works] v. 9) and the common lot of all human beings (“Comme un homme vulgaire est dans la sépulture” [Like a commoner is in the grave] v. 7) also strikes the imagination with fearful wonder: sudden and unexpected reversal resulting in the identity of opposites. In addition, the unfathomable forces of darkness which have crushed the hero haunt the speaker: “Quelle nuit fut pareille aux funestes ombrages / Où tu laisses mes jours? ” [What night was equal to the evil shadows / In which you leave my days? ] (vv. 11-12). This hyperbolic darkness represents grief tinged with metaphysical dread. Henri’s catastrophic death demonstrates the limits of the power of human virtue, and bodes ill for the nation, suggesting that destiny opposes the return of the Golden Age. Human powerlessness stands revealed. The stoic response would be to will what the universe wills. But the last stanza of the first section rejects stoic resignation, stressing in‐ stead the gravity of the speaker’s personal loss and emphasizing the superlative degree of his grief: C’est bien à tout le monde une commune plaie, Et le malheur que j’ai chacun l’estime sien; Mais en quel autre coeur est la douleur si vraie, Comme elle est dans le mien? (vv. 13-16) [This is truly for everyone a universal wound, / And the misfortune I know each claims for his own; / But in what other heart is the pain so true, / As it is in mine? ] The nature of the speaker’s suffering is twofold. The universal wound and general affliction suggest that a fatal blow has been delivered to the nation, but the speaker’s heart is broken because he knew and loved Henri—the loss for the nation is also a personal loss. It is worth noting how this portrait of affliction presents the speaker as exemplary. Malherbe puts the ethos of magnanimity to creative use. The measure of grief is linked to the degree of personal affection for Henri. Subjects were known to emit displays of intense loyalty for their king, and patron-client ties were imbued with strong affects (or at least the language used to describe them was). Hence the degree of suffering may be seen as directly proportional to loyalty. Such loyalty would in turn be based on admiration for Henri’s virtue—he is the one best man. Because the logic of magnanimity demands recognition of great virtue from the virtuous, a claim to superlative loyalty is also an implicit claim to virtue. The more virtuous one 213 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death is, the more inconsolable one is—due to powerlessness in the face of tragedy. Inconsolable grief therefore serves to promote a sense of solidarity among the kingdom’s subjects who lay claim to great virtue. The lyrical conclusion to the first part of the ode’s argument is: who suffers more than I? Stanza five, which begins the second part of the ode’s argument, directly responds to the rhetorical question of the preceding stanza. There is in fact one person whose grief surpasses the speaker’s: “Ta fidèle compagne, aspirant à la gloire / Que son affliction ne se puisse imiter, / Seule de cet ennui me débat la victoire, / Et me la fait quitter” [Your faithful companion, aspiring for the glory / Of an affliction that cannot be imitated, / Alone contests with me the victory of this distress, / And causes me to yield the prize to her] (vv. 17-20). This relinquishing of the first place to Marie implicitly acknowledges the queen’s superior degree of intimacy with Henri, but also her superior loyalty and, by implication, her great virtue. This latter inference will be developed in the Marie cycle. For the time being, the imagery used in this second section serves to convey the superlative degree of Marie’s grief. Stanza six compares her tears to the violent Seine flooding its banks. Stanza seven likens her grief-stricken beauty to a flower battered by a storm. Stanza eight uses the metaphors of martyrdom and plague, “Quiconque approche d’elle a part à son martyre, / Et par contagion prend sa triste couleur” [Whoever approaches her experiences her pain and suffering, / And through contagion acquires her sad color] (vv. 29-30), to show that her grief is so intense, it transmits (as grace or disease would be transmitted) pain and suffering to those who approach to console her: “Car, pour la consoler, que lui saurait-on dire / En si juste douleur? ” [Since, to console her, what could anyone say to her / Whose pain is justified? ] (vv. 31-32). The adjective “juste” [just, justified] suggests that Marie’s suffering defies consolation because it is appropriate to the severity and objectivity of her loss. None can assuage her pain—except Henri himself. The cure must come from the source of the wound. And this is exactly what happens in the ode’s third part. Malherbe, in the voice of Alcipe, calls Henri back from the dead. The symbolic resurrection of the hero is prepared by the image of the flood: “L’image de ses pleurs, dont la source féconde / Jamais depuis ta mort ses vaisseaux n’a taris, / C’est la Seine en fureur qui déborde son onde, / Sur les quais de Paris” [The image of her tears, whose abundant welling up / Since your death has never left her ducts dry, / Is the angry Seine whose waves flood / The docks and quays of Paris] (vv. 21-24). The immediate and most obvious function of this analogy is to show the personal and the public dimension of the cataclysm, as though the Seine were in sympathy with Marie—a fine example of the pathetic fallacy. But the passage has a deeper, symbolic function that requires the reader’s 214 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes participation, depending as it does on intertextual allusions. Nothing in the passage mentions the ship of state (absent are the usual metonymies of “storm,” “rocks,” “waves,” etc., although one notes the homophonic pun on vaisseau, “vessel”). However, the flooding Seine, like Marie’s overflowing tear-ducts, stands in for the traditional sea-storm of political chaos. As in Malherbe’s first ode, “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601), flood and sea imagery are inextricably linked. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1.275 ff.), Neptune, acting on Jupiter’s command, releases the seas and the rivers from their established boundaries to inundate humanity. The storm implied by the flooding Seine is displaced, appearing in stanza six where “la bise ou la pluie” [the North Wind or the rain], (v. 27) batters Marie imagined as a flower. The absence of the ship is another displacement. Its presence is implied by the story of Noah (Gen. 6.9 ff.) or Jonah ( Jon. 1.4). Without exaggeration, one can say that the whole kingdom is in danger of death by water, and this includes Paris, from the flooding Seine; the queen who is like a flower battered by the rain; and the speaker who succumbs to the storm (“Pour moi, dont la faiblesse à l’orage succombe” [As for me, whose weakness yields to the storm] v. 53). The emphasis is not on the ship, but on the water—not on the journey, but on its crisis. If all three myths of the flood (Neptune, Noah, and Jonah) exhibit the cataclysmic power of water, they also exhibit water’s symbolic association with rebirth: Deucalion and Pyrrha, when the flood subsides, throw stones that morph into human beings (Metamorphoses 1.411-413); Noah, his family, and the animals on the ark repopulate dry land (Gen. 8.15); and Jonah, thrown overboard in the storm and swallowed by a whale, is vomited on the shore ( Jon. 2.10). Supplemented by such intertextual examples, the ode’s image of the flood wrests from the jaws of destruction the promise of rebirth. The third part of the ode, which resurrects Henri from the dead, is significant enough to be worth quoting in full: Reviens-la voir, grande âme, ôte-lui cette nue, Dont la sombre épaisseur aveugle sa raison, Et fais du même lieu d’où sa peine est venue, Venir sa guérison. [Come back to see her, great soul, lift from her this cloud / Whose thick darkness blinds her reason / And make the same place whence her pain has come, / The source of her cure.] Bien que tout réconfort lui soit une amertume, Avec quelque douceur qu’il lui soit présenté, 215 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death Elle prendra le tien, et selon sa coutume Suivra ta volonté. [Although all comfort is bitterness to her, / With whatever sweetness it is presented, / She will accept yours, and as was her custom, / She will obey your will.] Quelque soir en sa chambre apparais devant elle, Non le sang en la bouche et le visage blanc, Comme tu demeuras sous l’atteinte mortelle Qui te perça le flanc; [One evening, in her room, appear before her, / Not with bloodied mouth and pale visage, / As you remained after the mortal blow / which pierced your side; ] Viens-y tel que tu fus, quand aux monts de Savoie Hymen en robe d’or te la vint amener; Ou tel qu’à Saint-Denis entre nos cris de joie Tu la fis couronner. (vv. 29-48) [Come to her room as you were, when in the mountains of Savoy / Hymen, dressed in robes of gold, brought her to you; / Or as you were when at Saint-Denis, among our cries of joy, / You had her crowned] This metaphorical visitation from beyond the grave has clear classical and biblical antecedents. Henri’s pierced side recalls the crucified Jesus ( Jhn. 19.34). The resurrected Jesus appears to his disciples on several occasions (Lk. 24.13-16, 24.34-36; Jhn. 20.14-28; Matt. 28.9, etc.). And in the epic poetry of antiquity, the ghost of Hector famously appears to Aeneas (Aeneid Book 2), and the ghost of Patroclus, to Achilles (Iliad Book 23). As Hector and Patroclus offered wise advice to the afflicted, so the resurrected Henri is called on to restore Marie to reason, enabling her to carry out his will as she has always done. Most important, the reader in imagination witnesses Henri’s coronation of her, a crucial reminder of her authority to head a regency during her son’s minority. Such classical and biblical examples have a dual function. First, they trans‐ figure Henri and Marie into exemplary figures. Either Henri is like Christ, and Marie, his chosen disciple, will carry out his mission on earth, or they both resemble classical heroes, with Marie again carrying out the will, or taking the advice, of the ghostly Henri. Second, Henri’s death has transported him to a higher stage of the adventure, where he may battle the forces of darkness on 216 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes behalf of the nation. As Joseph Campbell observes in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the many ways to cross the threshold of the higher powers invariably entail some form of self-annihilation: “the physical body of the hero may be actually slain, dismembered, and scattered over the land or sea” (Campbell 77). This destruction of the body symbolizes a spiritual rebirth. The ability to pass back and forth between the phenomenal and the spiritual world, like Jesus Christ, further implies that the hero is at one with God, Destiny, Universal Reason, the Law—whatever name one wishes to give the inscrutable forces of the universe (Campbell 125). From this position, whether for a small group of disciples or for a whole people, the hero may become “the companion of the return” (Campbell 197), that is, the vehicle for others who must also be reborn, undergoing a similar process of self-abnegation and reconciliation with “the sickening and insane tragedies of this vast and ruthless cosmos” (Campbell 125). So it is that the resurrected Henri resembles what Malherbe has elsewhere called a “daemon,” one of those spirits moving between the phenomenal and noumenal world. The implication is that he will now guide and protect Marie in this time of crisis. But Marie must be the next to undergo this rebirth if she is to pilot the nation to the new Golden Age. What this means for her will become clear in Chapter 7. The ode’s fourth and final section contemplates the failure of consolation. Stanza thirteen presents, in a hypothetical mode, Marie’s surrender to over‐ whelming grief: Après cet essai fait, s’il demeure inutile, Je ne connais plus rien qui la puisse toucher, Et sans doute la France aura, comme Sypile, Quelque fameux rocher. (vv. 49-52) [Once this attempt is done, if it does not work, / I know of nothing else that can touch her, / And France will certainly have, like Mount Sipylus, / Some famous rock.] Another instance of significatio per similitudem (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.53.67), the undeveloped allusion to Sipylus comes from the myth of Niobe in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (6.146-312). Boastful and arrogant, Niobe asserted that her blessings—beauty, wealth, noble lineage, elevated social stature, seven sons and seven daughters—entitled her to receive more reverence than Latona, who had “only two” children, Apollo and Diana. Angered by this disrespect, Latona called on Apollo and Diana to avenge her, and her divine children responded by striking down with arrows every last one of Niobe’s sons and daughters. 217 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death 19 Ovid, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, trans. Allen Mandelbaum (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1993) 189. Niobe’s sorrow was so profound, she turned to stone, and, “set/ upon the peak of Sipylus to this day her rock sheds tears.” 19 While the Marie-Niobe analogy is imperfect, with several details having to be overlooked, the parallel nonetheless suggests that grief, like pride, may become excessive. If inconsolable, it leads to the petrifaction of life, that is, the refusal of acceptance and the unwillingness to move forward. Marie’s loss, of course, is not merely personal. At stake is the future of the nation. The ode acknowledges the justice of Marie’s grief, but it also uses the Marie-Niobe parallel to rouse the queen to action. The glory of being a weeping monument to Henri will not bring about the salvation of the nation, and such a moral collapse would be contrary to Henri’s deepest wishes. Marie has the opportunity to overcome this flawed pattern. The speaker of the ode himself presents a final counter-example. He appears to be so afflicted, that a disgust with life has overtaken him. Although he concedes that a day may come when the wheel of fortune might raise him up again (“Quand mon heur abattu pourrait se redresser” [When my battered fortune could rise up again], v. 54; “Et quelque heureux succès qui me puisse arriver” [And whatever fortunate success might happen to me], v. 58), he categorically refuses from his peers the consolation which he desires for Marie: “On l’aurait consolé; mais il ferme l’oreille / De peur de rien ouïr” [They tried to console him; but he shuts his ear, fearful of heeding them], (vv. 63-64). He closes his ears not because his resolve might be shaken, but because he wants to preserve the purity of his grief. The only peace he will henceforth know will be after death, when he will rejoin Henri: “J’ai mis avecque toi mes desseins en la tombe, / Et je les y veux laisser” [I placed with you my ambitions in the grave, / And I want to leave them there] (vv. 55-56); “Je n’attends mon repos qu’en la heureuse journée / Où je t’irai retrouver” [I expect peace to come only on the fortunate day / That I will depart to rejoin you] (vv. 59-60). The ode presents no obvious parallels for this type of world-weariness. However, Joseph Campbell mentions two archetypes drawn from his encyclo‐ pedic knowledge of world literature: Hamlet and Arjuna. “A realization of the inevitable guilt of life,” he writes, “may so sicken the heart that, like Hamlet or like Arjuna, one may refuse to go on with it” (Campbell 205). The Hamlet-Arjuna revulsion stems from an acknowledgement of one’s complicity in the human world of sin and suffering. Accordingly, one could interpret Alcipe’s refusal of consolation as a tacit admission of guilt, or at least a collective sense of responsibility for the death of Henri, a sentiment that appeared in “Ode sur 218 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes l’attentat: ” “Toujours nous assaillons sa tête / De quelque nouvelle tempête” [We are forever assailing his head / With some new tempest] (vv. 45-46). And yet this tacit admission will remain unacknowledged as long as Alcipe refuses consolation. He is a variation on the pattern of disgust with life, one who would sooner go to his grave than accept his own complicity in human wrongdoing. Henri’s self-sacrifice will be for naught, however, unless Marie and the nation overcome their debilitating grief. The ode does not actually show Marie or Alcipe overcoming their grief, but the examples—Jesus, Achilles, Aeneas, Niobe—present a clear choice between reason, consolation, and the will to life, on the one hand, and hubris, petrifying grief, and world-weariness on the other. If the ode “Sur la mort de Henri le Grand” leaves the reader hanging in suspense, the next ode in the sequence, dedicated to Marie de Médicis, leaves no doubt that the queen has chosen life, and the life of the nation, over despair. 219 Chapter 6. Triumph and Death Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace À la Reine sur les heureux succès de sa régence (1610; 1611) À la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence (1613; 1621) Pour la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence (unfinished: 1613; 1630) The assassination of Henri IV threatened to plunge France back into the destructive sectarian conflict from which it had recently emerged. Marie de Médicis moved quickly to consolidate political support for her regency in 1610. Despite her ultra-Catholic sympathies, the queen regent’s authority was not seriously challenged before 1614, the year the great nobles, led by the Prince of Condé (1588-1646), rebelled against her policies, principally the marriage contract with Spain, but also what they perceived as their lack of influence in the royal council, usurped by the queen’s favorites, Concini and his wife, Leonora Galigaï. Malherbe was quick to offer the queen regent his services. He was undoubt‐ edly looking to secure her personal patronage—something that would never come to pass, although she would grant him a stipend from the royal treasury. But Malherbe must have also feared for the stability of the regime, knowing that Marie, a woman and an Italian, would encounter resistance. The Salic Law was underpinned by a host of male insecurities with female power, ranging from male sexual desire to outright prejudice concerning women’s intellectual and emotional capacities, to say nothing of the great nobles’ antipathy to being ruled by an Italian. Therefore, the next three odes in the sequence—“À la Reine sur les heureux succès de sa régence” (1610; 1611), “À la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence” (1613; 1621), and the unfinished “Pour la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence” (1614; 1630)—aim to create a positive public image for Marie to shore up her support among the nobility and to preserve the unity of the nation. Their celebration of her practical wisdom (phronēsis) portrays her as the sagacious pilot of the ship of state, both a great soul and a patriot, having sacrificed and done more for the patrie than anyone else, while their deification of her suggests that Marie, like Henri before her, embodies the collective energies of the nation. To the original allegorical portrait of Marie as Astraea-Venus, these three regency odes add the traits of Minerva, ancient goddess of warfare and the arts, and patroness of phronēsis. The choice of this mythological figure is highly strategic, belonging to a literary and iconographic tradition that attributes traditionally masculine virtues to powerful women of the royal family with a view to representing them as androgynous, that is, a more complete being who 220 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 20 For the iconographic tradition representing powerful women as Minerva, see Elise Goodman, The Cultivated Woman: Portraiture in Seventeenth-Century France (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2008). For the concept of the androgyne as a figure of completion, see Marian Rothstein, The ‘Androgyne’ in Early Modern France: Contextualizing the Power of Gender (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). has attained a quasi-divine stage of humanity. 20 While the Marie cycle casts the queen regent in the role of leader and guardian of the quest for the Golden Age, the short Horatian ode, “À la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence” (1613; 1621), declares the Golden Age begun though not yet completely fulfilled, as Malherbe prepares to draw the poetic sequence to a close. 1. À la Reine sur les heureux succès de sa régence (1610; 1611) This first ode in the Marie cycle honors the queen regent for the political stability which her leadership allegedly secured for the nation in a time of fear and anxiety. Its argument divides into three parts: 1. stanzas one through seven proclaim and illustrate Marie’s extraordinary virtue by developing an implicit comparison with Henri; 2. stanzas eight through twelve extol peace, prosperity, and justice as the best way forward to usher in the new Golden Age; 3. stanzas thirteen through fifteen praise Malherbe’s poetry as uniquely qualified to immortalize the queen regent. The underlying conceit is that Astraea, the goddess of justice and the kingdom’s guiding star (“Astre par qui vont avoir cesse / Nos ténèbres, et nos hivers” [Star by whom will cease / Our shadows and our winters] vv. 83-84), who came to earth in “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601), has taken over Henri’s role as the great soul steering the ship of state to a new Golden Age. Supporting this conceit is an implicit mythological portrait that identifies Marie with Minerva, and it is this parallel that points to the flawed pattern which Marie must overcome. Even if the ode exaggerates the queen regent’s accomplishments, it makes the most of her discharge of functionally masculine duties, using imagery borrowed from the Henri cycle to praise Marie’s own phronēsis, a traditionally masculine virtue. This first regency ode, moreover, constitutes an unexpected climax in the hero cycle. The androgyny of its mythological archetype—Minerva—signals that the political adventure has reached a culmination, “conducting the mind beyond objective experience into a symbolic realm where duality is left behind” (Campbell 131), thereby evoking the reconciliation of the religious and political oppositions which were dividing France. This recasting of the national myth with a new lead shows that the political adventure of the new nation has survived the death of the king. Still more interesting, while the deification of 221 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace Marie serves to present the queen regent as the legitimate vessel of the nation’s collective energies, this particular ode depicts national unity flowing from a universal brotherhood which Marie’s quasi-divinity inspires. The ode begins with the speaker commanding fame (“Nymphe qui jamais ne sommeilles, / Et dont les messages divers / En un moment sont aux oreilles / Des peuples de tout l’univers,” [Nymph who never sleeps / And whose many messages / Instantly fill the ears / Of every nation in the universe] vv. 1-4) to proclaim Marie’s outstanding merit to all the world: “Que l’honneur unique du monde, / C’est la reine des fleurs de lis” [That the unique honor of the world / Is the queen of fleurs-de-lis] (vv. 9-10). The plural of fleur-de-lis (“des fleurs de lis”) is a clever paraphrase for Marie because it is the heraldic emblem of Florence as well as the French monarchy. As seen in the first ode, however, her Italian provenance matters much less than her marriage to Henri and her demonstrated loyalty and service to France. The ode begins in medias res because it presup‐ poses what the reader will learn in the next four stanzas: Marie has sagaciously piloted the ship of state through the stormy waters of political upheaval—or rather, these potential storms never materialized thanks to her practical wisdom. Such is the implication, in any case, as the ode never explicitly mentions that Marie’s exercise of a traditionally male function—kingship—proceeds from her phronēsis, the same intellectual virtue that characterized Henri. Rather, one must draw the inference from intra-textual resonances with previous royal odes. This kind of inference, in which “one thing may be magnified by allusion to another” (Quintilian 8.4.20-21), a form of amplification “near akin to emphasis” (Quintilian 8.4.26), predisposes the reader to give the ode’s ideological claims a favorable reception, since one is pleased with oneself for knowing how to solve the riddle. The remainder of the first line of argument sets about justifying the first stanza’s claim to glory on behalf of the queen regent. Stanzas two and three borrow imagery from the Henri cycle to excite fear of civil war, a distinct possibility following the king’s death: En cette aventure effroyable, À qui ne semblait-il croyable, Qu’on allait voir une saison, Où nos brutales perfidies Feraient naître des maladies Qui n’auraient jamais guérison? (vv. 15-20) [In this fearful turn of events, / To whom did it not seem believable / That we would see a period / Where our barbaric treachery / Would give birth to ills / That would never be cured? ] 222 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes The word “aventure” [accident; hazardous enterprise] refers to Henri’s assassi‐ nation—an unforeseeable accident—but it also evokes the image of the ship of state still embarked on its hazardous quest, but now without its captain. The phrase “brutales perfidies” recalls the violence and the betrayal of the civil wars, when many Frenchmen had allied themselves with Spanish interests. The political chaos prior to Henri’s reign and the great harm it caused was still fresh in the minds of many, and such impending threats stir up fear (Rhet. 2.5.1). Other images of fear in this first section depend for their effect on intra-tex‐ tual echoes. The metaphor of illness in the body politic, for instance, recalls “Prière pour le roi allant en Limousin” (1600; 1601), which asks God to protect Henri from harm so France may return to a flourishing state of health. In stanza three, the unleashing of the furies of hell who renew barbaric acts of violence (“Qui ne pensait que les Furies / Viendraient des abîmes d’enfer / En de nouvelles barbaries / Employer la flamme et le fer? ” [Who did not believe that the Furies / Would come from the depths of hell, / In renewed acts of barbarism, / Using fire and sword? ] vv. 21-24) echoes “Ode sur l’attentat commis en la personne de sa majesté” (1605; 1606), which laments the moral degeneration of the nation and agonizes over the imminent descent into chaos. Similarly in stanza three, the rhyming of “license” with “innocence” (“Qu’un débordement de license, / Ferait souffrir à l’innocence / Toute sorte de cruautés? ” [That an excess of license / Would cause the innocent to suffer / All kinds of cruelty? ] vv. 25-27), and the undeveloped analogy of the nobility with the Egyptian tyrant Busiris, on whom Henri-Hercules imposed the yoke of justice (vv. 29-30), recall “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607), where Malherbe deplores the tyrannical depredations of the nobility and gives thanks for the restoration of justice imposed by Henri’s strong leadership. However, it is important to note that the dreaded events following Henri’s death imagined by stanzas two and three have not come to pass. They were feared—and averted. In stanza four, the ship of state enjoys smooth sailing: “Et la France a les destinées / Pour elle tellement tournées / Contre les vents séditieux, / Qu’au lieu de craindre la tempête, / Il semble que jamais sa tête / Ne fut plus voisine des cieux” [France has destiny / So disposed for her / Against seditious winds / That instead of fearing the storm, / It seems never was her head / More near the heavens] (vv. 35-40). The ship is metonymically evoked by the lexical consistency of the allegory: “seditious winds,” “tempest,” and “skies.” The image of the head of France neighboring the stars implies at the very least clear skies (i.e. the absence of political storms), at the most, immortal greatness (the starry forehead being a classical commonplace for fame as in Horace, Odes 1.1.36), and perhaps even the approach of heaven-on-earth. While this felicitous 223 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace state of affairs for France (“pour elle,” v. 36) has been brought about by Marie, such nautical imagery simultaneously recalls Henri, the former captain of the ship of state. The intra-textual association with “Prière pour le roi allant en Limousin” further implies that the queen regent, the current captain, has succeeded in navigating difficult political waters and forestalling civil war (“seditious winds”) thanks to her phronēsis and God’s illumination, not unlike her predecessor. But this is only one of the “happy outcomes” announced by the ode’s title. The other is the successful completion of a recent military operation abroad. The fifth stanza presents an imagistic summary of the French victory in the War of the Jülich Succession (1609-1610)—a campaign in which French forces did not fire a single shot. The Protestant allies of Henri IV had already chased away the Catholic Archduke Leopold V by the time the French arrived to relieve them. Malherbe uses the conflict’s peaceful outcome, as he did in “Ode au feu roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan” (1606; 1607), to attribute miraculous powers to Marie, the titular head of the royal army: “Tout a fléchi sur leur menace” [All yielded to their threat] (v. 45). Her decision to send troops continued the same sagacious foreign policy as Henri, who always walked a fine line between Protestant and Catholic interests. More important, the queen regent apparently shares in the omnipotence attributed to her late husband. The implicit parallel between Henri and Marie which the ode has been developing to this point stresses: 1. Marie’s relationship to Henri as the basis for her authority, and 2. her success as implicit proof of her practical wisdom. This close association with Henri implies that Marie is a megalopsychos. In a time of crisis, Marie stepped up, took decisive action, and succeeded. She is a great soul because she has proven herself worthy of the highest honors, and she is a great patriot because she has served, and continues to serve, the common good of the nation. Marie’s magnanimity therefore functions as an instructive example for great nobles, indeed, for all good Frenchmen, while the ode’s recognition of her achievement—dispensing honor where it is due—models the magnanimity which it seeks to inspire in others. In addition, the implication that Marie is an exemplary captain whose judgment is informed by God’s divine wisdom (“jamais sa tête / Ne fut plus voisine des cieux” [never was her head / More near the heavens] (vv. 39-40) supports the representation of her as the embodiment of the French nation, since she, like Henri, experiences direct connection to divinity. Not surprisingly, the ode adds a third element to the Henri-Marie parallel: deification. After reviewing her accomplishments, the first line of argument pauses, and the elaborate apostrophe of stanza six calls for a reassessment of Marie’s reputation: 224 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes Ô reine qui pleine de charmes Pour toutes sortes d’accidents, As borné le flux de nos larmes En ces miracles évidents: Que peut la fortune publique Te vouer d’assez magnifique, Si mise au rang des immortels, Dont ta vertu suit les exemples, Tu n’as avec eux dans nos temples, Des images, et des autels? (vv. 51-60) [O queen who, full of charms / For all kinds of accidents, / Have stemmed the flowing of our tears / With these visible miracles: / What can the general happiness / Dedicate to you that will be magnificent enough, / If having been placed among immortals, / Whose examples your virtue follows, / You do not alongside them in our temples / Have images and altars? ] The familiar metaphor of the star, Marie as Astraea, controls the queen regent’s portrait at this stage of the ode’s argument. Her steady leadership has worked like a celestial influence on the kingdom, securing peace at home and abroad, and stemming the fear and the grief caused by the loss of Henri. While Rubin is right to note that “the goddess-like merit of the Queen requires deification” (Rubin, Higher 89), such happy outcomes are miraculous because they are unexpected reversals that defy easy explanation, suggesting either a divine quality in Marie or her special influence over the obscure forces of destiny. The echo of Horace’s exegi monumentum (Odes 3.30) evokes the deification of French kings in a church like St.-Denis but suggests that the ode is the better temple for Marie’s glory, since as Horace alleges, poetry outlasts architecture. The word “vertu” has several connotations: 1. masculine prowess, energy, force; 2. astro‐ logical influence; and 3. practical wisdom (phronēsis). The “immortals” whose “examples” her virtue emulates could refer to classical gods and goddesses, but the reference could also be to Henri IV, whom previous odes in the sequence have elevated to the level of a demi-god. While the conflation of God’s representative on earth with God Himself represents a general trend in absolutist propaganda, it is significant that Malherbe extends this same identification to Marie. Of course, Malherbe’s first ode “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601) already deified Marie, so the reader is not unprepared for it. However, the difference here is that Marie earns her place in Malherbe’s imaginary pantheon for her outstanding fulfillment of traditionally masculine duties, which implies 225 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace her possession, in the highest degree, of phronēsis, a traditionally masculine virtue. Stanza seven acknowledges Marie’s phronēsis, though without naming it, by declaring that her example is worthy to serve as instruction for princes: “Que saurait enseigner aux princes / Le grand démon qui les instruit, / Dont ta sagesse en nos provinces / Chaque jour n’épande le fruit? ” [What could the princes be taught / By the great daemon that instructs them / Which the fruit of your wisdom in our provinces / Each day does not provide? ] (vv. 61-64). The image of the provinces enjoying the fruits of the queen regent’s wisdom is intended as praise for her abilities in administration, the practical affairs of government, so that there is no mistaking the intellectual virtue in question, i.e. phronēsis or practical wisdom, defined as the ability to reason correctly about means and ends. The conceit amounts to saying that Marie is the virtuous equal of male rulers in matters of statecraft, and the second half of the stanza imagines that Marie’s extraordinary virtue, under the right circumstances (“si ton heur était pareil / À tes adorables mérites” [if your fortune were equal / To your adorable merits], vv. 67-68), would expand the kingdom of France to the former limits of the Roman Empire (“Tu ferais dedans ses limites / Lever et coucher le soleil” [You would encompass, within its borders, the rising and the setting of the sun] vv. 69-70). The princes receiving instruction from her example are probably Marie’s sons, since her practical wisdom rivals that of the “grand démon,” the guardian angel or the mystical intercessor of the destiny of France. In her greatness, Marie’s influence allegedly reaches into the realm of transcendent forces that guide and protect the king. Our unfamiliarity with the figure of the daemon should not obscure the radical nature of this claim. Either the daemon works through her, or her powers match the daemon’s own. In either case, the destiny of the nation works itself out through Marie—but she is not a passive instrument. Rubin proposes that the ode’s portrayal of Marie as a great soul rests on an implicit comparison with Semiramis (Rubin, Higher 90). This legendary Assyrian queen achieved renown as a warrior and a builder of cities following the death of her husband King Ninus. Malherbe’s sources for this story could have included Diodorus Siculus’s The Library of History (2.1-9), Dante’s Inferno, Boccaccio’s De Mulieribus Claris, Christine de Pizan’s La Cité des dames, or Louise Labé’s “Élégie I.” The legend also relates that Semiramis was given to licentious practices, including mother-son incest. “She thus went from impetuously charging into battle,” writes Francesca Sautman, “to languishing in her bed in the throes of 226 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 21 Francesca Canadé Sautman, “Queens, Power, Sexuality,” Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender, ed. Fedwa Malti-Douglas, vol. 4 (Detroit: Macmilan Reference USA, 2007) 1231-1235. an incestuous passion for her son.” 21 While Christine de Pisan and Louise Labé exhibit some compassion for the flawed queen, the male authors condemn her categorically. Dante alleges that Semiramis enshrined these abhorrent practices in law, and Boccacio emphasizes her emasculation of the prince her son. According to Rubin, the ode rewrites this flawed pattern by portraying a queen whose quasi-divine virtue and sagacious leadership of the regency government constitute a worthy model for her sons. While nothing in the ode outright contradicts Rubin’s interpretation, it would be unusual for Malherbe, who uses Greco-Roman mythology or Old Testament allusions in all his other odes, to depart from these traditions now. What is more, the overcoming of every other flawed pattern has been invariably tied to the mythological personage that forms the basis of comparison with the historical protagonist. The textual clues, I believe, point in another direction. The examples from the ode’s middle section (stanzas 8-12), reinforced by two key images, suggest that Marie will outdo Minerva herself if she continues to steer the ship of state clear of political discord. The second line of argument, beginning with stanza eight, shifts the focus from political challenges already overcome to those which might arise in the future. Perhaps because the regent is a woman, the ode’s speaker permits himself to offer some unsolicited advice: Le soin qui reste à nos pensées, Ô bel astre, c’est que toujours Nos félicités commencées Puissent continuer leur cours: Tout nous rit, et notre navire A la bonace qu’il désire: Mais si quelque injure du sort Provocait l’ire de Neptune, Quel excès d’heureuse fortune Nous garantirait de la mort? (vv. 71-80) [The concern that remains in our thoughts, / O beautiful star, is this: / May our felicity, having begun, / Always continue its course: / All smiles on us, and our ship / Has the halcyon seas which it desires: / But if some insult of destiny / Were to provoke the anger of Neptune, / What excess of happy fortune / Would preserve us from death? ] 227 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace The image of the ship of state has come into the foreground. The first half of the stanza acknowledges the sagacious leadership of Astraea, the starry goddess of justice who has captained the ship into calm political waters. The highest political goal of the state has been achieved: happiness reigns. But the second half of the stanza worries about the fragility of this current state of affairs. Here the mythological imagery is in keeping with the nautical conceit: Neptune signifies the sea, and the ire of Neptune is a circumlocution for political conflict. Then what is the danger which might provoke disaster? What else but an act of hubris? The French phrase, “quelque injure du sort,” tries to evoke not an outrage of destiny visited on the nation, something which would be beyond human powers to control, but rather an all-too-human defiance of destiny. In other words, the rhetorical question counsels caution despite recent success, imploring Marie not to push her luck (or to use another cliché: not to rock the boat) with some bold new undertaking—not simply because all felicity implies a delicate balance, but also, and above all, because France finds itself in a precarious moment of transition. A misadventure at this juncture could wreck the state and destroy whatever national unity Henri has restored and Marie has preserved. The remaining stanzas of the second line of argument spell out the negative and positive conditions that could affect the well-being of the nation, while two classical examples reveal the flawed pattern which Marie must overcome. Stanza nine reiterates the fear worrying the speaker, namely the eruption of civil war, and advises the queen regent to use her miraculous influence to prevent the return of such destructive conflict, to have done with it once and for all: “Assez de funestes batailles, / Et de carnages inhumains / Ont fait en nos propres entrailles / Rougir nos déloyales mains: / Donne ordre que sous ton génie / Se termine cette manie” [Enough deadly battles / And inhuman slaughters / Have in our own entrails / Bloodied our disloyal hands: / Give the order that under your genius / This madness will stop] (vv. 81-86). The image of bloodied, disloyal hands gouging out their own entrails represents the self-destruction of the body politic during the Wars of Religion. If the speaker expresses confidence in Marie’s power to move the nation away from civil strife, it is certainly due to her “genius,” which here means natural talent but also wise guardianship which, as we just saw, is remarkable enough to supplant the traditional “genius of France” as a model for princes. From this point, the second line of argument weighs the alternatives of war and peace. With two implicit examples taken from classical literature, stanza ten contemplates the consequences of unabated strife: La discorde aux crins de couleuvres, Peste fatale aux potentats, 228 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes Ne finit ses tragiques oeuvres Qu’en la fin même des États: D’elle naquit la frénésie De la Grèce contre l’Asie: Et d’elle prirent le flambeau Dont ils désolèrent leur terre, Les deux frères de qui la guerre Ne cessa point dans le tombeau. (vv. 91-100) [Discord, with its mane of serpents, / Deadly scourge of rulers, / Completes its tragic work / Only with the destruction of States: / From her was born the frenzy / Of Greece against Asia: / And from her came the flames / With which they destroyed their land, / Those two brothers whose war / Did not cease even in death.] In yet another instance of significatio per similitudem (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.54.67), the reader is left to work out the inferences of these examples. The “frenzy of Greece against Asia” could refer to a number of myths and legends, but the Trojan War is the most obvious, being most famous and most clearly illustrating the destructive consequences of discord in all its ramifications. Paris Alexander’s violation of the sacred bonds of guest friendship pits not just Trojan against Greek (Hector vs. Achilles), but Olympian against Olympian (Aphrodite vs. Athena), Greek against Greek (Achilles vs. Agamemnon), and Trojan against Trojan (Hector vs. Paris). The second allusion is even more subtle. In the Theban civil war, the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, unable to share the throne as they had agreed, killed one another in hand to hand combat. Their enmity was so profound, the legend goes, that the flames of their funeral pyres fought one another. Such examples, taken from Greek epic and tragedy, considerably raise the stakes of Marie’s regency, suggesting that total devastation awaits the nation unless Marie can find a way to overcome the pattern of discord represented by these allusions. The second line of argument then turns to consider peace. The imagery of stanza eleven, borrowed from Ovid’s Golden Age, reverses the foreboding doom of the preceding stanza and offers the queen regent a positive way forward: C’est en la paix que toutes choses Succèdent selon nos désires: Comme au printemps naissent les roses, En la paix naissent les plaisirs: Elle met la pompe aux villes, Donne aux champs les moissons fertiles: Et de la majesté des lois Appuyant les pouvoirs suprêmes, 229 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace Fait demeurer les diadèmes Fermes sur la tête des rois. (101-110) [It is in peace that all things / Proceed according to our desires: / As roses are born in spring, / So in peace are pleasures born: / Peace imparts splendor to cities, / Gives to the fields their fertile harvests: / And with the majesty of the law, / Supporting supreme power, / It secures the crown / Firmly on the head of kings.] The first sentence has the ring of a maxim, and so the reader is inclined to accept it as the self-evident premise of the series of images that follow, proceeding from concrete to abstract, from humble to majestic. The comparison of “spring” and “peace” posits an analogy between two kinds of efflorescence: natural and political, the latter springing from the former. The flowering of roses provides a concrete visualization of the abstract ideas of pleasure and prosperity. While the ode is clearly addressed to the regent, the imagery of restored prosperity speaks to concerns that one might justifiably identify with the collective good. Pamphlet propaganda published during the Wars of Religion, for instance, repeatedly lamented the marked decline in prosperity resulting from the destruction of civil war and, with the return of peace, effusively welcomed the return of affluence. In echoing this theme, the ode also serves as evidence of a reinvigorated national consciousness, suggesting that the concerns it voices are also addressed to the nation. However, even the most democratized national sentiment in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries still bore the hallmarks of feudal ideals, in which the king represented the natural leader of the nation and the nobility were its elite defenders (Yardeni 154). Stanza eleven’s utopian picture of felicity therefore primarily targets the nobility, whose nostalgia for a better time was a deep and constant caste marker. Not only does the stanza argue against the long-established practice of nobles who saw a regency government as the opportunity to advance their private interests at the expense of the common good. It also depicts wealth as rooted in the land and portrays royal authority as limited by the rule of law. It is as if Malherbe were brokering an agreement between the regent and the nobility. Provided the regent stays within the limits of the law, the great nobles shall owe her their allegiance: “Ce sera sous cette égide, / Qu’invincible de tous côtés, / Tu verras ces peuples sans bride / Obéir à tes volontés” [It will be under this aegis / That, invincible on every side, / You will see these ungovernable peoples / Obey your wishes] (vv. 111-114). The plural, “ungovernable peoples,” evokes the diverse communities of subjects, divided by region, religion, dialect, and the remnants of feudal loyalties, which comprise the French nation. To govern them, one must win over the great 230 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes nobles. Justice is the key to pacifying them, and this peace, in a virtuous circle, will lead to continued prosperity, favorably disposing the people toward the queen regent. The importance of justice in this scheme accords with the familiar representation of Marie as Astraea: “Vivre au siècle de Marie, / Sans mensonge et sans flatterie, / Sera vivre au siècle doré” [To live in the century of Marie, / Truly and sincerely, / Will be to live in the Golden Age] (118-120). But the peace has not been guaranteed simply by Marie’s fulfillment of her function as royal consort, providing a legitimate heir to the throne. On the contrary, with Henri gone and Louis XIII still in his minority, Marie has also had to play the functionally masculine role of sage captain of the ship of state. Going forward, Marie must actively continue to secure the peace, and she will need all her practical wisdom to this end. Unexpectedly, the figure of Minerva emerges from beneath or behind the portrait of Astraea. The crucial indicator is the word “égide” [aegis] (v. 111). Its double meaning is a form of significatio, that is, “leaving more to be suspected than has been actually said” (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.53.67). Both the metaphorical and literal definition is necessary to make sense of the sentence in which the word appears. On a first reading, the metaphorical meaning is active: peace and justice are the best protection against political discord. Its literal meaning, however, signifies the shield or cuirass of Minerva on which the head of Medusa hangs. The word reverts to its original denotation, provoked by the image of discord’s hair, “aux crins de couleuvres” [with locks of vipers] (v. 91), once the reader recognizes that the Trojan War and the Theban civil war, examples of discord which the queen regent should avoid, were caused in part by Minerva (or more properly, Athena). The patroness of phronēsis inadvertently contributed to the outbreak of both conflicts. The original cause of the Trojan War can be traced to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. The goddess Eris (strife or discord) was not invited (for obvious reasons). Stung by this snub, Eris fashioned a golden apple, on which she had inscribed “To the Fairest,” and rolled it into the midst of the wedding party. Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena claimed the apple. To resolve the dispute, the trio descended on an unsuspecting mortal, Paris Alexander, who was to act as judge, with gifts offered by each goddess to induce him to decide in her favor. He ultimately awarded the apple to Aphrodite, who promised him the love of a mortal woman whose beauty matched her own—and this turned out to be Helen, the wife of Menelaus. The participation of Athena in this beauty contest was driven not by wisdom but by vanity, and her lapse of judgment ends up contributing to the Trojan War. In the case of Thebes, Athena was present at its founding. It was she who ordered Cadmus to sow the serpent’s teeth in the ploughed earth. From these 231 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace 22 Richard P. Martin, Myths of the Ancient Greeks (New York: New American Library, 2003) 246. seeds sprang armed warriors. The battle royal that ensued is characterized by Ovid in the Metamorphoses as “civilibus bellis” [civil war] (3.117). “Thebes began,” writes Richard P. Martin, “if you believe in the Sown Men, with brothers killing brothers. Warriors sewn in the selfsame field extirpated one another until an odd number remained. In this land, imbalance offered the only stability.” 22 The dual kingship of Eteocles and Polynices was doomed to failure, repeating this foundational scene of civil strife. Here Athena unwittingly sets a precedent whose consequences will afflict Thebes long into the future. Marie has the opportunity to overcome this flawed pattern. The ode’s emphasis on her military victory and political acumen shows the queen’s auspicious beginning, and the plea for caution going forward and the subsequent argument for peace certainly aim to continue France’s current state of felicity. Marie-Astraea announced the end of bloodshed and a new era of justice. Marie-Venus pacified the warrior-king and gave birth to a legitimate heir to perpetuate the fragile dynasty. But Marie-Minerva will bring about the new Golden Age by using her practical wisdom to steer the ship of state clear of the storms of political discord. Provided she avoids the pitfalls of vanity, as in the example of Troy, and the snares of unintended consequences, as in the example of Thebes, Marie will surpass her immortal counterpart. All she needs to do is to stay the course until Louis XIII is ready to take the helm. The significance of the ode’s implicit comparison between Marie and Minerva cannot be overstated. The ode’s treatment of Marie as a megalopsychos whose practical wisdom makes her the functional equivalent of her late husband, although it is not without historical precedent—Ronsard composed several sonnets celebrating Catherine de Médicis in similar terms (Rothstein 139)— presents a puzzle that must be explained, especially since the ethos of magna‐ nimity and the intellectual virtue phronēsis were normally reserved for males. The ideological implications become apparent only when one realizes that the Marie-Minerva parallel belongs to an early modern tradition of Minerva portraits in encomiastic literature and the visual arts, which Elise Goodman’s The Cultivated Woman: Portraiture in Seventeenth-Century France examines in light of the problematic gender issues such portraits raise (Goodman 19). Goodman’s genealogy of early modern Minerva portraits locates its epicenter long after the era of Marie de Médicis, in 1643 during the regency of Anne of Austria, which inaugurates a thirty-year fashionable trend for elite women, especially those of the royal family, who used to have themselves “pictured 232 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes as heroic, martial, and decidedly unfeminine, like their Greco-Roman paragon, and [surrounded] with the attributes of the arts and sciences, signs of their cultivation and their patronage of savants” (Goodman 19-20). Goodman makes a strong case that the inadequate education of women in seventeenth-century France, even at the highest social levels, was the driving force behind the sitters’ desire to display their cultivation, artistic talent, or patronage of the arts, arguing that portraits were a conscious effort on the part of these elite women to fashion their own identities and to assert themselves and their achievement within male-dominated spheres. The pictorial thread of the Minerva portraits can be traced to “Jean Decourt’s enamel-miniature of Marguerite de France” of 1555. However, Goodman notes that the pictorial tradition for the most part lies dormant in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries (Goodman 75-76). An obvious exception is Ruben’s Cycle of the Life of Marie de Médicis (1622-1625), which indeed presents Marie in the garb of Minerva. However, Goodman holds that Ruben’s Marie-Minerva is more warrior than intellectual, “cast by Rubens with the tripartite alter ego of Minerva-Bellona-France” (Goodman 76). “Thus, as specialists have noted, she is fashioned by Rubens as the vanquisher of war and the catalyst of peace. When Minerva the intellectual makes a few appearances in the cycle, she plays the supporting role of Marie’s personal counselor in matters of the arts and sciences” (Goodman 77). The three odes of Malherbe’s Marie cycle, which portrays the queen regent as Minerva, the androgynous goddess of phronēsis, not only predate Ruben’s pictorial cycle, but offer an important link between sixteenth-century and seventeenth-century visual portraits of the intellectual Minerva. This particular ode shares with Ruben’s cycle the portrayal of Marie as vanquisher of war and catalyst of peace, but suggests that these achievements result from her intellectual virtue, phronēsis. The question raised by Goodman about the issue of gender in the Minerva portraits can be profitably asked of Malherbe’s portrayal of Marie: what exactly is the ideological advantage of representing the queen regent in the likeness of a goddess with male attributes? Goodman’s answer echoes recent feminist scholarship, and it is that the Minerva allegory serves to neutralize the perceived threat of a female sovereign. “The mapping of allegory onto the female body emblematized a woman, divesting the female sitter of her sexuality and neutralizing her into a dynastic sign. By eliminating a sitter’s sexuality, these portraits historiés obliterate gender boundaries, thereby enabling the subjects to assert their power beyond conventionally sanctioned societal roles” (Goodman 20-21). Presumably, a queen regent would have desired to cultivate an image of herself as a neutral dynastic sign to exercise more effectively her masculine duties. The allegorical sheathe 233 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace 23 See Elise Goodman, The Cultivated Woman: Portraiture in Seventeenth-Century France (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2008): “As Sarah Pomeroy puts it, this androgynous goddess became the archetype of the modern career woman who succeeds in a man’s world by ridding herself of her femininity and sexuality” ( 20). “The period’s abiding construct of gender ambiguity was linked to the concept of the ‘third sex,’ to which cultivated women were thought to belong” (21). represented by Minerva’s helmet, cuirass, spear, shield, and other attributes (books and owl) encouraged the early modern viewer to project onto the sitting regent such traditionally masculine virtues as martial valor, practical wisdom, and erudition. “This hybrid gender, neither purely masculine nor completely feminine, was appropriated by women who wished to be defined not by their beauty but by their intellect” (Goodman 21). Goodman’s argument is that a queen regent divested of her sexuality and possessing masculine virtues could more effectively operate in the masculinist spheres of power and culture. Her authority would rest not on her powers of seduction, nor even primarily on her legitimacy as widow of the king and mother of the prince, but rather, and above all, on her intellectual virtue. Such an interpretation is confirmed by the unstated premise underlying Malherbe’s odes to Marie de Médicis: even if her status as dowager queen and queen mother did not legitimate her regency, she would nonetheless deserve to rule because of her exceptional phronēsis. One thus begins to appreciate the systematic nature of the parallel that Malherbe has been drawing between Marie and Henri. This ode borrows imagery from earlier odes composed for Henri to extend to Marie the same endorsement based on intrinsic merit. But why does Goodman’s analysis of the Minerva allegory treat the sitter as neuter, that is, divested of feminine sexuality, and yet hybrid, a third sex? 23 A fastidious observer could reasonably object that the Minerva portraits do not erase the sitter’s identifiably female sex characteristics. This puzzle, in both its logical and historical aspects, is addressed by Marian Rothstein in The ‘Androgyne’ in Early Modern France: Contextualizing the Power of Gender. “The combined form denoted by the word androgyne,” she writes, “is a figure of completion, perfection, or plenitude, of originary and ultimate human possibil‐ ities and strengths. In contrast to hermaphrodite, the concept of androgyny is accompanied by a tendency to devalue the body and, along with it, sexuality. Indeed it often ignores the body, treating male and female instead as social, psychological, or moral tendencies and constructs. Alternatively, the androgyne itself can be a way of bringing together dissimilar similarities, coincidentia oppositorum: where the hermaphrodite offers both and neither, the androgyne offers instead both or either” (Rothstein 2-3). While the contradictory logic of 234 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes the hermaphrodite (“both and neither”) coincides with a modern, contemporary conception of gender ambiguity, the disjunctive inclusion of the androgyne (“both or either”) belongs to a distinctively early modern mode of thinking which, Rothstein shows, developed from reflections on Plato’s Symposium and Genesis 1: 26-27 and 2: 22-24. Surveying a wide range of authors, from late antiquity to the early seven‐ teenth century, who glossed the figure of the androgyne in these source texts, Rothstein excavates two related concepts of androgyny. “Some commentators, starting very early with Philo, Clement, and Origen, who all worked in the Neo-Platonic tradition, saw in Genesis 1: 27 a single originary human who was, as the text says, both male and female—that is, androgyne—in the image of God, containing all the positive qualities accessible to the intellectual soul” (Rothstein 7). Even if not universally accepted as an actual being, this originary androgyne was usually in the background when erudite commentators reflected on what it meant for humans to be created in the image of God. “What man shares with God by virtue of the imago are qualities of the intellectual soul, something that man also shares with the angels and that women explicitly participate in as well” (Rothestein 10). In addition to this androgyne of the creation story, there existed the androgyne that resulted from marriage. Rothstein cites Cornelius a Lepide’s widely disseminated commentary discussing the joining of man and woman in marriage (Genesis 2: 24, “duo in carne una” / two become one flesh) following the creation of Eve (Genesis 2: 23, “caro de carne mea” / flesh of my flesh). “He understands ‘one flesh’ to mean both carnal copulation and also that they are ‘una persona civilis’ [one person in the sight of the law], understood not merely as a legal construct but as an expression of the degree to which the couple is joined. In keeping with the breadth with which Cornelius spreads his net, he turns to a pagan Greek philosopher to reinforce this view: ‘Pythagoras says in a loving marriage, there is one soul in two bodies’” (Rothstein 13). The senses in which this united pair were thought to reconstitute an original unity were various: it could be read as an allegory for “striving for union in God,” for “the joining of contemplation and action, or some similar pairing found in the human soul,” or for the joining of Christ in mystical marriage to the Church (Rothstein 14). In any event, both concepts of androgyny describe a privileged state of being in which humans acquire “access to the range of powers and qualities contained in the plenitude of the human archetype” (Rothstein 14). According to Rothstein, equally distinctive to the early modern period is the functional conception of gender associated with the figure of the andro‐ gyne. So-called “functional gender” allows “all humans potential access to the functions or roles that in traditional societies were customarily attributed to 235 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace a single sex. In this system, an individual can honorably perform functions conventionally attributed to the opposite sex. The imputation of transgression that might be expected to attach itself to such breaches of decorum is not applicable; often rather the effect is just the opposite, moving the perception of the person who performs these actions toward human perfection, toward the imago Dei” (Rothstein 27). Consequently, a woman exercising traditionally masculine functions would not perforce shed the defining characteristics of her sex, but these would be de-emphasized, whereas the acquisition of masculine attributes associated with her fulfilling traditionally masculine duties would be highlighted. Rothstein puts this insight to brilliant use in her analysis of women cast in the role of sovereign, showing how Anne de Bretagne (1477-1514), Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549), Cathérine de Médicis (1519-1589), and Jeanne d’Albret (1528-1572) “each sought to establish or to assert her power [] by engaging in behaviors functionally gendered male or by appealing to the plenitude implied by the marital androgyne” (Rothstein 109). Marian Rothstein’s notions of the androgyne and of functional gender, combined with Elise Goodman’s analysis of Minerva portraiture, clarify the ideological function of Malherbe’s portrait of Marie de Médicis in “À la Reine sur les heureux succès de sa régence.” While the androgynous goddess certainly underscores Marie’s intellectual virtue and her intrinsic merit, smoothing the way for her position of command in the masculinist spheres of power and culture, it does so in a way that does not require the wholesale renunciation of the feminine representation of Marie as Astraea, vanquisher of war and catalyst of peace. Rather, what is emphasized is the revelation of Marie’s intellectual virtue, phronēsis, a traditionally masculine trait that emerges due to her exercise of a functionally masculine role. Feminine justice (represented by Astraea) must be balanced by masculine practical wisdom (represented by Minerva). The new Golden Age announced by Marie’s regency will have been made possible by the charms of Venus, as in the first ode “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France,” but also by Minerva’s practical wisdom (phronēsis) in steering the ship of state. The parallel, moreover, that Malherbe has been drawing between Marie and Henri rests on the notion of the marital androgyne. By becoming “one flesh,” that is, one soul in two bodies, the couple reconstituted the imago Dei, a more complete human that results from the joining of male and female, “containing all positive qualities accessible to the intellectual soul” (Rothstein 7). Phronēsis, the virtue which the odes attribute to Henri IV, and now to Marie de Médicis, certainly counts as a quality of the intellectual soul. Although Henri is deceased, the bond between husband and wife cannot be broken because it is essentially spiritual. The portrayal of Marie as Minerva may thus be considered 236 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes a version of the superhuman perfection associated with the imago Dei. Minerva essentially incorporates the heroic Henri, allowing Marie to retain the feminine appearance and attributes of Astraea while assuming the duties of her husband and exhibiting the intellectual virtue which made the king a worthy model to emulate. Still more important, the portrayal of Marie as the androgynous Minerva suggests that the sequence of odes has attained a crucial stage in the hero cycle. The ode uses androgyny to make the queen regent more acceptable to male aristocratic elites, but also to signal that the quest for national unity has reached a higher stage, “conducting the mind beyond objective experience into a symbolic realm where duality is left behind” (Campbell 131). The Golden Age envisioned by the ode, while undoubtedly rooted in economic prosperity and cultural renewal, is signified by the symbolic unity of three fundamental oppositions: 1. the star has become the captain; the boon which the hero originally secured for his people is now sagaciously guiding the nation; 2. the queen has become the king; the hero’s intellectual virtue has been subsumed under the imago Dei; and 3. the nation has become all the earth. This most striking of the three conceits elevates the deification of Marie to a whole other level. When Marie extends the fruits of her practical wisdom to the kingdom’s provinces, she in effect realizes the ideals of Malherbe’s national myth. But when she extends these benefits beyond the nation, even to the point of restoring a universal empire (“Et qui justement ne peut dire, / À te voir régir cet empire, / Que si ton heur était pareil / À tes adorables mérites, / Tu ferais dedans ses limites / Lever et coucher le soleil? ” [And who can justly deny, / Seeing you govern this empire, / That if your luck were equal / To your adorable merits, / You would cause within these borders / The sun to rise and to set? ] vv. 65-70), the national myth is subsumed under a larger story. If Campbell’s reading of male-female gods in The Hero with a Thousand Faces were applied to Astraea-Minerva, one could say that the androgynous deity promises to restore the unity of the imago Dei to the world. Such a rejoining of opposites arrives “at the conclusion of the hero-task, at the moment when the Wall of Paradise is dissolved, the divine form found and recollected, and wisdom regained” (Campbell 131-132). The ode’s mythological portrait makes of Marie what Campbell calls a “World Redeemer” (Campbell 135), not unlike Christ or the Buddha. The universality of the Golden Age that Astraea-Minerva announces implies that this androgynous goddess is not “a tribal, racial, national, or sectarian archetype,” and, further, that we are not “the warriors” of her cause (Campbell 138). Rather, if she is “a lord of the universe itself, we then go forth as 237 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace knowers to whom all men are brothers” (Campbell 138). From Marie’s leadership is born a new universal brotherhood. The quest could end, and the sequence could come to a close—if the Golden Age were indeed at hand. Alas, it is not, at least not yet. As usual, it remains tantalizingly out of reach, like a second coming. But such a utopian vision functions as a horizon. The deification of Marie seeks to redirect sectarian, partisan loyalties into broader, more universal channels, which the French nation may recoup for its own benefit while awaiting the arrival of heaven-on-earth. The primary function of Marie’s utopian apotheosis is fraternal reconciliation of the religious and political oppositions which have divided France. While her elevation to the status of world redeemer has implications beyond national unity, there exists no real dilemma between Malherbe’s ideology of nation and that of empire (see Keller 116: “French universal rule endangers the national territory”). In Malherbe’s formulation, the claims that ‘all men are brothers’ and ‘the French are the chosen people’ are compatible because it is not blood and soil (ontology) that distinguish the French from other nations, but rather character and choice (ethics). Even though the French are chosen to lead all other nations, without virtue they will not realize the dreams of a universal empire. Like the cedar of Lebanon at the end of “Ode sur l’attentat” (1605; 1606), the flourishing of the kingdom and its hegemony over other nations are conditional, provided that God (or destiny) allows—but also, that the French leadership and people are up to the task. The ode’s third and final line of argument in stanzas thirteen through fifteen, an elaborate advertisement of Malherbe’s poetic talents, extends the theme of utopia to the flourishing of the arts. In stanza thirteen, the poet foresees the nine Muses swelling “La troupe de leurs nourissons” [The troop of their nurslings] (v. 124) with “nouveaux Orphées” [new Orpheuses] (v. 123) who, supported by Marie’s patronage (“si ta faveur tutélaire / Fait signe de les avouer” [if your protecting favor / Signals your acceptance of them] vv. 126-127), will compete with one another in praise of Marie. The imminent return of the Golden Age will call forth new, incomparable marvels of poetry (“Jamais ne partit de leurs veilles / Rien qui se compare aux merveilles / Qu’elles feront pour te louer” [Never have their vigils produced / Anything to compare with the marvels / Which the Muses will accomplish in praise of you] vv. 128-130). In this competition, Malherbe claims the first prize for himself: En cette hautaine entreprise, Commune à tous les beaux esprits, Plus ardent qu’un athlète à Pise, Je me ferai quitter le prix: 238 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 24 For this connotation of the adjective “riche,” see the Dictionnaire de l’Académie (1694). Et quand j’aurai peint ton image, Quiconque verra mon ouvrage Avouera que Fontainebleau, Le Louvre, ni les Tuileries, En leurs superbes galeries N’ont point un si riche tableau. (vv. 131-140) [In this noble enterprise, / Common to all the finest minds, / More ardent than an athlete in Pisa, / I will have the prize surrendered to me: / And when I will have painted your image, / Whoever will see my work / Will confess that neither Fontainebleau, / The Louvre, nor the Tuileries, / In their magnificent galleries / Possess such a magnificent painting.] The reference to Pisa, which in ancient Greece ruled over Olympia, site of the Olympic Games, places the encomiastic poetry of Malherbe in the tradition of Pindar. The comparison of the poet’s zeal with an athlete’s desire for victory conveys a vivid, almost physical drive. What the image stresses is the poet’s ardent devotion to the queen regent. Such zeal portrays the poet as someone with the right concern for honor, while his choice of examples (Astraea and Minerva) and his advice to the regent (“placate the great lords”) serve to demonstrate his own practical wisdom. The traditional claim, however, that the victory of his poetry will guarantee the immortality of poet and patron must await the ode’s final stanza, as the theme of competition takes an unexpected turn in the second half of the above stanza, revisiting the ancient commonplace of ut pictura poesis. Whereas poetry was compared to architecture in the final stanzas of “Ode au feu roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan” (1606; 1607), it is now compared to painting. This regency ode is the first of all the royal odes that explicitly recognizes that the allegorical portrait of the subject of praise which it contains is intended to be a likeness, similar to the portraits hanging in the palace galleries, but superior in some way. The comparative adjective, “si riche” [so rich, richer] (v. 140), suggests in the first place that the ode’s allegorical portrait is more ornate, more majestic, and more elevated. 24 But these esthetic adjectives cannot be separated from their moral connotation. As we saw in the introduction, encomiastic poetry aims at to kalon, what is fine, beautiful or noble, and virtue is esthetically pleasing because it is morally good. The claim is that the encomiastic portrait of Marie is richer because it is nobler. The ode portrays Marie’s virtue, that is, the moral qualities of her soul, and this esthetic grandeur completes 239 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace Marie’s moral grandeur by transforming her into an ideal type. Second, because the portrait is “richer,” it will achieve immortality. The pronoun “quiconque” [whoever] (v. 136) implies a consensus of opinion among those who are able to view and thus to compare the pictorial and encomiastic images of Marie. This “whoever” could be posterity, but given the places mentioned, “Fontainebleau, Le Louvre ni les Tuileries,” it also points to the aristocratic elites that frequented such exclusive spaces and comprised the audience for literature and the arts. Consequently, Marie will be immortalized in the here and now. That part of her, moreover, which the ode’s portrait immortalizes—her moral character—is the more important aspect. Although the ode does not say so explicitly, the portrait, or ideal type, created in the ode is intended to be projected through the ode onto the living person (see Chapter 3). The implication is that all the royal odes function in the same way. The final stanza of “À la Reine sur les heureux succès de sa régence” stresses the poet’s artistic expertise, that is, craft knowledge, the pole opposite virtue: Apollon à portes ouvertes Laisse indifférement cueillir Les belles feuilles toujours vertes Qui gardent les noms de vieillir: Mais l’art d’en faire les couronnes, N’est pas su de toutes personnes. Et trois ou quatre seulement, Au nombre desquels on me range, Peuvent donner une louange Qui demeure éternellement. (vv. 141-150) [Apollo, with open doors / Indiscriminately allows to be plucked / The beautiful, eternally green leaves / Which keep names from aging: / But the art of making laurel crowns, / Is not known to everyone. / And three or four only, / Among whom others place me, / Have the ability to deliver praise / Which lasts for eternity.] The image of Apollo’s open doors suggests that the gift of writing immortal poetry is not limited to the virtuous—it is a skill rather than a function of character. Therefore, Malherbe presents himself as offering the best of both worlds. Rhetorical ethos maintains virtue and craftsmanship in a causal rela‐ tionship, treating the ode’s argumentative forms as the embodiment of practical wisdom and its style as a sign of superior taste and wit. It seeks to ensure that craft proceeds from character—and excellent craftsmanship, from excellent character—distinguishing the poet from the “beaux esprits” [fine minds] (v. 132) mentioned in stanza thirteen and setting him among an elite group (“trois ou 240 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes quatre seulemement” [three or four only] v. 147), among whom Pindar and Horace would definitely figure. Malherbe resorts to the symbol of the circle—a laurel crown—to evoke the esthetic perfection of his encomiastic odes, but this esthetic perfection is meant to imply their moral excellence as well. These together are the cause of the odes’ immortality. The ode’s final three stanzas show the poet trying to convince the queen regent why she should confer her patronage on him. Malherbe certainly offers to exchange his poetic reputation against the continued financial and political support of the Bourbon monarchy. But his sales pitch goes one step further. The ode’s combination of virtue with refined language and taste signals the sort of earned social superiority which would have interested a fragile regency and an ambitious nobility. The prestige generated by the ode’s aggrandizement would have been useful to the regent, who needed to shore up her political authority among great nobles, while aristocratic elites in turn could look to the ode as an example of merit-based social promotion. Malherbe’s odes explicitly couple virtue and refinement as a sign of caste membership, thereby affirming the social and political dominance traditionally enjoyed by the nobility. If Marie deserves to be regent because of her outstanding virtue, the affirmed principle of aristocracy—rule by the best—promises to engender a virtuous circle of emulation. Her sage piloting of the ship of state shows her to be a model of patriotism for the nation, while her deification announces a universal brotherhood in which all divisions will be overcome. To consent to her rule is to bring this utopia one step closer to fruition. 2. À la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence (1613; 1621) At first glance one may doubt whether this short poem, Horatian rather than Pindaric in form, belongs to the sequence of odes. Rubin does not include it in his corpus. Antoine Adam remarks that it was likely intended to be set to music and sung, citing its masculine rhymes and a letter by Malherbe mentioning a request for a song from Marie de Médicis (Adam, Poésies 301). Its length would seem to preclude the argumentative and rhetorical scope of the longer odes, putting it in the category of the shorter lyrics, sonnets, stances [stanzas], and ballet libretti celebrating the more personal side of public occasions, like marriage, illness, birth, or death in the royal family. Its themes and imagery, however, read like a highly compressed variant of the first regency ode. Its brevity necessarily leaves much unstated, with each stanza presenting an allusive tableau whose riddle can be solved only by contextual reading. But true to Malherbe’s genius, it indeed has an argument which uses metaphor and example to move the reader with 241 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace 25 See “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601), vv. 25-30 and 83 for striking similarities with “le chef-d’oeuvre des cieux,” that is, Astraea; and vv. 49-50, 73-74, 122, and 201 for echoes of “Objet divin des âmes et des yeux,” the evocation of Venus. admiration for the queen regent. Rather than risk an incomplete reading of the sequence through omission, this explication examines the modification of the allegorical image of Marie and shows how the ode participates in the national myth. Its underlying conceit is that Marie is an Amazon queen, that is, a fully autonomous sovereign for whose favor the kings of Spain and England compete. Allusions to Hippolyta and Antiope evoke the flawed pattern which Marie’s regency has overcome—since the ode declares the Golden Age already begun. With the nation flourishing, the completion of the ship of state’s voyage is imminent. All that remains is for the dauphin to establish a universal French empire. The argument divides into three parts: 1. stanzas one through three declare the virtue of Marie to be quasi-divine; 2. stanzas four through eight justify the declaration with examples; 3. stanzas nine through eleven wish for the continued success of the regency and, most important, for the future imperial conquests of Louis XIII. The first line of argument, comprising the first three stanzas, uses two apostrophes and three successive rhetorical questions to introduce the premise that Marie’s virtue is so extraordinary, there is something divine about her. The first stanza uses intra-textual inference—“a form of amplification near akin to emphasis” (Quintilian 8.4.26)—to evoke Venus and Astraea respectively, apostrophizing Marie as “Objet divin des âmes et des yeux” [Divine object of souls and of eyes] (v. 1) and “le chef-d’oeuvre des cieux” [the masterpiece of heaven] (v. 2), two allegorical images of Marie encountered in “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601). 25 The reader must refer such apostrophes to characterizations or, one might say, definitions of Marie, which accord with the alleged facts: her beauty, the birth of the dauphin, and the maintenance of peace. The wonder resides in the superlative degree of the queen’s achievement, as though one were speaking of divine perfection, and hyperbole is the appropriate trope to express it. The poet’s protestation of being unworthy, that is, not learned enough, to praise such excellence, “Quels doctes vers me feront avouer / Digne de te louer? ” [What erudite verses will confess me / Worthy to praise you? ] (vv. 3-4), although a commonplace used to underscore the superlative quality of any subject of praise, suggests at the same time that Marie is educated and bright enough to appreciate an erudite encomium. This acknowledgement of Marie’s learning and intelligence, whether or not based in fact, calls up the first regency 242 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes ode’s allegorical portrait of her as Minerva, goddess of wisdom and patroness of the arts and sciences. The second stanza repeats the theme of inadequacy but with a different set of images, evoking Parnassus and the Muses (“Les monts des fameux vierges que je sers” [The mountains of the famous virgins that I serve], v. 5), whose flowers (i.e. poems) see their colors (i.e. ornaments) fade in comparison to Marie’s colors (i.e. qualities or virtues). Encomiastic poetry enhances the truth, often exaggerates it, but this ode claims that its embellishments are insufficient to capture Marie’s superlative attributes. The virtues of this triune goddess (Astraea-Venus-Minerva) are so extraordinary, that erudition and inspiration, the twin resources of poetry, are inadequate to praise them. The third stanza modulates this deification with an intriguing example that sets Marie’s virtues in a context that is still mythological but more human and explicitly political. It builds on the androgynous aspect of Minerva and lays the foundation for the portrayal of Marie as a megalopsychos: Le Thermodon a su seoir autrefois, Des reines au trône des rois: Mais que vit-il par qui soit débattu Le prix à ta vertu? (vv. 9-12) [Thermodon knew how to place long ago, / Queens on the throne of kings: / But anyone did it see by whom is lowered / The value of your virtue? ] The Thermodon river is a metonymy for the mythical kingdoms of the Amazons. A strong female ruler sitting on the French throne may have suggested the aptness of the allusion, and Malherbe undoubtedly had in mind such queens as Hippolyta and Antiope, who appear in the stories about Theseus and Hercules, the exemplary heroes which in one way or another inform almost all Malherbe’s odes to Henri IV. The elaborate (and prolix) comparison asserts that Marie’s virtue surpasses the military prowess, courage, and high-spirited independence for which the Amazons were known. An Amazon is a variation of the androgyne because she exercises sociopolitical functions traditionally reserved for men, displays traditionally masculine virtues, but retains an outwardly feminine ap‐ pearance. The emphasis on the greater value or worth (“le prix”) of Marie’s virtue supports the ode’s initial premise (that Marie’s superlative virtue approaches divinity), but also asserts that greater virtue deserves greater honor. Contained within this example, moreover, is the flawed pattern which Marie has already overcome. While the Amazons were admired for their masculine virtues, they were feared for their hostility and scorned for their savagery. 243 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace 26 Apollonios Rhodios, The Argonautika, trans. Peter Green (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 2007). While it is commonplace to designate a region or a city by its river, as Malherbe does in other odes, the search for a classical source emphasizing the “Thermodon” points to Apollonius Rhodius’s Argonautika (2.965-1000). Malherbe may also have been familiar with Valerius Flaccus’s Argonautica, where the river appears in Book 5, vv. 121-125. Apollonius Rhodius writes in The Argonautka: “The heroes might have lingered / to mix it up with the Amazons—no bloodless battle there, / for neither civil nor law-abiding by nature / were those Amazons who occupied the Doiantian plain, / but cared for nothing but war and grievous outrage” (2.985-989). 26 In addition, the better-known myths involving Amazon queens invariably depict their betrayal and their destruction by the Greek heroes they encounter. The favorable comparison of Marie to the Amazons, therefore, suggests that the queen regent of France has retained Amazonian virtues while correcting their flaws and overcoming the dangers they typically encountered. Indeed, the second line of argument, beginning with stanza four, depicts a prosperous kingdom at peace and engaged in diplomacy with its long-standing enemies. A horticultural allegory depicts the kingdom’s felicity: “Certes nos lis, quoique bien cultivés, / Ne s’étaient jamais élévés / Au point heureux où les destins amis / Sous ta main les ont mis” [Indeed our lilies, although tended with care, / Had never risen / To the felicitous height where favorable destiny / With your hand has placed them] (vv. 13-16). Because the fleur-de-lis is the traditional emblem of the French monarchy, this image of flourishing lilies could simply represent the prosperity of France. However, the lilies might also signify the offspring of the House of France: Louis XIII and his sister, Elizabeth. In 1612, Marie announced a double marriage alliance with Spain, marrying Louis XIII to the Infanta Anne, and Elizabeth of France to the Prince of Asturias, the future Phillip IV of Spain. Prior to that, the queen regent had been seriously considering for her eldest daughter Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (Adam, Poésies 301). The reader might then hear a pun on the plural “lis” (lilies) with the word “lits” (beds) (the bed being the site where the consummation of the marriage seals the political alliance). Stanza five shows the English and the Spanish, two long-standing rivals of the French, competing with one another to curry favor: “À leur odeur l’Anglais se relâchant, / Notre amitié va recherchant: / Et l’Espagnol, prodige merveilleux, / Cesse d’être orgueilleux” [Mollified by their fragrance, the English / Come seeking our friendship: / And the Spanish, prodigious marvel, / Cease to be proud] (vv. 17-20). The Spanish Habsburgs were enemies of the French crown since at least the imprisonment of Francis I by Charles Quint, and this unexpected reversal of character from proud to 244 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes humble elicits feelings of wonder similar to what a miracle evokes. While the reader detects a humorous, witty tone in the reversal, the idea is serious: Marie’s virtue exhibits powers that defy explanation and thus suggest something divine. In addition, Marie’s diplomacy with male sovereigns (“L’Anglais” and “L’Espagnol”) suggests in what way she surpasses the flaws of the Amazons. There is no hint of lawlessness, savagery, or bellicosity. Nor is she the victim of male treachery. The peace and prosperity of France, brought to pass by Marie’s uncommon talent in conducting the affairs of state, have put old rivals in the position of supplicants. These prestigious diplomatic negotiations, moreover, underscore Marie’s intellectual virtue. It is her practical wisdom that has made her equal, perhaps superior, to the male sovereigns with whom she negotiates. By contending successfully with kings, she embodies the ethos of magnanimity, displaying her greatness to the great. In addition, she makes great claims not only on behalf of herself and her family, but also on behalf of the nation. Marie’s magnanimity dovetails with her unrivaled patriotism. The marriage alliance negotiated with Spain serves as proof that no one has done more for the good of the nation than Marie. Her contributions demand recognition from the nation’s other great souls. The second line of argument turns from international relations to the domestic front, but continues to present examples of Marie’s magnanimity and patriotism. Once again, the androgynous aspect of Marie’s quasi-divinity appears. Stanza six boldly declares a new Golden Age at hand: “De tous côtés nous regorgeons de biens: / Et qui voit l’aise où tu nous tiens, / De ce vieux siècle aux fables récité / Voit la félicité” [On every side we burst with blessings: / And whoever sees the contentment you keep us in, / Of that old century mentioned in myth / Sees the felicity] (vv. 21-24). Marie-Astraea has secured the blessings of peace for the nation. The peace of Astraea, however, has been made possible by Minerva’s martial virtues. Stanzas seven and eight recall Marie-Minerva’s success in quelling the fears of civil unrest following Henri’s untimely death: “Quelque discord murmurant bassement” [The low rumblings of discord] (v. 25) “s’évanouit” [evaporated] (v. 27) as soon as Marie threatened the malcontents with military action: “Tu menaças l’orage paraissant: / Et tout soudain obéissant, / Il disparut comme flots courrouçés, / Que Neptune a tancés” [You threatened the gathering storm: / And suddenly docile, / It disappeared like angry waves, / Which Neptune rebuked] (vv. 29-32). This allegory depends on the commonplace: storm = political unrest. As Neptune rules the winds and the waves of the sea, so Marie rules the subjects of France. Indeed, her power seems to rival that of Neptune’s, who intervenes with superfluous reproaches after 245 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace calm has been restored. There is something miraculous here. Neptune, god of the sea, is a familiar classical deity here used to represent unnameable transcendent forces at work in the destiny of the nation, and the implicit comparison attributes quasi-divine power to Marie, as though her actions could direct the destiny of France—like Henri before her. While Marie’s martial attributes, that is, her Amazonian virtues, underwrite her authority, the miraculous docility of subjects on the point of rebellion serves as proof that, once again, Marie’s claims to monarchal rule have been borne out. Beyond being the widow of Henri and the mother of Louis, she deserves the throne thanks to her extraordinary virtue. Such magnanimity goes hand in hand with patriotism. There is no greater contribution to the good of the nation than securing the peace. The logic of magnanimity demands that other great souls recognize this felicitous state of affairs as a major contribution to the good of the nation. But if the Golden Age has arrived, the quest is not yet complete. Stanzas six, seven and eight encapsulate the national myth unifying the entire poetic sequence. The nautical imagery implies that the ship of state, captained by the quasi-divine Marie, has steered clear of the storms of political discord and entered the halcyon seas of a new Golden Age. Amazon queen, vanquisher of war and bringer of peace, Marie retains the imago Dei constituted by her marriage to the hero, and so the new nation, born with the reign of Henri IV and united in his mystical body, survives his death by being grafted to the androgynous goddess, who is now the unifying element of the nation—until such time as the new hero, Louis XIII, may take the helm of the ship of state. The recognition modeled by the ode, and implicitly demanded of the reader who would stake his (or her) own claim to magnanimity, brings the nascent Golden Age one step closer to completion. As in other odes, feelings of emulation—the desire to receive honor for virtue (Rhet. 2.11.4)—spur the great-souled to make their own contribution to the collective good. The third line of argument, beginning with stanza nine, therefore celebrates the beginning of the end of the quest, so to speak, imagining the utopian future— not far off now—when Louis XIII will return France to imperial hegemony. With a striking image, stanza nine wishes for the continued beneficence of Marie’s influence: Que puisses-tu, grand Soleil de nos jours, Faire sans fin le même cours: Le soin du ciel te gardant aussi bien, Que nous garde le tien. (vv. 33-36) 246 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes [May you, great Sun of our days, / Endlessly take the same path: / The care of heaven keeping you so well, / May your care keep us.] Marie is no longer simply a guiding star of the constellation Virgo—she has become the sun herself. The simplicity, dignity, and intellectual daring of the image make it an instance of the plainer variety of Hellenistic grandeur. The metaphor posits an analogy between the blessings bestowed by the sun and those bestowed by the queen regent, wishing, as it were, for nothing but sunshine for the rest of her regency. But such an image—the Sun Queen—is also rich with mythological implications. First, it is a variant of the androgyne. In the Greco-Roman tradition, the sun is often identified with Phoebus Apollo. The traditionally masculine qualities symbolically conveyed by the sun—brilliance, grandeur, generosity—are attributed to Marie thanks to her exercise of the traditionally masculine duties of kingship. Second, the image implies that the hero cycle has reached a successful partial conclusion, marked by “the unlocking and the release again of the flow of life into the body of the world” (Campbell 32). The shining sun, associated with the fire of the hearth, symbolizes “the communication of divine energy to the womb of the world” (Campbell 34). Marie herself is the conduit of heaven’s redemptive energies, manifest in the return of peace, justice and prosperity to France. Third, the sun is also an emblem of the risen Christ. Such a connotation is consistent with Marie as the “world redeemer” which we saw in the first regency ode. “Virtue is but the pedagogical prelude to the culminating insight, which goes beyond all pairs of opposites” (Campbell 35). From Campbell’s perspective, such an image as Sun Queen transcends opposites and, as world redeemer, embodies the mystical insight that all men and women are God’s children. This ideal of universal brotherhood argues that France’s internal divisions are overcome, transcended in the mystical body of Marie. The energies of the nation are concentrated in her and refracted through her. Her power to unify comes from her miraculous elevation and transcendence. The restoration of France to universal empire remains to be fulfilled. Stanza ten therefore imagines a new world order under the leadership of Louis, again in the subjunctive mood: Puisses-tu voir sous le bras de ton fils Trébucher les murs de Memphis: Et de Marseille au rivage de Tyr Son empire aboutir. (vv. 37-40) [May you see, by the arm of your son, / The walls of Memphis tumble: / And from Marseille to the shore of Tyre / May his empire reach.] 247 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace The reference to Memphis, as we saw in stanza twelve of the ode “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France,” recalls the heroic deeds of Alexander the Great and Saint Louis. Like Alexander, Marie’s son, Louis XIII, with an unquenchable thirst for glory, will establish an empire that unifies the west and the east. Like his namesake Saint Louis, Louis XIII’s conquest will be a crusade to win back the Levant from the Turks. Such historically incompatible examples point to a purely mythical empire. The stanza wishes for the establishment of an unprecedented pax romana et christiana which neither Charlemagne nor Constantine ever achieved. The final stanza, rich with double meanings, returns to the theme of Marie’s merits while alluding to the persuasive power of poetry: Les voeux sont grands: mais avecque raison Que ne peut l’ardente oraison: Et sans flatter ne sers-tu pas les dieux, Assez pour avoir mieux? (vv. 41-44) [The dreams are ambitious: but with reason / What can the ardent prayer not do: / And without flattery do you not serve the gods / Enough to deserve better? ] If the ambitions expressed in the previous stanzas are outsized, what makes them possible is Marie’s outstanding virtue. The reference to her service to the “gods” could be read as an evocation of her piety and, therefore, of her worthiness to see her dreams realized. In other words, such wishes may not come true, but that will have to do with circumstances beyond human control. On the other hand, the word “dieux” in a courtly context often signifies “les grands,” that is, the great nobles. The implication seems to be that the favor which Marie has shown the great nobles has earned their support for continued peace at home and for Louis XIII’s imperial projects abroad. But it could also be that the great nobles will have to participate if they wish to see the Golden Age fully restored. In this light, the term “ardente oraison” acquires a double meaning. It signifies both “prayer” and “oration.” This Horatian ode displays all the trappings of a hymn: the deification of Marie, the celebration of her virtues, the expression of hope for the future. But we have just seen how the ode relies on metaphor and example to make an argument. The subtler implication of this final stanza is that the ode’s persuasive power will galvanize support among the great nobility to make the grandiose dreams come true. Even if the poet and his art are inadequate to do justice to Marie’s merits, they still have the power to move with admiration, thereby performing an invaluable service for the monarchy. 248 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes While the use of classical imagery and examples to deify Marie is perfectly conventional, it is significant that the queen regent and the great nobles are the only deities, however metaphorical, mentioned in the ode. That is to say, the ode’s tactics are recognizable, but the strategic objective is new. In this ode it is less a question of showing how Marie is favored by God and more a question of how Marie’s extraordinary virtue incarnates the best of the nation. The religious feelings, even clothed in a pagan conceit, directed toward the queen derive in this instance not from the unmediated connection to God but from the energies of the nation inflected through her. The ode reveals the displacement of religious feelings which Malherbe’s reimagining of the nation presupposes in the aftermath of the Wars of Religion. 3. Pour la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence (unfinished 1613; 1630) This ode was never published during Malherbe’s lifetime, and Rubin does not include it in his corpus. Antoine Adam notes that more than one reader of the posthumous encomium has remarked its apparent lack of an introduction and conclusion, and he cites a letter by the poet, dated March 29, 1613, mentioning verses “begun” for Marie de Médicis but which were still “on the workbench,” which Adam believes may well refer to this long fragment (Adam, Poésies 302). It is worth noting, moreover, that the unfinished “Pour la Reine mère” coincides with Malherbe’s suspension of work on the sequence for more than a decade. Not until 1627 will he write the final ode, “Pour le Roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois” (1627; 1635), dedicated to Louis XIII on the eve of his campaign against La Rochelle. This third ode in the Marie cycle, “Pour la Reine mère,” may have been interrupted by the revolt of the princes led by Condé in 1614. Or perhaps the denial of the poet’s request for a new pension in 1615 was too disappointing. Aside from a half dozen ballet lyrics written for the marriage of Louis and Anne between 1612 and 1615, Malherbe never again celebrated Marie de Médicis. Whatever the cause, the poet must have seen the writing on the wall. Marie was an astute politician, but the arrogance of Concini, her favorite, and the marriage contract with Spain succeeded only in provoking the great nobles. Although Marie attempted to placate the princes with royal largesse and court spectacles, even bringing Condé into the government in 1616, France had entered a new period of political discord, which the ode does not—cannot—acknowledge. The ideological message of the Marie cycle no longer seems pertinent. The Golden Age heralded by Marie’s practical wisdom had not come to pass. 249 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace Despite the ode’s unfinished state, a reader may nonetheless discern the outlines of an argument among its parts. The underlying conceit, familiar by now, is that Marie has skillfully steered the ship of state through troubled waters to halcyon seas. The queen regent has proven herself a sovereign ruler in her own right. Stanzas one through five renounce the future celebration of all other lyric themes now that a truly worthy muse has been found. Stanzas six through nineteen justify Marie’s exaltation with a series of examples. The first half of this unit, an extended comparison using nautical imagery, ranks her skill in governance above the achievements of the kings of Spain and England and recalls her pacification of the nobles following Henri’s death. The second half, beginning with stanza thirteen, celebrates in familiar utopian terms the peace, justice, and prosperity that Marie has brought to France. The recent marriage contract with Spain is cited as one of these “visible miracles” (v. 171) announcing the return of a great empire and attesting to Marie’s quasi-divinity. Stanzas twenty through twenty-two call on Henri to attest to her accomplishments and to the heroic progress of the Dauphin instructed by her example, thereby confirming the estimation of Marie as a genuine megalopsychos. Although the ode is long-winded and obscure, and the final appeal to Henri seems tacked on and redundant, the various parts achieve some measure of coherence in the portrayal of Marie as “Pallas” (v. 179), one of the surnames attached to Athena-Minerva. This allegorical portrait emerges from the ode’s underlying pattern and implies that Marie plays a crucial role as captain of the ship of state in the national quest. The ethos of magnanimity is still operative in this ode, but it is for the most part assumed. It is logical to infer from the poet’s high praise and from the list of Marie’s achievements on behalf of the nation that one great soul recognizes another. Part of the confusion stems from the fact that the ode is unfinished, and so it is not always immediately clear to whom the poet is addressing this praise. The last three stanzas are addressed to Henri IV, and there it is clear that the great-souled Henri has been asked to confirm Marie’s magnanimity. The first five stanzas, however, are addressed to the Muses, whom the ode invokes only to renounce in favor of Marie, the poet’s new and exclusive muse. The divine character of the Muses pulls the ode toward a hymn, as does the quite serious treatment of Marie as a pagan goddess. Another source of confusion stems from the hybrid genus dicendi of this ode: is it a hymn, or is it a deliberative utterance addressed to fellow subjects of the French nation? Is the poet wearing priestly vestments, or the toga of a statesman? “Prière pour le roi allant en Limousin” (1606; 1607) borrowed the form of a psalm, but in that case the poet asked God to inspire Henri with His divine phronēsis on the eve of military action to put 250 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes down a rebellion. The nation could join its voices to the poet’s, and the conflict situated the utterance in a political, earthly context. In this ode, the deification of Marie lifts her achievement above the human realm, which tends to work against the argument for recognition of human virtues, however marvelous. To present the queen regent as the subject of the ode’s praise, stanzas one through five use two commonplaces: the banishment of envy, and the renunciation of every other lyric theme. These topics are not coordinated, except perhaps as potential results of the service which the poet offers this prospective patron. Stanza one does not so much begin in medias res as erupt out of the blue, giving no context for the utterance other than the ode’s title. Envy is represented first as a runt (“Quelque avorton de l’envie” [some runt of envy] v.1), then as a crow (“ce misérable corbeau, / Comme oiseau d’augure sinistre” [this miserable crow, / As a bird of evil omen] vv. 7-8). The ode proposes to banish such evil omens by pouring “douces merveilles” [sweet wonders] (v. 6) into “savantes oreilles” [learned ears] (v. 5). Such eloquence is destined for a select audience, opening their eyes to Marie’s merits while closing their ears to detractors. The runt has the anger of heaven and earth called down on it (“Je veux bander contre sa vie / L’ire de la terre et des cieux” [I want to arouse against his life / The anger of earth and heaven] vv. 3-4), while the crow is driven from the river of swans to the silence of the grave (“Banni des rives de Caïstre, / S’aille cacher dans le tombeau” [Banished from the shores of Cayster, / it will depart to hide in the grave] vv. 9-10). The latter allegory suggests that the swans are poets singing Marie’s praises while the crow is the voice of the lone detractor. The transition to the second commonplace in the second stanza comes abruptly and again without context (“Venez donc, non pas habillées / Comme on vous trouve quelquefois” [Come, therefore, not dressed / As we see you sometimes] vv. 11-12), with the result that the reader must wait till the fourth stanza (“Non, vierges, non” [No, virgins, no] v. 31) to surmise that the poet has been addressing the Muses. Stanza two commands them to put off their pastoral garb for the formal attire of hymn: “Comme quand vous allez aux fêtes / Où les dieux vous font appeler” [As when you attend the feasts / Where the gods summon you] (vv. 19-20), while stanza three, echoing this contrast, renounces the traditional lyric theme of love: “Tantôt vous soupiriez mes peines, / Tantôt vous chantiez mes plaisirs” [Sometimes you used to sigh my pains, / Sometimes you used to sing my pleasures] (vv. 23-24). The first reason given for this renunciation is the poet’s advanced years: “Siérait-il bien à mes écrits / D’ennuyer les races futures / Des ridicules aventures / D’un amoureux en cheveux gris? ” [Would it suit my writings / To bore future generations / With the ridiculous adventures / Of a lover with gray hair] (vv. 27-30). The second, 251 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace and more important reason is that the poet has found a more worthy subject of praise: “je me retire / De tous ces frivoles discours; / Ma reine est un but à ma lyre / Plus juste que nulles amours” [I withdraw / From such frivolous speeches; / My queen is for my lyre an object / More just than any love affair] (vv. 31-34). The poet’s exclusive devotion to the queen going forward, professed in stanza four, may be construed as a business proposition. The poet quits the nine Muses, swearing on pain of death that the queen will henceforth be his sole inspiration: “Et quand j’aurai, comme j’espère, / Fait ouïr du Gange à l’Ibère / Sa louange à tout l’univers, / Permesse me soit un Cocyte, / Si jamais je vous sollicite / De m’aider à faire des vers” [And when I have, as I hope, / Sounded from the Ganges to Iberia / Her praise for all the universe, / May Permessus be Cocytus for me, / If ever I ask you (the Muses) / To help me compose my poetry] (vv. 35-40). Such poetic exclusivity suggests Marie’s exceptional merit. Stanza five compares the odor of the rose to that of the poppy, and the brightness of the moon to that of the stars, to show that the poet cannot return to less intense, less magnificent subjects of praise. But it also suggests that the speaker has the right concern for honor, portraying him as someone who recognizes true greatness. He is willing to use his own alleged reputation for eloquence in the vast territory that foreshadows a French empire to immortalize the queen regent, silencing detractors and leading all her subjects to experience the wonder of her quasi-divinity. Beginning with stanza six, the ode abruptly veers in another direction. The nautical imagery of the next seven stanzas, organized around two comparisons, develops the ode’s underlying conceit: Marie as an extraordinary pilot of the ship of state. The second of the two comparisons supplies the flawed pattern, which Marie must surpass, and which links the ode to the national myth of the poetic sequence. The first comparison, measuring Marie against Philip III of Spain and James I of England, asserts her superiority to them in the art of government. Stanza six argues that the reputation of each male sovereign as the age’s “ornement principal” [chief ornament] (v. 52) of good governance is undeserved: “en de si calmes provinces, / Où le peuple adore les princes, / Et met au degré le plus haut / L’honneur du sceptre légitime, / Saurait-on excuser le crime / De ne régner pas comme il faut? ” [in such calm regions, / Where the people adore princes, / And give the highest honor / To the legitimate scepter, / How could one excuse the crime / Of not reigning as one ought? ] (vv. 55-60). It is no positive achievement to reign “comme il faut” [as one ought] under such ideal conditions. True glory, on the contrary, requires that one’s virtue be tested by adversity. Stanza seven amplifies this point by contrasting the meager skills 252 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes which sailing a river requires with the expertise acquired, and proven, by sailing stormy seas: Ce n’est point aux rives d’un fleuve, Où dorment les vents et les eaux, Que fait sa véritable preuve L’art de conduire les vaisseaux; Il faut en la plaine salée Avoir lutté contre Malée, Et près du naufrage dernier S’être vu dessous les Pléiades Éloigné de ports et de rades, Pour être cru bon marinier. (vv. 61-70) [It is not at the shores of a river, / Where the winds and waves sleep, / That one may truly demonstrate / The art of piloting ships; / One must on the salty plain / Have battled against Cape Malea, / And near the final shipwreck / Have been under the Pleiades / Far from all ports and bays, / To be considered a good mariner.] The allegory equates the relative calm of water close to a river bank with the political concord enjoyed by England and Spain, whereas the stormy waters of the open sea evoke the political discord of France, in other words, the Wars of Religion and their lingering aftermath, such as the assassination of Henri IV. (The ode’s ideological purpose renders the historical accuracy of such a comparison irrelevant.) The references to Cape Malea and to the Pleiades are epic tags recalling the sea-journeys of heroes like Odysseus, Jason, or Aeneas. From this significatio per similtudem (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.54.67), the reader is invited to infer that Marie, comparable to an epic hero battling the sea, has been tested by political discord. Unlike her male rivals in Spain or in England, she has earned the right to be called a “bon marinier” [good mariner]. The coming stanzas will develop this implication in detail, citing the many instances of Marie’s achievements, but first Malherbe introduces a crucial mythological example to frame them all. Stanza eight furnishes the ode with its underlying conceit. This second of the two comparisons, interrupting or contained within the first, likens the queen regent to the pilots of the Argo: Ainsi quand la Grèce partie D’où le mol Anaure coulait, Traversa les mers de Scythie En la navire qui parlait, 253 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace 27 Apollonios Rhodios, The Argonautika, trans. Peter Green (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). Pour avoir su des Cyanées Tromper les vagues forcenées, Les pilotes du fils d’Éson, Dont le nom jamais ne s’efface, Ont gagné la première place En la fable de la Toison. (vv. 71-80) [Thus when Greece, departed / From where the languorous Anaurus flowed, / Crossed the seas of Scythia / In the talking ship, / For having known how to fool / The Clashing Rocks’ furious waves, / The pilots of the son of Aison, / Whose name will never be erased, / Won the first place / In the story of the Fleece.] First, this comparison serves to illustrate the ode’s assertion that a ship’s pilot must be tested on the high seas to deserve the reputation of being a good mariner. It evokes Tiphys and Ankaios as exemplars of the pilot, leaving to the reader the working out of the undeveloped analogy, another instance of significatio per similitudem (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.54.67). Of Tiphys, Apollonios says: “skilled he was to predict a rising / storm out on the broad sea, saw hurricanes coming, / could steer a ship’s course by sun or stars” (Argonautika 1.106-108). 27 The credentials of Ankaios also receive high praise when he bravely volunteers to replace Tiphys after he dies of illness: “Hera put an overplus of courage / into Ankaios, whom by the waters of Imbrasos / Astypálaia bore to Poseidon, and who was an expert / steersman” (Argonautika 1.865-868). Both Argonauts must have suggested to Malherbe intriguing points of comparison with the queen regent. Like Tiphys, Marie sees the storms of political discord coming and knows how to steer the ship of state into calmer waters; like Ankaios, she shows great courage in stepping up to lead the nation in a time of crisis. Second, the comparison lays the foundation for the allegorical portrait of Marie. Tiphys famously piloted the Argo through the Clashing Rocks (Argonau‐ tika 2.549-618). But it was Athena, invisible to the crew, who saved the Argo: “Athena, left hand jammed against a massive / rock, with her right thrust the Argo through and onward, / and the vessel sped, airborne, like a swift-winged arrow” (Argonautika, 2.598-600). After narrowly escaping destruction, Tiphys realizes that Athena, who personally supervised the construction of the Argo, must have had a hand in their successful passage: “‘It is my belief that we owe our survival of this hazard / to the vessel we sail in—thanks, above all, to Athena’” (Argonautika, 2.611-612). A reader familiar with the Argonautika 254 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes and the other two regency odes infers the implied parallel between Marie and Athena-Minerva—a form of amplification “near akin to emphasis” that depends on an inference drawn from the facts (Quintilian 8.4.26). However, just in case anyone misses it, the ode declares in stanza eighteen: “C’est Pallas que cette Marie / Par qui nous sommes gouvernés” [She is Pallas Athena, this Marie / By whom we are governed] (vv. 179-180). More on this when we reach stanza eighteen. As we saw in “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607), the nautical allegory is reinforced by the semantic field of the French verb gouverner, which applies to government as well as to the steering of a ship. An attentive reader may also infer a parallel between the Clashing Rocks which the Argo successfully avoided and the political challenges which Marie navigated during her regency. Indeed, this second comparison in stanza eight asserts the superiority of Marie to the pilots of the Argo. Hence the pattern represented by Tiphys and Ankaios is not so much flawed and corrected as simply surpassed. The broader inference to be drawn is that no mere mortal is steering the French ship of state. Stanza nine, coming just prior to the list of Marie’s achievements, supplies the first half of the frame that deifies Marie, asserting that the hyperbolic praise for her virtue is necessary because “the magnitude of the facts surpasses all words” (Quintilian 8.6.76). The initial “Ainsi” [Thus] (v. 81) of stanza nine signals the return to the first comparison between Marie and the kings of Spain and of England. In “conservant cet empire” [preserving this empire] (v. 81), Marie has been severely tested by “l’infidélité du sort / Jointe à la nôtre encore pire” [the faithlessness of destiny / Added to France’s, which is even worse] (vv. 82-83), whereas the male sovereigns of Spain and England have not. Her growing reputation in the eyes of contemporaries (“Ma reine acquiert à ses mérites / Un nom qui n’a point de limites” [My queen acquires for her merits / A name that has no limits ] vv. 85-86) also sets a timeless example for posterity: “Et ternissant le souvenir / Des reines qui l’ont précédée, / Devient une éternelle idée / De celles qui sont à venir” [And dimming the memory / Of the queens who preceded her, / She becomes an eternal idea / Of those who will come after her] (vv. 87-90). The metaphor “ternir” [dim; tarnish] implies the growing brightness of Marie, as though she were a celestial object. The phrase “éternelle idée” suggests that Marie has become a living archetype. The ode’s function is to capture this archetype with its verbal portrait, not just transmitting it to future generations but also, and just as important, disseminating it among contemporaries. Stanzas ten through sixteen list Marie’s achievements as queen regent. Most of these themes are by now familiar. First Marie’s display of courage in preventing the return of civil conflict is recalled: “Aussitôt que le coup tragique / 255 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace Dont nous fûmes presque abbatus, / Eut fait la fortune publique / L’exercice de ses vertus, / En quelle nouveauté d’orage / Ne fut éprouvé son courage? [When the tragic blow / Which almost broke us, / Had made the public good / The exercise of her virtues, / What new storms / Did not test her courage? ] (vv. 91-96). This stanza, the tenth, continues the nautical allegory and draws a direct line between the preservation of the public good and Marie’s virtues. Stanza eleven drops the sea-going motif to amplify the threat of civil war, “Qui n’ouït la voix de Bellone, / Lasse d’un repos de douze ans [Who did not hear the voice of Bellona, / Tired of a twelve-year repose] (vv. 101-102), recalling instead two battles from the Third War of Religion: “l’éternelle ignominie / de Jarnac et de Moncontour” [the eternal ignominy / Of Jarnac and Moncontour] (vv. 109-110). Perhaps Malherbe singles them out because they represent two rare instances of direct confrontation by Catholic and Protestant armies—as opposed to militias slaughtering civilians, a too frequent occurrence during the religious wars. The protracted fighting in those famous battles led to grave losses for the nation: the deaths of important Protestant nobles and high casualties overall. Stanza twelve introduces a new theme, evoking an on-going cause for concern in the current political climate: “Qui ne voit encor à cette heure / Tous les infidèles cerveaux / Dont la fortune est la meilleure, / Ne chercher que troubles nouveaux” [Who does not even now see / All these traitorous brains / Who have had the best luck, / Looking only to stir up trouble] (vv. 111-114). The difficulty in rooting out these conspirators is represented by a rather unusual image: “ces fontaines / Dont les conduites souterraines / Passent par un plomb si gâté, / Que toujours ayant quelque tare, / Au même temps qu’on les répare / L’eau s’enfuit d’un autre côté” [those fountains / Whose underground passageways / Have such rotten plumbing / They always have some imperfection, / And while being repaired / They spring a leak from another side] (vv. 115-120). The fountain is an image of the monarchy found in early modern texts of political theory, an expression of the king’s embodiment of the public good. Where one might expect Malherbe’s usual metaphor of the hydra, the unusual analogy between the plumbing that supports the fountain and the nobility that supports the monarch underscores the rot that has set in while conveying the sense of futility in trying to staunch rebellion against the Crown. Then, with no transition, the ode shifts to the familiar themes of peace, justice, and prosperity used by Malherbe to describe the regency of Marie. Stanza thirteen, focused on the prospect of a new Golden Age, does acknowledge “les pâles Euménides” [the pale Eumenides] (v. 125) threatening to escape from hell to revive “nos parricides” [our parricides] (v. 126), but only in a conditional clause sandwiched between utopian imagery. France’s current climate of peace 256 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes (“La paix ne voit rien que [sic] menace / De faire renaître nos pleurs; / Tout s’accorde à notre bonace,” [Peace sees nothing that threatens / To bring back our tears; / All accords with our halcyon seas] vv. 121-123) will lead to a new Golden Age: “Le repos du siècle où nous sommes / Va faire à la moitié des hommes / Ignorer que c’est que le fer” [The tranquility of the time in which we live / Will make half of mankind / Ignorant of what iron is] (vv. 128-130). Iron, of course, represents the sword and the plough, two implements that characterize the Iron Age, the mythical dawn of war and agriculture. The future’s unfamiliarity with them implies a reversion to the Golden Age. If only half of humanity experiences this utopia, it is because Marie’s empire is not yet universal. The fear-laden condition qualifying the arrival of the new Golden Age, in conjunction with the vivid evocation of the Wars of Religion, should be seen as an appeal to the great nobles to keep the peace for the good of the nation. Stanza fourteen depicts Themis, “capitale ennemie / Des ennemis de leur devoir” [mortal enemy / Of the enemies of duty] (vv. 131-132), establishing a rock-solid foundation of justice (“Comme un rocher est affermie” [Like a rock it is affirmed] v. 133) with laws “qui n’exceptent rien / De leur glaive et de leur balance” [that provide no exceptions / From their sword and their scales] (vv. 137-138). Law and order reign under Marie. Malefactors do not require punishment to mend their ways (“Elle va d’un pas et d’un ordre, / Où la censure n’a que mordre” [Justice comes with such speed and order, / That censure need only to bite] vv. 135-136), and the rapacious have no more recourse “à la violence / Qui veut avoir plus que le sien” [to the violence / That wants to have more than belongs to it] (vv. 139-140). In stanza fifteen, images of a pastoral utopia represent the return of pros‐ perity: “Nos champs même ont leur abondance / Hors de l’outrage des voleurs” [Our fields even have their abundance / Free from the outrage of thieves] (vv. 141-142). The return of peace and justice has been accompanied by plentiful harvests, and this prosperity has led in turn to a festive atmosphere where the pleasures of life abound (“Les festins, les jeux, et la danse, / En bannissent toutes douleurs” [Parties, games, and dancing / Banish all our pains] vv. 143-144). Separated lovers have been reunited: “Chaque Amaryle a son Tityre” [Each Amaryllis has his Tityrus] (v. 146). As this allusion to Virgil’s First Eclogue implies, the pursuits of love have been made possible by a new political order (Ecloga 1.6). The delights of music and of conversation now fill everyone’s days and nights (“Et sous l’épaisseur des rameaux, / Il n’est place où l’ombre soit bonne, / Qui soir et matin ne résonne / Ou de voix, ou de chalumeaux” [And under the thick branches, / Every spot with good shade, / Night and day 257 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace resonates / With voices or with pipes] vv. 147-150). The ubiquity of this joy certainly implies a public good. With its initial “Puis” [Then] (v. 151), stanza sixteen caps this list with a new theme, the double marriage alliance between France and Spain, represented as a miracle (“ces deux grands hyménées, / Dont le fatal embrassement / Doit aplanir les Pyrénées” [these two great marriages, / Whose fated consummation / Must flatten the Pyrenees] vv. 151-153) accompanied by other signs that a new Golden Age is at hand: “L’encens germer en nos buissons, / La myrrhe couler en nos rues, / Et sans l’usage des charrues, / Nos plaintes jaunir de moissons” [Incense will burst from our hedges, / Myrrh will flow in our streets, / And without the use of plows, / Our complaints will wither with harvests] (vv. 157-160). All these impossible images evoke the theme of the world turned upside down, but here this reversal of the old order acquires a positive connotation. It is the cause of joyful wonder, the sort of feeling inspired by a miracle, the presence of the divine at work in the world. “Incense” and “myrrh” are conspicuous choices and signal joy and reverence. Stanza seventeen extrapolates from these achievements, expressing the familiar wish for the establishment of a French empire: “Quelle moins hautaine espérance / Pouvons-nous concevoir alors, / Que de conquêter à la France / La Propontide en ses deux bords? ” [What less ambitious hope / Can we then conceive, / Than conquering for France / The Propontis on both shores? ] (vv. 161-164). As in “À la Reine sur les heureux succès de sa régence” (1610; 1611), this imaginary empire would extend Charlemagne’s Christendom to reconquer the Byzantine territories from the Turks. The dream of a universal French empire naturally recalls the glory of the French leading the crusades: “Et vengeant de succès prospère / Les infortunes de nos pères / Que tient l’Égypte ensevelis” [Avenging with successful outcome / The misfortunes of our fathers / Which Egypt keeps buried] (vv. 165-167). The fallen ancestors in Egypt evoke the tragic campaign of Saint Louis. Egypt also connotes the conquests of Alexander, thereby extending the imaginary empire beyond the easternmost horizon: “Aller si près du bout du monde, / Que le soleil sorte de l’onde / Sur la terre des fleurs de lis” [To go so close to the end of the world, / That the sun rises from the sea / On the land of the fleurs-de-lis] (vv. 168-170). The plural “fleurs-de-lis,” the emblem of Florence and of the French monarchy, suggests that Marie will reign over this new empire. The ode’s call for military action abroad (and this is true from the beginning of the sequence) seems designed to create internal political cohesion, providing a legitimate outlet for noble ambition. Looking back over Marie’s contributions to the felicity of the nation, stanza eighteen infers that it must be the handiwork of a goddess: 258 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes Certes ces miracles visibles Excédant le penser humain, Ne sont point ouvrages possibles À moins qu’une immortelle main. Et la raison ne se peut dire, De nous voir en notre navire À si bon port acheminés, Ou sans fard et sans flatterie, C’est Pallas que cette Marie, Par qui nous sommes gouvernés. (vv. 171-180) [Certainly these visible miracles / Surpassing human thought, / Are works impos‐ sible / For less than an immortal hand. / And this cannot be explained, / To see us in our ship / To such good harbor conducted, / Unless without artifice or flattery, / She is Pallas, this Marie, / By whom we are governed.] This declaration of Marie’s divinity calls back to the “eternal idea” embodied by the queen in stanza nine and thus provides the second half of the frame within which the reader is meant to consider the success of her regency. As Rubin remarked of Marie’s apotheosis in “À la Reine sur les heureux succès de sa régence” (1610; 1611), “the goddess-like merit of the Queen requires deification” (Rubin, Higher 89). In other words, such “visible miracles” as securing the peace, the restoration of law and order, and the return of prosperity must be traced back to a virtue whose superlative degree suggests something more than human. This clever hyperbole, more than an exaggerated statement of Marie’s merits, also recalls the national myth of the sequence and shows the crucial role that Marie has come to play in it. In the quest to forge a new nation whose unity resides in the person of the king, she is no longer simply the Golden Fleece brought back by the hero, “the vanquisher of war and the catalyst of peace” (Goodman 76-77), the erotic boon who, with her charms, will secure the legitimacy of the new regime by giving birth to the Dauphin. Rather, the Marie-Pallas parallel suggests that the queen regent’s phronēsis has saved the ship of state from destruction on more than one occasion. Her marriage to Henri IV reconstituted the androgynous imago Dei, and the queen regent retains these powers after his death. Her deification, therefore, acknowledges her attainment of a higher state of being, but also argues for her equal place in the pantheon of the nation. The apotheosis of Marie implies what it did for Henri: quasi-divine virtue, a special relationship with God, and the collective embodiment of the nation. While the ode certainly argues that Marie has contributed to the public good more than any other person, its deification of her asserts that the queen regent constitutes 259 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace the unifying element of the nation in her own right. The unity of the nation may, and does, reside in the person of Marie. Stanza nineteen terminates the framing of Marie’s achievements by returning to the theme of the necessity of hyperbole: “Et quiconque fera l’histoire / De ce grand chef-d’oeuvre de gloire, / L’incrédule postérité / Rejettera son témoignage, / S’il ne la dépeint belle, et sage, / Au-deçà de la vérité” [Whoever writes the history / Of this great masterpiece of glory, / Incredulous posterity / Will reject his testimony, / If one does not portray her beautiful, and wise, / Falling short of the truth] (vv. 185-190). That is to say, every attempt to capture Marie’s excellence is doomed to failure because the world “ne vit jamais rien de tel” [has never seen anything like her] (v. 184). Her contributions to the nation are so clear, and her practical wisdom is so great, that words fall short of the truth. The nation’s indebtedness and gratitude to Marie demand an adequate representation of her extraordinary merits. Anything less than the hyperbole of deification would be discounted as incredulous. The ode’s final three stanzas, calling on the deceased Henri to approve Marie’s performance of her duties, constitute a problematic conclusion to the previous arguments for several reasons. First, stanza twenty strikes a familiar, almost intimate tone when it asks Henri about family matters: “Que dis-tu de cette belle âme, / Quand tu la vois si dignement / Adoucir toutes nos absinthes, / Et se tirer des labyrinthes / Où la met ton éloignement? ” [What do you say of this beautiful soul, / When you see her so worthily / Sweeten our cups of bitterness, / And extricate herself from the labyrinth / Where your distance leaves her? ] (vv. 196-200). Second, although the ode has just spent ten stanzas deifying Marie, the description of her as “belle âme” [beautiful soul] (v. 196), which Malherbe applies to Henri on several occasions, brings her back to earth. Henri’s imaginary recognition of Marie’s magnanimity is sought as confirmation of her public recognition by the poet. Third, while one can see the logic of asking Marie’s spouse to approve her performance, since her authority derives from his, not to mention Henri’s god-like popularity, such an intimate conversation seems out of place coming at the end of an otherwise public address. Finally, it is hard to see how stanza twenty initiates a summing up. The ode’s underlying conceit, conveyed by nautical imagery, disappears altogether, while the image of the labyrinth evokes Marie’s private suffering rather than her public achievement. Even the image of “our bitter cups” (“nos absinthes”) suggests individual rather than collective suffering. Stanza twenty-one repeats the rhetorical question, but focuses now on Marie as an appropriate role model for the Dauphin: “Que dis-tu lorsque tu remarques / Après ses pas ton héritier, / De la sagesse des monarques / Monter le pénible 260 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes sentier? / Et pour étendre sa couronne, / Croître comme un faon de lionne? ” [What do you say when you observe / In her footsteps your heir, / Of the wisdom of kings / Scaling the difficult path? / And to expand his crown, / Growing like a lion cub? ] (vv. 201-206). By her example, Marie teaches the two virtues, courage and phronēsis, which Henri, brave and wise, would have taught their son. The image of Marie as a “lionne” [lioness] (v. 206) recalls the commonplace used to describe Achilles and other epic heroes—Malherbe even compares Henri in such terms. What is most intriguing about this image is that it is by his mother’s example that Louis will learn how to be a megalopsychos. The nomads whose folds of sheep the royal cub will soon destroy (“Les nomades n’ont bergerie, / Qu’il ne suffise à désoler” [The nomads have no fold, / Which he will not be able to ravage] (vv. 209-210) could allude to the inhabitants of Egypt and the Holy Land, the usual targets of the Dauphin’s future exploits, and their destruction serves to confirm the effectiveness of Marie’s lesson. And yet, despite the public interest in the education and the progress of the Dauphin, the question addressed to Henri seems casual and intimate, as though it were a passing remark in the halls of the Louvre. The ode’s final stanza, twenty-two, develops the theme of the Dauphin’s promise as a great warrior. The conceit is that the young Louis, had he fought on the side of the Trojans, would have defeated the Greeks: “Qui doute que si de ses armes / Ilion avait eu l’appui, / Le jeune Atride avecque larmes / Ne s’en fût retourné chez lui” [Who doubts that if his martial skills / Had supported Troy, / The young son of Atreus with tears in his eyes / Would have returned home] (vv. 211-214). The young Louis would have sent Menelaus home empty-handed and broken-hearted. And the towers of Troy would still be standing: “fussent encore honorés, / Ces ouvrages des mains célestes, / Que jusques à leurs derniers restes / La flamme grecque a dévorés” [We would still honor, / Those buildings of celestial hands, / Which to their last remnants / Greek flames devoured] (vv. 217-220). This well-executed conceit suggests that Louis will be greater than Hector and Achilles. However brilliant it is, it is hardly fitting as the ode’s final stanza, for the simple reason is that it leaves the reader in a state of suspense. One could easily imagine Malherbe rearranging the order of stanzas, for instance, finding a place for the final three somewhere else in the body of the ode. He might even have deleted some stanzas and composed new ones to create proper transitions as well as an introduction and conclusion. The fact that this ode would have required substantial revision before being published, however, does not diminish its contribution to the overarching myth of the sequence of odes. Perhaps more clearly than any other ode, this long fragment demonstrates that the political adventure of the nation has the structure of a quest, and that 261 Chapter 7. The Goddess of War and Peace the intertextual model for this myth is primarily the Argonautika. The regency odes are concerned to consolidate the gains made under Henri’s leadership, attempting to preserve intact the new conception of the nation as unified in the person of the king rather than in the Catholic faith. The deification of Marie portrays the queen regent as the worthy and legitimate embodiment of the nation, while her portrait as leader and guardian of the quest shows her great patriotism, having contributed more than any living Frenchman to the common good. 262 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled Pour le Roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois (1627; 1635) By 1619, Malherbe’s odes to the queen regent could have been perceived as a political liability. Marie de Médicis, having escaped from her exile at the château de Blois, was preparing to mount an armed resistance to her son, Louis XIII, whose government was led by the young king’s favorite, Charles d’Albert de Luynes (1578-1621). At that point, Malherbe probably thanked his lucky stars that he had never succeeded in joining the ranks of her inner circle. Many of her clients suffered death, imprisonment, or exile during the period of her disfavor. With civil war imminent, Malherbe maintained a cautious silence. But he was not idle. He continued to compose shorter lyric poems as he had always done. Then, in 1624, following Louis XIII’s successful military campaigns in the southwest, a sonnet entitled “Au Roi” shows Malherbe making a rapprochement to the young monarch. Luynes had died three years earlier, and Marie had in the meantime returned to favor. She and her advisor, Cardinal Richelieu, enjoyed seats on the royal council. With Louis XIII at the helm, Malherbe was undoubtedly looking for the right occasion to cap the sequence of royal odes. It came in 1627, when Richelieu and Louis turned their attentions to subduing La Rochelle, the last Protestant stronghold. The political crisis that occasioned the ode was the violation of the Edict of La Rochelle. As Mack P. Holt explains in The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629, Louis conducted three separate campaigns (1620, 1621, 1622) in southwest France to force recalcitrant Protestants to accept the 1617 Edict of Restitution “requiring all Church property seized since 1569 to be restored to the Catholic Church” (Holt 182). Louis’s disarmament of Protestant cities in the southwest radicalized the Protestant great nobles and made La Rochelle the sole remaining stronghold, where the militants gathered their strength for what they knew was the coming assault. Louis had vowed “to work towards the ruin of the Protestants, if given the opportunity” (Holt 181), and “Royal garrisons kept watch, stationed either in proximity to the walls of the city or offshore on the island of Ré” (Blanchard 90). The outbreak of the Thirty Years War, however, changed the king’s political calculus, at least in the short term. Richelieu convinced Louis that Spanish dominance in northern and central Europe posed a much greater threat to the security of France than the Huguenots, but the king “could hardly wage a war at home against the Huguenots while waging a war abroad against the Spanish. [] Some kind of immediate accommodation with the Huguenots was required” (Holt 189). That accommodation was the Edict of La Rochelle. The Protestant leadership signed it in 1626, and a truce was 263 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled declared. The sense of betrayal was strong, therefore, when the Protestant great nobles, emboldened by the arrival of an English fleet equipped to protect their coreligionists against royal aggression, reversed course and openly rebelled against the crown in 1627. The militant wing of French Protestantism had decided to challenge the crown. This is why Keller’s reading of the ode “from the modern reader’s perspective” is not quite appropriate (Keller 123). If the ode excludes the Huguenots from the national community, it is because they have betrayed their king. If the ode argues against clemency, it is because the Protestant great nobles have shown time and again that they are untrustworthy and, given the first opportunity, will rekindle civil strife. From Malherbe’s point of view, their own choices have brought them to this pass. Justice demands that they be punished. The ode dehumanizes them the better to justify the punishment of perpetrators of violence and destruction who have shown contempt for royal and ecclesiastic authority. If they are treated as monsters, it is on account of their heinous actions. This is not to say that the ode judges them fairly when it lays at their feet all the blame for the violence and destruction perpetrated during the Wars of Religion. Atrocities were committed by both Catholics and Protestants. But the Protestant great nobles were far from innocent and had helped bring France to the brink of destruction. In addition, if they “must be purged once and for all from the national ‘nous,’” (Keller 124), it is surely no injustice since they themselves have tried to break away. Not only did they attempt to carve out their own state during the Wars of Religion, but their violation of the Edict of La Rochelle signals their intention to do so again, revolting against the monarchy during a vulnerable moment when the king’s attention is turned to the prosecution of foreign wars against the Hapsburgs. While I share Keller’s revulsion for violence and war, and while I shudder to think of the suffering and death meted out to innocent Rochelais by Louis XIII and Richelieu, I fail to see the ode’s “ideological dilemmas,” if there are any. Rather, it is Keller’s modern perspective that introduces the contradictions. Nor do I see how the condemnation of the “national illusion” and of its “enormous cost in terms of human life” secures the moral high ground (Keller 123). If we modern readers consider for a moment that early moderns took quite seriously such notions as God and destiny, we might be less quick to judge their beliefs and moral commitments as mere illusions. Even so, one is left wondering what would have been the more ethical response to a band of armed rebels striking up an alliance with a long-standing enemy of France who has landed a fleet on the coast to supply them with troops and munitions. The final royal ode begins in the midst of a full-blown political crisis. Harkening back to those passages in the sequence foretelling the greatness 264 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes of the Dauphin, the ode depicts a heroic King Louis XIII on the threshold of completing the unfinished labors of his father. The underlying conceit is that the ship of state, captained by Louis and piloted by Richelieu, has reached the final stage of the national quest. Peace, justice and prosperity have returned to France, as declared by previous odes, and thus the defeat of the Huguenots and their English allies constitutes the second phase of the return of the Golden Age. The campaign against La Rochelle therefore meets the precondition for the creation of a French empire that stretches to Egypt and beyond. Hence the ode caps the sequence and announces the completion of the hero cycle, fulfilling earlier predictions while yet deferring the arrival of utopia. The king’s courage and piety receive plenty of praise, but justice is the guiding leitmotif. Of all the royal odes, moreover, this one most clearly and forcefully articulates Malherbe’s idea of patriotism pro rege et patria. As expected, the vehicle of this patriotism is the ethos of magnanimity. Louis is the intrepid warrior preparing to punish rebellion, while Richelieu is the clear-sighted counsellor. Although Malherbe cannot participate in the campaign and acknowledges Richelieu’s unsurpassed practical wisdom, all three men are portrayed as great souls. The ode affirms the poet’s central role in civic life—namely, to promote the civic consciousness of the new nation—and shows Malherbe to be one of its most ardent patriots. Its implicit call to other great-souled patriots emerges from Malherbe’s signature eloquence, the Ciceronian grand style tempered by the plain variety of Hellenistic grandeur. Metaphors, examples, and allusive figures provoke logical inferences and stir up forensic emotions as well as feelings of wonder, while a sophisticated intertextual apparatus operates silently beneath smooth rhythms, poetic diction, logical articulations, and clear syntax. Its arguments and powerful emotions rouse all good Frenchmen to join the rebirth of the nation. The argument divides into four parts: 1. stanzas one through eight urge Louis to destroy the rebels, blame them for the damage inflicted on the nation during the religious wars, and underscore the justice of their punishment; 2. stanzas nine through fifteen reaffirm Louis’s confidence in the loyalty and the practical wisdom of Richelieu; 3. stanzas sixteen through twenty nine use the myth of the War of the Giants to predict victory; 4. stanzas thirty through forty conclude by expressing the poet’s regret for being too old to participate in the decisive campaign, but offer to serve Louis with the same eloquence that glorified his mother and father. The final stanza is followed by an envoi. A temporal gap separates the envoi from the ode. Whereas the ode looks ahead to the coming campaign, the six verses of the envoi look behind, gravely confirming the total destruction of La Rochelle. 265 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled The first line of argument, consisting of stanzas one through nine, divides into two main parts: the spur to action, and the justification for it. With a clarity, both grammatical and lexical, that belies sophisticated allusiveness and emotional power, stanzas one and two urge the king to punish the rebels: Donc un nouveau labeur à tes armes s’apprête: Prends ta foudre, L O U I S , et va comme un lion Donner le dernier coup à la dernière tête De la rébellion. Fais choir en sacrifice au démon de la France Les fronts trop élevés de ces âmes d’enfer: Et n’épargne contre eux pour notre délivrance Ni le feu ni le fer. (vv. 1-8) [Therefore, a new labor is prepared for your army: / Take your lightning, Louis, and go like a lion / Deal the last blow to the last head / Of the rebellion. / / Sacrifice to the demon of France / The haughty heads of these infernal souls: / And for our deliverance spare them / Neither canon nor sword.] Although Malherbe did not complete the ode until after the king’s return, the first verse, beginning in medias res, shows that the utterance is supposed to occur before Louis’s departure. A bold decision, the first position of the coordinating conjunction “donc” presupposes prior statements, reasoning, or actions. It links the “new labor,” which is the subjugation of La Rochelle, to Louis’s recent campaigns in the southwest, and it suggests that Louis has made up his mind after deliberation, perhaps even that the king has been met in the act of departure. Another adverb placed at the beginning of the third stanza, “Assez de leurs complots l’infidèle malice / A nourri le désordre et la sédition” [Enough has the faithless malice of their conspiracies / Nourished disorder and sedition] (vv. 9-10), suggests that the poet is out of patience. It is high time to unify the kingdom. Forgetting for a moment the imagery of war and violence, these displaced adverbs (an instance of hyperbaton, a figure of speech that reflects powerful emotion) convey and excite feelings of anger and indignation that the great nobles have broken their truce with the king and allied themselves with an enemy of France. The ode is clearly addressed to the king, but the familiar, imperative verbs (“prends” [take], “va” [go], “fais choir” [Bring down], etc.) suggest less a formal oration and more an elevated conversation, at least one side of it. The use of the second person familiar (“tu”) could be interpreted either as a sign of intimate acquaintance or difference in age, or both. The much older 266 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes Malherbe, who has lived through the civil wars, appears to take delight in egging on the younger man—like a spectator cheering for his favorite Olympian athlete. One cannot help but notice that the personal tone of the utterance appears to confirm Shoemaker’s observation that public deliberation in early seventeenth-century France gradually bifurcates into secret political counsel and private conversation. The impassioned urgency created by the imperative mood serves at least two functions. First, it reflects and intensifies the king’s anger and impatience, communicating these emotions to the reader. Second, it confirms the wisdom of Louis’s momentous decision, implying that the poet and the king have reached the same conclusion. Later in the ode, Malherbe praises death in service to the king as the most noble of sacrifices. Sharing the same emotions, the same sense of honor (violated by the rebels), and the same confidence in the wisdom of the decision to subdue La Rochelle, the poet and the king exhibit the same ethos of magnanimity. The logic of emulation further induces any subject who claims to be magnanimous to take up the sentiments expressed by the ode, and thus the ode reaffirms the vertical relationship between king and subject while reinforcing the horizontal relationship between subjects. A reader might even imagine having the king’s ear, as the speaker apparently does, and saying something similar to the young Louis XIII. The imagery of the first stanza immediately presents Louis as a quasi-divine hero. The word “labeur” [labor] (v. 1) is associated with Hercules; the term “foudre” [lightning] (v. 2) recalls Jupiter; the classic simile “comme un lion” [like a lion] (v. 2) evokes any number of epic heroes, although the archetype is Achilles. Each example ascribes a different quality to Louis’s character. Hercules underscores the king’s perseverance and strength; Jupiter stresses Louis’s deadly omnipotence; Achilles, his ferocity and courage. It is a misreading to think that the implicit comparison of Louis to Jupiter implies the identification of the king with a transcendent god (Keller 127). From the beginning, such identity has been precluded (see chapter 2). The metonymy “tête” [head] (v. 3) picks up the Hercules motif and casts the rebellion as the hydra, a recurrent image from the sequence suggesting how sedition proliferates the more one tries to eradicate it. Louis, however, has the opportunity to deliver the final blow to the rebellion’s “dernière tête” [last head] (v. 3), that is, to finish the civil war once and for all. As foretold in the concluding stanzas of “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1600; 1601), the son has arrived to complete the work of the father. The word “labeur” and the coordinating conjunction “donc” invite the reader to associate Louis’s impending departure with the military campaigns of Henri IV. The association is clenched by the underlying facts of the occasion, a form of amplification “near akin to emphasis” known as ratiocinatio (Quintilian 267 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled 8.4.26). Similar imagery and related particulars tie this final ode to the first and second odes and bring the sequence to a close. The circularity of the conclusion underlies the impatience and the enthusiasm of the speaker, eager to witness the fulfillment of the hero cycle after so many trials. The imagery of the second stanza depicts Louis as the savior of the nation. The canon and sword which Louis will unleash against the rebels will be “notre délivrance” [our deliverance] (v. 7), that is, it will serve the common good. This collective reading of the possessive adjective “notre” becomes evident in the second part of the first argument, which offers justification for the punishment of the rebels, blamed for inflicting widespread harm on the French people. Noteworthy, moreover, is the stress laid on rebellion (v. 4), reprised in the third stanza as disorder (v. 10) and sedition (v. 10). From the outset any sectarian tensions driving the conflict are glossed over. The tenor of the religious imagery in the second stanza clearly has to do with the nation and its enemies, which de-emphasizes religion while sacralizing allegiance to king and country. The rebels, “ces âmes d’enfer” (v. 6) [hellish souls], whether such souls are composed of hell or are malevolent beings rising from chthonic depths, must be brought down (“Fais choir” [Make fall], v. 5). The image of their foreheads held too high conveys the arrogance and insolence of the upward movement from darkness to light, as though satanic forces were challenging God in heaven (this evident connotation will be recast later in the ode by the myth of the War of the Giants). Their fall will spell their doom, and the figure to whom they will be sacrificed is the “démon de la France” [daemon of France] (v. 5), a term encountered in previous odes signifying an unnamed spirit or power guiding the destiny of the nation. As we saw, the daemon is like a transcendent intercessor modeled on the idea of a saint. The rebels are sacrificed not to God but to the nation, or more precisely, to the intercessor of the nation. If one wants to see in the daemon a kind of personification of the nation, there is no harm provided that such an entity is not then elevated above the king and the nation (Keller 127). The appropriate concept to describe the relationship between the king and the nation is Kantorowicz’s “two bodies.” The daemon is a mere conceit. It tries to represent a transcendent realm beyond human comprehension, forces with which the French kings contend in both aspects of their being, personal and collective. This ode takes to its logical conclusion what remains more implicit, though fully operative, in all the previous odes. It is not that “Pour le Roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois” eschews any mention of piety, religion, or God. Rather, it elevates the nation to the level of a transcendent entity in its own right which subsumes all partial loyalties and interests of the king’s subjects and 268 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes which then recoups, by displacement, the awe usually reserved for God alone, projecting it on the king’s two bodies, that is, “rex” (king) and “patria” (nation). The second part of this first argument, stanzas three through seven, provides justifications for the destruction which the king will mete out to the rebels. Stanza three does not argue that it is expedient to crush the rebels, but rather that it is just to do so: “Assez de leurs complots l’infidèle malice / A nourri le désordre et la sédition. / Quitte le nom de J U S T E , ou fais voir ta Justice / En leur punition [Enough has the traitorous malice of their intrigue / Nurtured disorder and sedition. / Surrender the name of just, or display your justice / In their punishment] (vv. 9-12). The theme of justice unites the ode’s disparate images and examples and runs through its various argumentative strands, including the mythological pattern which the ode’s historical protagonist must revise. The message of the third stanza is that justice demands that Louis punish the rebels for their misdeeds. Trying to forestall any consideration of clemency, it turns the military campaign against La Rochelle into a journey of self-realization for the young king. Louis’s byname was “the Just,” and punishing the rebels is a test for Louis—not of physical prowess, but of moral character. The king will live up to his name, in essence becoming who he is meant to be, by giving the rebels what they deserve. The list of grievances marshaled against the rebels aims to stir up feelings of anger and hatred toward them. The subversive political activities of stanza three (conspiracy, disloyalty, malice, upheaval, and sedition) are causes of anger since the rebels owe obedience and loyalty to the king and the nation, not to mention that they broke their oath to ally themselves with a national enemy (Rhet. 2.2.7 & 11). Stanza four alleges that they have been causing the French people hardship for a hundred years: “Le centième décembre a les plaines ternies, / Et le centième avril les a peintes de fleurs: / Depuis que parmi nous leurs brutales manies / Ne causent que des pleurs” [The hundredth December has blemished the fields, / And the hundredth April has colored them with flowers: / Since among us their brutal madness / Has caused only tears] (vv. 15-16). A reader notices the polar opposition between victim and persecutor, affliction and barbarism—in short, between us and them. The number “one hundred,” a hyperbole, signifies an unbearable length of time to have endured the rebels’ depredations and machinations. It suggests that “our” affliction has gone on long enough. Stanza five depicts the rebels as viper-hearted monsters whose misdeeds match the darkest in French history: “Dans toutes les fureurs des siècles de tes pères / Les monstres les plus noirs firent-ils jamais rien, / Que l’inhumanité de ces coeurs de vipères / Ne renouvelle au tien? ” [In all the wars of your ancestors’ centuries / Did the blackest monsters do anything, / Which the inhumanity of 269 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled these viper-hearted men / Do not renew in your time? ] (vv. 17-20). The idea is to underscore their malevolence and inhumanity—images that call up the barbarian hordes sweeping across France. The rebels thus belong to a class of persons that elicits hatred and deserve evil and death (Rhet. 2.4.30-31). Stanza six blames them for the hardship and the suffering experienced during the Wars of Religion: “Par qui sont aujourd’hui tant de villes désertes? / Tant de grands bâtiments en masures changés? / Et de tant de chardons les campagnes couvertes / Que par ces enragés? [On account of whom are so many cities empty today? / So many great structures in ruins? / And the fields covered with so many thistles / If not on account of these madmen? ] (vv. 21-24). In another instance of emphasis through inference (Quintilian 8.4.26), these images of waste contrast with the return of prosperity celebrated by previous odes and thus portray the rebels as traitors to the nation. Their partisan interests have come at the expense of the common good; they are therefore deemed responsible for the devastation of France. If this were not sufficient, stanza seven further shows that they have no respect for the rightful and established order: “Les sceptres devant eux n’ont point de privilèges: / Les immortels eux-mêmes en sont persécutés: / Et c’est aux plus saints lieux que leurs mains sacrilèges / Font plus d’impiétés” [Scepters have no privilege in their eyes: / The immortals themselves are persecuted by them: / And in the holiest places their sacrilegious hands / Commit more impieties] (vv. 25-28). The progression of these images (scepter, immortals, holy places) reflects increasing degrees of hubris. Their disrespect extends beyond the political order to the realm of the sacred. Whereas the scepter is a metonymy for kingship, the image of “mains sacrilèges” [sacrilegious hands] (v. 26) brings to mind Protestant iconoclasm and their appropriation and vandalism of Church property. The reference to “the immortals” is more difficult to parse. In the singular, “L’Immortel” [The Immortal] signifies God. The plural, however, unambiguously denotes the polytheistic deities of antiquity. One might interpret “the immortals” metaphorically as a paraphrase for a privileged group of mortals such as Mary and the saints (whose cult was challenged by the Reformers) or even the upper echelons of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. However, given the ode’s classical themes, the polytheistic plural could also serve to downplay the importance of faith as an organizing principle of the nation. Perhaps it is a subtle acknowledgment of religious plurality—for the sake of national unity. In any event, the fact that these stanzas completely overlook what royal and Catholic forces contributed to the destruction of France and the hardship of the French people speaks to the ode’s ideological function. The anger and hatred excited by the portrayal of the rebels as the kind of persons who disrespect legitimate authority, who harm the innocent, and who undermine the 270 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes common good make them a scapegoat whose vilification and expulsion define the affective ties and boundaries that constitute the national community. The ode’s first line of argument concludes with stanza eight, a vehement repetition urging the king to destroy the seditious rebels utterly: Marche, va les détruire: éteinds-en la sémence: Et suis jusqu’à leur fin ton courroux généreux, Sans jamais écouter ni pitié ni clémence Qui te parlent pour eux. (vv. 29-32) [March, go destroy them: stamp out their seed: / And follow your generous anger to their demise, / Without ever heeding pity or clemency / Speaking to you on their behalf.] This reprise of the first stanza’s call to action is more violent, as implied by the image “éteindre la semence” [to extinguish the seed], which suggests stamping out the seed of sedition, perhaps exterminating the seed of the rebels’ cursed race, those infernal souls rising up against legitimate authority. Such deadly violence is the logical consequence of hatred (Rhet. 2.4.31). In addition, the stanza clarifies the crux of the argument and the stakes of the campaign. It acknowledges Louis’s magnanimity, “ton courroux généreux” [your generous anger] (v. 30), but it urges him to ignore “pitié” [pity] (v. 31) and “clémence” [clemency] (31), in other words, the generous overlooking of insult or injury, the other salient character trait of the megalopsychos. More than simply encouraging Louis to punish the rebels, the ode wants the king to seize the opportunity to eradicate them, to give them the coup de grâce, and conclude the last chapter of the civil war. In response to the implicit question what is just? the ode raises its voice against pity and clemency and speaks in favor of wrath. On this occasion, the king’s deadly anger is justified, or so the ode contends. The second line of argument, beginning with stanza nine, inserts the cam‐ paign against La Rochelle in the poetic sequence’s overarching myth, the national quest on which the ship of state has embarked. As in previous odes, notably “À Monseigneur le duc de Bellegarde” (1608; 1609) and “Pour la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence” (1613; 1630), the imagery and the examples come from the Argo myth. At first glance, however, the depiction of the rebels preparing their strongholds for the assault presents a puzzle: “Ils ont beau vers le Ciel leurs murailles accroître: / Beau d’un soin assidu travailler à leurs forts: / Et creuser leurs fossés jusqu’à faire paroître / Le jour entre les morts” [In vain they build their walls to Heaven: / In vain with careful perseverance work on their forts: / And dig their moats deep enough to bring / Light among the dead] 271 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled 28 See Jean-Vincent Blanchard, Éminence: Cardinal Richelieu and the Rise of France (New York: Walker Publishing Company, 2011) 92: “On July 20, 1627, an imposing English navy led by the Duke of Buckingham showed up off the coast of Ré, and war between France and England began. The duke had set Ré as his first target because the island provided a good base from which one could control the French Atlantic seaboard and launch operations on the mainland.” (vv. 33-36). The plural “forts” likely refers to the combined strongholds of La Rochelle and the English soldiers dug-in on the island of Ré. 28 Examining these verses from a mythological perspective, Rubin asserts that the image of towering walls alludes to Jericho (Rubin, Higher 102). If this were true, however, one might reasonably expect to find an allusion to the dramatic blowing of horns and magical encircling of the city which figure so prominently in Joshua 6: 1-21. Alternatively, the strong epic overtones of high walls and deep trenches might recall Troy. Granted, the adventure of the Argo in Greek mythological time precedes the Trojan War. But Raoul Lefèvre, in 1464, composed the widely-read Recoeil des Histoires de Troyes [Collection of the Stories of Troy], in which Hercules, Jason and the Argonauts destroy Troy before going on to seek the Golden Fleece. The Troy-La Rochelle parallel, which could derive from this medieval version of the Argo myth, presents two advantages: it preserves the underlying unity of classical motifs, and it signals that the subjugation of La Rochelle functions as one of the trials or tests which the hero must undergo before bringing about a new Golden Age. The remaining stanzas of the second argument, ten through fifteen, assure Louis that the rebels’ defensive measures are in vain (“Ils ont beau accroître” [In vain they raise up], v. 33), and this for two reasons. The first is Louis’s special relationship with God: “Laisse-les espérer, laisse-les entreprendre: / Il suffit que ta cause est la cause de DI E U ” [Let them hope, let them prepare: / It is enough that yours is the cause of G O D ] (vv. 37-38). One might think that this reference to God stresses the sectarian justification for the campaign. However, one must recall that many Frenchmen believed that God had repeatedly intervened in history to make France a great nation. According to Myriam Yardeni, “all Histories of France [e.g. Bodin, La Popelinière, Pasquier, Du Haillan, Jean de Serres] bear this stamp of patriotism, or more precisely, this distinct awareness of national greatness as a direct consequence of the favors which God has shown France” (Yardeni 70). “Protestant or Catholic, this is a national religion” (Yardeni 71). In essence, the verse asserts that Louis works the will of God in the service of the French nation. The implication is that God has chosen Louis to be the hero that will unify the nation and restore France to greatness. This is a question of destiny and not of confessional loyalty. 272 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes The second reason Louis may discount the rebels’ military preparations is the sagacious minister which God has sent Louis: “Et qu’avecque ton bras elle [ta cause] a pour la défendre / Les soins de Richelieu” [And that with your arm, your cause has for its defense / The attentions of Richelieu] (vv. 39-40). The definitions of the word “soins” [attentions, cares] (v. 40) include the application of one’s mind to a problem, so that Louis’s arm and Richelieu’s intellect together constitute the heroic dyad—“preux” [brave] and “sage” [wise]—whose most famous example in French literature is Roland and Olivier, embodied by Louis and Richelieu respectively. This pair will act as the instrument of God for the destiny of France. Stanzas eleven, twelve, and thirteen amplify the theme of Richelieu’s intel‐ lectual virtue, creating an encomiastic digression that glorifies the Cardinal: Richelieu ce prélat, de qui toute l’envie Est de voir ta grandeur aux Indes se borner: Et qui visiblement ne fait cas de sa vie Que pour te la donner. Rien que ton intéret n’occupe sa pensée: Nuls divertissements ne l’appellent ailleurs: Et de quelque bons yeux qu’on a vanté Lyncée, Il en a de meilleurs. Son âme toute grande est une âme hardie: Qui pratique si bien l’art de nous secourir, Que pourvu qu’il soit cru, nous n’avons maladie, Qu’il ne sache guérir. (vv. 41-52) [Richelieu, this prelate, whose only wish / Is to see India mark the limit of your greatness: / And who visibly values his own life / Only to give it to you. / / Nothing but your advantage occupies his thoughts: / No relaxing amusements call him away: / And however good the eyes for which Lynkeus was praised, / Richelieu’s are better. / / His soul, truly great, is brave and generous: / That knows so well the art of saving us, / That provided he is believed, we have no illness / That he cannot cure.] The first of these stanzas stresses the Cardinal’s personal commitment to Louis and to the king’s interests, which are those of the nation. The reference to India evokes the empire of Alexander, equating the grandeur of Louis with this greatest of historical conquerors, but also recalling the prophesy of the son’s restoration of a French empire to surpass the Christendom of Charlemagne, 273 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled 29 Apollonios Rhodios, The Argonautika 1.153-154, trans. Peter Green (Berkeley: Univer‐ sity of California Press, 2007). a theme encountered in previous odes, especially the first “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601). In recruiting Richelieu to this utopian pursuit, the ode shows that the Cardinal has outsized ambitions and the right concern for honor, since these dreams concern the glory of Louis and of France. Indeed, the stanza claims that Richelieu’s has “demonstrably” (visiblement, v. 43) devoted his life to the service of Louis. Richelieu’s magnanimity, therefore, also makes him a great patriot. This mini-encomium serves to reassure Louis and the nation but also to excite feelings of emulation in other would-be magnanimous patriots (Rhet. 2.11.4). The second stanza of this triad introduces the Argo myth. Richelieu is compared to Lynkeus who, according to Apollonios, “excelled in sharpness / of eyesight.” 29 Another instance of significatio per similtudem (Rhet. ad Heren. 4.54.67), this allusion to the voyage of the Argo calls up the nautical imagery of previous odes, evokes the image of the ship of state sailing through political storms and calms, and thus inscribes Richelieu, Louis, and the campaign against La Rochelle in the sequence’s national quest. But the roles played by the historical protagonists have changed. The heroic Henri IV contained both attributes of courage and practical wisdom, and his wife, Marie de Médicis, the embodiment of the marriage androgyne, preserved this same unity. Each played the dual role of captain and pilot. Now, however, with the return of the split heroic dyad, Louis will command, and Richelieu will pilot. His far-seeing eyes are a metaphor for his practical wisdom. If there were any doubt, stanza twelve calls Richelieu “Tiphys” (v. 59), one of the Argo’s pilots, an example already analyzed in “Pour la Reine mère du roi pendant sa régence” (1613; 1630). The idea is that Louis should trust the judgment of this sagacious minister who knows how to steer the ship of state through the present storm of discord to the halcyon seas of universal empire. The third stanza of this encomiastic interlude underscores the idea that the Cardinal’s greatness of soul works toward the preservation of the political order for the sake of the nation (rather than toward the ruin of the political order for the sake of personal glory). The phrase “âme toute grande” [truly great soul] (v. 41) implies that Richelieu in fact deserves the honor due to him, while the phrase “âme hardie” [bold soul] (v. 41) suggests the noble elevation of his ambition. The nautical allegory recedes momentarily, to be replaced by the allegory of the ailing body politic. In another ancient commonplace, Richelieu, statesman and man of phronēsis, is compared to a doctor who knows how to heal. The 274 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes implication is that Louis should trust Richelieu that the rebels must be amputated from the body politic. While the poet’s approval of this diagnosis suggests that he, too, is a man of practical wisdom, the designation of Richelieu as the sage counselor assigns a more specific, and more limited, role for the poet in civic affairs than the royal odes have exhibited up to this point. Whatever policy advice Malherbe’s previous odes purported to give, this advisory function has now clearly been ceded to the Cardinal. It appears, therefore, that Rubin’s observation that Malherbe, with this ode, “establishes himself as the king’s greatest—that is, most powerful and efficacious—subject” (Rubin, Higher 107) must be revised. This ode establishes the Cardinal as the king’s greatest, most powerful and efficacious subject. The poet plays the more limited, albeit crucial, role of the creator of a civic identity, modeling magnanimity and patriotic fervor, and fostering consensus and community, a theme highlighted in the ode’s final stanzas. Stanza fourteen returns the focus to Louis. Louis deserves such a far-seeing minister as Richelieu: “Le Ciel qui doit le bien selon qu’on le mérite” [Heaven which owes good according to one’s merits] (v. 53). Here the merit in question is Louis’s piety (v. 56). Again, however, rather than underscore Louis’s Catholic faith, the phrase suggests, with the ring of a maxim, that Louis works the will of heaven, stressing the special connection that was thought to exist between God and the king. In effect, the appearance of Richelieu at just the right time is a sign of God’s intervention in the history of France: “Si de ce grand oracle il [le Ciel] ne t’eût assisté, / Par un autre présent n’eût jamais été quitte” [If with this great oracle Heaven had not assisted you, / Some other gift would never have discharged its debt] (vv. 54-55). Richelieu is the oracle, which implies the foresight of his practical wisdom, as though he could see into the future, lifting the veil of destiny to serve the best interests of the nation. Stanza fifteen, concluding the digression in praise of Richelieu, repeats the call to action of stanzas one, two and eight: “Va, ne diffère plus tes bonnes destinées: / Mon Apollon t’assure, et t’engage sa foi, / Qu’employant ce Tiphys, Syrtes et Cyanées / Seront havres pour toi” [Go, put off no longer your blessed destiny: / My Apollo assures you, and gives you his word, / That employing this Tiphys, the Syrtes and the Clashing Rocks / Will be havens for you] (vv. 57-60). Although the stanza ties its assurances to the ancient source of poetic inspiration, “Mon Apollon” [my Apollo] (v. 58), the possessive pronoun “my” alerts the reader that such prophecy is a poetic commonplace, and it anchors the poet’s authority in his knowledge of the classical literary tradition. The stanza’s nautical allegory draws the elements of its hyperbolic praise from the Argo myth. The conversion of proverbial dangers into safe harbors is an antithesis, and such a marvelous 275 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled reversal provokes wonder, a mixture of awe and reverence. Such a “straining of the truth” implies that the words cannot do the subject justice (Quintilian 8.6.67-76), while the feelings of admiration excited by this early modern Tiphys encourage both contemplative acceptance and active transport. His appearance is a sign from God that the rebels’ days are numbered, and so one does not question the fate which Louis will mete out. At the same time, this knowledge of invincibility kindles a patriotic fervor to root out rebellion and sedition and to birth a new nation. Before turning to the third line of argument, the ode’s underlying mytholog‐ ical pattern needs to be discussed. It is worth mentioning that Rubin, contrary to his usual practice in Higher, Hidden Order: Design and Meaning in the Odes of Malherbe, cites no underlying classical myth to unlock the unity of this final ode. Indeed, it is not obvious. The Argo myth introduced in the second line of argument, however, is the most important clue, as it raises the question of the roles assigned to the ode’s historical protagonists. If the ship of state is the Argo, and Richelieu is Lynkeus or Tiphys—what role does Louis play? As we have seen, such allegories often cannot sustain a systematic and detailed reading, offering instead partial analogies or comparisons from which to derive a general rule. This instance is no different, but the question of Louis’s role in the allegory leads to an interesting discovery. The two prime candidates are Hercules and Jason. Although Jason is the leader of the Argo, having embarked on the quest for the Golden Fleece to win back his kingship in Thessaly, his proverbial helplessness makes him an ironic figure that calls into question the heroic ideal of Greek epic. While one can easily imagine Malherbe using Jason as a negative model for Louis to overcome, such an unflattering comparison could work against Malherbe’s effort to inspire high-spirited confidence in the king and in the campaign. The example of Hercules seems more appropriate, and the ode’s first verse has already evoked the labors of Hercules. The puzzle, then, is this: is there some episode in the Argo myth involving Hercules which addresses the theme of justice? The answer—surprisingly—can be found in the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus. In Book 4 (vv. 58-81), the Olympian gods Latona, Diana, and Apollo implore Jupiter to allow Hercules to liberate Prometheus, and in Book 5 (vv. 154-176) Hercules does so in spectacular fashion, as Jason and the crew of the Argo, without knowing what it is they witness from afar, hear earth-quaking sounds and see exploding fragments of rock raining from the sky. These two episodes are innovations of Valerius Flaccus, and both show Jupiter and Hercules practicing clemency (the one by his judgment, the other by his action). This pattern of merciful justice is what Malherbe’s ode urges Louis to reject. It is 276 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes certainly no accident that the ode compares Louis to Hercules and to Jupiter, but then retells the War of the Giants to characterize the imminent conflict with the rebels at La Rochelle. An interpretive choice is being offered. What is more, although the ode contains more examples of clemency (Jupiter, Hercules, but also Alexander and Louis IX) than examples of wrathful justice (Achilles, Jupiter), it urges wrath—“va comme un lion” [go like a lion] (v. 2), in other words, go with the wrath of Achilles. As in previous odes, the historical protagonist of this ode has the chance to correct or to overcome some perceived flaw in the underlying mythological pattern. The protagonist, the heroic Louis, must surpass the clement Hercules-Jupiter, that is, his father, Henri, known for his clemency, and embrace the wrathful Achilles-Jupiter. This punishment of the rebels is not only an act of self-realization, that is, Louis’s coming to maturity and the claiming of his rightful place in the world, it is an act of rebirth for the nation. The third line of argument, beginning with stanza sixteen, amplifies the argumentative strands encountered up to this point and weaves them together. The first strand stokes wrath and justifies it with the list of injuries inflicted on the nation by the rebels; and the second strand reassures Louis and the nation by praising the magnanimity and practical wisdom of Richelieu; the third does both: it uses a prosopopoeia representing victory to guarantee the success of the siege’s outcome, and it retells the War of the Giants to illustrate the justice of Louis’s cause and the necessity of wrath. In stanzas sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, the poet feigns a vision. A personified Victory beckons Louis toward La Rochelle: “Certes, ou je me trompe, ou déjà la victoire, / Qui son plus grand honneur de tes palmes attend, / Est aux bords de Charente en son habit de gloire / Pour te rendre content” [Truly, either I’m mistaken, or already victory, / Who awaits her finest honor from your palms, / Stands on the borders of Charente in her robes of glory / To make you happy] (vv. 61-64). La Rochelle, situated some distance north of where the Charente river drains into the Atlantic, nonetheless dominated the region, so that Charente here becomes a metonymy for the Protestant enclave. More important, the goddess awaiting to receive Louis’s palm fronds, symbols of victory, signals her total confidence in his success, further underscored by her demeanor and attire: “Que sa façon est brave, et sa mine assurée! / Qu’elle a fait richement son armure étoffer! / Et qu’il se connaît bien à la voir si parée / Que tu vas triompher! ” [How brave her manner, how confident her countenance! / How magnificently she has decorated her armor! / And how evident it is, to see her so adorned, / That you will triumph! ] (vv. 69-72). Her foreknowledge of the king’s triumph suggests that this deity occupies the same transcendent plane as 277 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled the daemon of France. A special relationship exists between victory and Louis. She embodies and gives voice to the privileged destiny of France: “Je la vois qui t’appelle, et qui semble te dire: / Roi, le plus grand des rois, et qui m’es le plus cher, / Si tu veux que je t’aide à sauver ton empire, / Il est temps de marcher” [I see her calling you, and she seems to say: / King, greatest of kings, and the most dear to me, / If you want my help in saving your empire, / It is time to march] (vv. 65-68). Her words echo what the ode has been saying: now is the time to act. The rebirth of the nation is nigh. Despite the risk that comes with such high stakes, the king should have absolute confidence in his decision, since the subjugation of La Rochelle is a chapter in the privileged destiny of the French nation. This same allegorical figure, the goddess of victory, so the ode claims, was present at the War of the Giants and helped secure Jupiter’s throne. Stanzas nineteen through twenty-two retell the myth: Telle en ce grand assaut, où des fils de la Terre La rage ambitieuse à leur honte parut, Elle sauva le Ciel, et rua le tonnerre Dont Briare mourut. Déjà de tous côtés s’avançaient les approches: Ici courait Mimas; là Typhon se battait; Et là suait Euryte à détacher les roches Qu’Encelade jetait. À peine cette Vierge eut l’affaire embrassée, Qu’aussitôt Jupiter en son trône remis, Vit selon son désir la tempête cessée, Et n’eut plus d’ennemis. Ces colosses d’orgueil furent tous mis en poudre, Et tous couverts des monts qu’ils avaient arrachés: Phlègre qui les reçut, put encore la foudre Dont ils furent touchés. (vv. 73-88) [ Just so, in the great assault, where the Earth’s sons / Revealed, to their shame, ambitious wrath, / She saved Heaven, and threw down the thunder / Which killed Briareus. / / Already, from every side, the enemy was approaching: / Here Mimas was running, there Typhon was fighting; / And there Eurytus labored to uproot the mountains / Which Enceladus was hurling. / / Hardly had this Virgin tackled the matter, / Immediately Jupiter, with his throne regained, / Saw the tempest 278 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes halted as he wished / And had no more enemies. / / These colossi of pride were all turned to dust, / And covered with the mountains they had ripped out: / Phlegra, which received them, still stinks of the lightning / Which struck them.] Malherbe used this same myth in “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France” (1600; 1601), “Ode sur l’attentat en la personne de sa majesté” (1605; 1606), and “Ode au feu Roi sur l’heureux succès du voyage de Sedan” (1606; 1607). However, he neither narrated it nor amplified it to this extent. The vivid narration of this wondrous episode from Greco-Roman mythology invites the reader to ponder its function in the ode. It clearly means more than it says (emphasis, Quintilian 8.3.83). First, this allegory of the campaign against the rebels at La Rochelle presents the right model for Louis to follow. The same goddess that beckons Louis to the southwest was the decisive factor in Jupiter’s triumph. The example, therefore, sets up an analogy: the giants = the rebels, Jupiter = Louis. Recalling the several examples from the first stanza (Hercules, Jupiter, Achilles), a reader infers that the allegory urges Louis to choose between clemency and wrath, between Prometheus Unbound and the War of the Giants, that is, between the compassionate Hercules and the clement Jupiter, on the one hand, and the wrathful Achilles and the punishing Jupiter on the other. Second, the clear preference for punishing wrath inscribes the War of the Giants into the nation’s mythical quest represented by the voyage of the Argo. Indeed, using these disparate intertextual allusions, the ode achieves some sophisticated myth-making, weaving the War of the Giants and the Fall of Troy into the Argo cycle. Third, the use of myth to describe the historical future suggests that past is prologue. The parallel between the campaign against La Rochelle and the War of the Giants charges the impending conflict with meaning, offering a precedent which illustrates and guarantees the triumph of justice, but also turning the historical event into a mythological variant. The ode’s historical particulars, including its protagonists and its poet, are projected into the universality and timelessness of classical literature. The poet’s inspiration, “my Apollo,” that is, his particular wisdom, derives from his expertise in the classical literary tradition and not from some divine form of knowledge. The poet reads myths with an eye to their underlying spiritual meaning and universal application. Such a reading practice is not unprecedented, since Jesuit books of spirituality assigned such spiritual readings to episodes from the Bible. Malherbe’s choice of pagan myths for the vehicle of patriotic allegory argues for his syncretic and eclectic approach to revising the traditional myths and symbols of the nation. Driving home the lesson of the parallel between the rebels and the giants, stanza twenty-three stresses the justice and the necessity of punishment: “L’exemple de leur race à jamais abolie / Devait sous ta merci tes rebelles 279 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled ployer: / Mais serait-ce raison qu’une même folie / N’a pas même loyer? [The example of their race, struck down forever, / Ought to have caused the rebels to submit to your mercy: / But would it be right that the same madness / Not have the same payment? ] (vv. 89-92). Here the use of the word “race” has nothing to do with the English or the Huguenots. It refers to the giants, and its meaning is closer to “breed” than “family” or “clan” or “people” (Keller 126). The rebels have not heeded the lesson of the classical example. They could have, indeed should have, submitted to the mercy of the king. The visual image evoked by the phrase “ployer sous” [to bend under] suggests that bending or yielding beneath the king’s clemency would have been a refuge from his wrath. Their overweening pride prevents them. Hubris and rebellion against legitimate authority are what they share with the giants, and soon they will share their fate. If they are dehumanized, it is the result of their own choices. The time for mercy is past. Louis must heed the lesson of the example—he must not pardon; he must punish with deadly force. The conclusion to be drawn is this: the same crime, that of hubris, committed under the same circumstances, that is, against legitimate authority, and done with full knowledge of culpability, necessitates the same merciless punishment. Stanzas twenty-four and twenty-five imagine the rebels at La Rochelle and their English allies reaching this very conclusion and exhibiting anguished awareness of their guilt: Déjà l’étonnement leur fait la couleur blême: Et ce lâche voisin qu’ils sont allé quérir, Misérable qu’il est, se condamne lui-même À fuir ou mourir. Sa faute le remord: Mégère le regarde: Et lui porte l’esprit à ce vrai sentiment, Que d’une injuste offense il aura, quoi qu’il tarde, Le juste châtiment. (vv. 93-100) [Already amazement turns them pale: / And this cowardly neighbor whom they went to fetch, / Wretched as he is, condemns himself / To flee or to die. / / His wrong torments him: Megaera eyes him: / And brings his mind to this valid conclusion, / That for an unjust offense he will have, although late, / The just punishment.] The rebels are stunned. Their pallor represents fear. To provoke the king’s wrath is tantamount to calling down God’s wrath. Like God, the king has the power of life and death over his subjects, a power symbolized by the sword. 280 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes The fearful wonder stems from the realization that they have signed their own death-warrants. The English, “the cowardly neighbor,” will not exit from this conflict with their pride intact, having to choose between the dishonor of retreat and death. But this death will not be honorable. The French verb “remordre” [to bite again, to feel remorse], which has fallen into disuse, shows them suffering from the consciousness of guilt, as does Megaera, one of the Furies from Greco-Roman myth and an agent of divine vengeance. Such hyperbole elevates the injustice of the English to the level of the worst crimes found in classical literature, adding foreboding and grandeur to the penalty which the English invaders must pay. Given that the ode, by all accounts, was not completed until early in 1628, the prophetic depiction of Louis’s triumph in the last four stanzas of the third section may be based on historical events which transpired in the spring and summer of 1627. Stanza twenty-six depicts Louis overcoming a logistical obstacle considered crucial to defeating the English and to subduing La Rochelle: “Bien semble être la mer une barre assez forte / Pour nous ôter l’espoir qu’il puisse être battu: / Mais est-il rien de clos dont ne t’ouvre la porte / Ton heur et ta vertu? ” [The sea indeed appears to be a barrier strong enough / To dash all our hope that the enemy can be beaten: / But is there anything closed whose door is not opened / By your fortune and your virtue] (vv. 101-104). Perhaps this far-fetched conceit can be explained by the fact that the English fleet, commanded by Buckingham, occupied the strategic island of Ré (where royalist forces were under siege at Saint-Martin) and controlled all access to La Rochelle’s harbor. If so, the conceit imagines the harbor to be a door and the sea to be the “barre” [bar, barrier] lowered into place to secure it. But this barred door is of course no match for Louis’s “vertu,” i.e. courage and prowess, aided by the special favor of fortune (“heur” = happiness, good fortune). The conceit attributes the collective effort of royalist forces to Louis’s virtue. But we know that Louis did no fighting. In Éminence: Cardinal Richelieu and the Rise of France, Jean-Vincent Blanchard narrates the extraordinary valor of the royal army: Louis’s hand-picked commandos launched the bloody assault on Buckingham’s army; Richelieu’s engineers blockaded the harbor with rocks carried by thousands of troops; and two daring sea captains eluded the grasp of the English to relieve the royalist fortress at Saint-Martin (Blanchard 94-96). Louis may have provided crucial leadership and contributed to the successful outcome of these operations. But he was by no means the principal actor. This final ode thus appears to posit a radical incommensurability between monarch and subject similar to that which underpins the conception of absolutism after the Fronde: “All glory belongs to the king: he alone possesses the magnificence 281 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled 30 See Mark Bannister, Condé in Context: Ideological Change in Seventeenth-Century France (Oxford: Legenda, 2000) 157. See also, Bannister 177: “Just as the history of the previous decades was being reinterpreted so that even the greatest of generals emerged as no more than an instrument of Louis’s destiny [i.e. Louis XIV], so the commanders in the field were ceasing to be men exercising independent judgement and were having to operate instead in a context totally dominated by the persona of the King.” that expresses that glory.” 30 Although previous odes portray Henri and Marie as quasi-divine, the difference between sovereign and subject was one of degree, not of kind. In this ode, Richelieu, Malherbe, any French subject, begin to recede before the monarch. All subjects, however great, no longer compete with the king (or if they do, like the Rochelais, they will pay with their lives). Rather, they compete with one another pro rege et patria. Stanza twenty-seven imagines Neptune himself joining this collective effort: “Neptune importuné de ses voiles infâmes, / Comme tu paraîtras au passage des flots, / Voudra que ses tritons mettent la main aux rames, / Et soient tes matelots” [Neptune, annoyed by the enemy’s despicable sails, / When you [Louis] appear among the passing waves, / Will want his Tritons to row your oars, / And to be your sailors] (vv. 105-108). Neptune is synonymous with the sea, and so this allegory states that the sea will cooperate to bring about Louis’s success. Aside from being another instance of the pathetic fallacy, it is also a hyperbole attempting to inspire the feelings of wonder associated with a miracle. Not yet completely divested of numinosity, Neptune links the sea to the obscure forces of destiny. If this divinity is outraged by the infamy of the English, Louis may have total confidence in the justice of his cause and the success of the campaign, as all conspires in his favor: virtue, destiny, and nature. Stanzas twenty-eight and twenty-nine, which conclude not just the third line of argument but also the ode’s broader theme of justice, demonstrate the necessity of wrath by imagining the positive consequences of Louis’s victory: Là rendront tes guerriers tant de sortes de preuves, Et d’une telle ardeur pousseront leurs efforts, Que le sang étranger fera monter nos fleuves Au-dessus de leurs bords. Par cet exploit fatal en tous lieux va renaître La bonne opinion des courages françois: Et le monde croira, s’il doit avoir un maître, Qu’il faut que tu le sois. (vv. 109-116) 282 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes [Then your warriors will prove themselves in so many ways, / And with such ardor they will strive at their tasks, / That foreign blood will swell our rivers / Above their banks. / / By this deadly exploit, in every land will be reborn / The good opinion of French bravery: / And the world will believe, if it must have a master, / That it must be you.] Keller makes much of this “sang étranger” [foreign blood] to support his view that Malherbe’s conception of the nation is rooted in ethnicity and territory (Keller 117). He also takes the opportunity to express his moral revulsion: “The image of rivers spilling over and thus erasing their natural banks evokes the idea of a country submerged in and devastated by foreign blood” (Keller 117). However, this modern sensibility (which I share) is out of place in an early modern encomiastic ode, and Keller’s literal reading misses the spirit of the image. The blood-letting that overflows the rivers recalls Book 21 of the Iliad, where Scamander battles Achilles for defiling his waters with corpses. Such a prophetic conceit may be informed by historical events in late October, 1627, when French forces massacred Buckingham’s troops. “For two hours, all Buckingham could see were the bodies of his men piling up in the moats of the fort” (Blanchard 95). More gruesome still, many of the survivors were killed in retreat, driven by French forces into the salt marshes and the sea where they bled to death. If so, the purpose of the parallel is to elevate the historical conflict and transpose it to the timelessness of classical literature. The rivers marked the traditional borders of France, and thus the integrity of the territory is reaffirmed along with the reputation of the French for their bravery. The French victory over the English, this “exploit fatal” [deadly exploit] (v. 113), marks the beginning of the establishment of a new empire, that is, French hegemony over competing and rival nations. Louis’s journey of self-realization in the campaign against La Rochelle coincides with the birth of a new French empire that will stretch to Egypt, as proclaimed by the ode’s final stanza touting the universal reach of Malherbe’s poetry: “Et les peuples du Nil, qui les [mes vers] auront ouïs, / Donneront de l’encens, comme ceux de la Seine, / Aux autels de Louis” [And the peoples of the Nile, who will have heard them, / Will offer incense, like the peoples of the Seine, / At the altars of Louis] (vv. 158-160). This eastern geography has been encountered in previous odes dreaming of French imperium. The implication is that Louis XIII will live up to the example of his most celebrated namesake, Louis IX, “the Just,” famous for his military leadership, and his piety, and his justice—the Histoire de Saint-Louis (1309) by the Sieur de Joinville was well known to Malherbe and his contemporaries—provided that the young king follow the example of wrathful Achilles-Jupiter. At the same time, the 283 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled hero-worship of the king in stanza twenty nine acknowledges a new nation united by the sovereign and in the sovereign—the quasi-divinity of the king being a reflection of the combined attributes of the nation inflected through a particular individual. In serving the king, one serves the nation—because Louis himself embodies the nation, both its power and its destiny, as the restoration of France to imperial greatness under his leadership proves. The return of the Golden Age has begun, and its completion is within his—and the nation’s—grasp. The ode’s fourth and final line of argument shifts the focus from Louis to Malherbe: it reiterates his unshakeable loyalty to the king, articulates the poet’s social function, and clarifies what Malherbe understands to be his poetic achievement. At once personal and ideological, stanzas thirty through forty are the most coherent and clearest statement of Malherbian poetics contained within any ode, indeed anywhere within Malherbe’s entire corpus. Just as the final ode to Louis caps the poetic sequence and fulfills the hero cycle, these last eleven stanzas constitute the fitting capstone to a remarkable poetic career. Stanza thirty reintroduces the Argo motif with the example of Aeson: “Ô que pour avoir part en si belle aventure / Je me souhaiterais la fortune d’Éson, / Qui, vieil comme je suis, revint contre Nature / En sa jeune saison! [O to take part in such a beautiful enterprise / How I could wish for myself the fortune of Aeson, / Who, worn out with age as I am, retuned against Nature / To his youthful state] (vv. 117-120). The Argo myth structures the whole ode, sweeping into its gravitational field the campaign, the historical protagonists, and the poet. This particular example, Aeson, serves to excuse Malherbe from accompanying the king to the theater of war. As a gentleman of the court with the titles “gentilhomme ordinaire de la chambre” [official gentleman of the bedroom] and “écuyer du roi” [king’s squire] (Malherbe, Poésies 223), the poet would have been expected to do so. This failure to live up to the expectations of his rank leads the poet to develop at greater length his ardent patriotism and the precise nature of his service. Stanzas thirty-one through thirty-four contrast Malherbe’s loyalty and in‐ firmity. First comes the profession of his unquestionable devotion to Louis: “De quel péril extrême est la guerre suivie, / Où je ne fisse voir que tout l’or du Levant / N’a rien que je compare aux honneurs d’une vie / Perdue en te servant? ” [By what extreme danger is war accompanied, / In which I have not shown that all the gold of Palestine / In no way compares with the honors of a life / Lost in your service? ] (vv. 121-124). The pun on the word “levant,” both the rising sun and Palestine, activates two meanings of the word “or” [gold]: money and sunlight. The Levant could evoke the Crusades but also the lucrative trade routes of the Eastern Mediterranean. The phrase “l’or du Levant” [the 284 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes gold of Palestine] therefore connotes glory and wealth—which the poet declares inferior to the honor of sacrificing oneself in the service of Louis, that is, the king and the nation, a variant of the commonplace “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” [it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country] (Horace, Odes 3.2.13). Stanza thirty-two amplifies this thought: “Toutes les autres morts n’ont ni mérite ni marque: / Celle-ci porte seule un éclat radieux / Qui fait revivre l’homme, et le met de la barque / À la table des dieux” [Every other death has neither merit nor distinction: / This kind alone imparts a radiant brilliance / Which causes man to live again, and transfers him from the boat / To the table of the gods] (vv. 125-128). The reference to “la barque” [boat, skiff] evokes the classical representation of Charon ferrying the dead to the underworld, so that a reversal from depth to height occurs when the shining hero is transferred from the land of the dead to a seat at the table of the Olympians. The sweetness of such a sacrifice is the immortal fame that results from it. In this way, the poet shows that he is magnanimous. He has the right values; he knows what is honorable. Stanza thirty-three returns to the human frailty that prevents the poet from acting on his principles: “Mais quoi? tous les pensers dont les âmes bien nées / Excitent leur valeur, et flattent leur devoir, / Que sont-ce que regrets, quand le nombre d’années / Leur ôte le pouvoir? ” [But what? all the thoughts which to well-born souls / Are a spur to valor, and an enticement to their duty, / What are they but regrets, when the number of years / Takes from them their power? ] (vv. 129-132). These well-born souls are the noble souls, the great souls, the magnanimous, among whom Malherbe counts himself. Their courage and sense of duty drive them to serve king and country—until the physical infirmity of old age overtakes them. Their will is strong, but their flesh is weak. Stanza thirty-four picks up this theme: “Ceux à qui la chaleur ne bout plus dans les veines / En vain dans les combats ont des soins diligents: / Mars est comme l’amour: ses travaux et ses peines / Veulent de jeunes gens” [Those in whose veins heat no longer pulses / In vain do they take diligent care in combat: / Mars is like love: its labors and its pains / Require young people] (vv. 137-140). What this comparison between war and love shows is that Malherbe’s failure is of the body, not of the spirit. The poet’s decline is physical, not moral. But there is an important consolation: Malherbe’s intellect is still sharp. The next three stanzas (thirty-five, thirty-six, and thirty-seven) show the poet offering his powers of eloquence to the king, in what looks like a retrospective pitch for Louis’s patronage. While they use hyperbole and poetic commonplaces to make their point, they are remarkably personal for a poet who began the sequence of odes in 1600 by effacing himself. This change attests to the confidence that Malherbe has in his poetic powers and to the pride that he takes in his achievement. 285 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled Stanza thirty-five contrasts Malherbe’s physical infirmity with the vigor of his intellect: “Je suis vaincu du temps: je cède à ses outrages: / Mon esprit seulement exempt de sa rigeur, / A de quoi temoigner en ses derniers ouvrages / Sa première vigeur” [I am conquered by time: I yield to his grave offense: / My mind, alone free from time’s severity, / Still has in its latest productions that which displays / Its early vigor] (vv. 137-140). The vocabulary of combat depicts Malherbe’s physical frailty, as though time were an adversary whom the poet has resisted and to whom he must now yield, despite the disgrace. The body’s weakness sets up a striking antithesis with the mind’s clarity and power, of which this final ode is a masterful demonstration. Stanza thirty-six amplifies Malherbe’s intellectual virtues: “Les puissantes faveurs dont Parnasse m’honore, / Non loin de mon berceau commencèrent leurs cours: / Je les possédai jeune; et les possède encore / À la fin de mes jours” [The powerful favors with which Parnassus honors me, / Began their course not far from my cradle: / I had them when I was young; and I have them still / At the end of my days] (vv. 141-144). Here the antithesis is between childhood and old age, but the constant element linking them is the poet’s genius, that is, the natural gifts that have predisposed him to write poetry. Stanza thirty-seven dedicates to the service of Louis the vigorous intellect and the poetic vocation which have defined a whole life: “Ce que j’en ai reçu, je veux te le produire: / Tu verras mon adresse; et ton front cette fois / Sera ceint de rayons qu’on ne vit jamais luire / Sur la tête des rois” [What I have received from them, I want to produce for you: / You will see my skill; and your forehead this time / Will be haloed by rays that none has ever seen shining / On the head of kings] (vv. 145-148). Such a proposition sounds different coming from a veteran and celebrated poet than it does from a talented neophyte trying to make his mark. It is an act of great generosity. In true magnanimous fashion, Malherbe offers to put his genius and his reputation to work for the glory of Louis and of the nation. The image of the “halo” is the crown of glory which Malherbe’s poetry will fashion for Louis. While clearly a hyperbole, it represents the quasi-divinity of a monarch in whom the energies of the nation are inflected, and through whom the nation enacts its privileged destiny. This halo will be unique because it crowns a new kind of monarch, one who embodies and protects the nation before all other obligations. The mystical order of rank is: God, king, nation. The king mediates between them. He ascends to the level of divinity (he is quasi-divine), and he embodies the collective energies of the nation. The king is the individual where transcendent forces (God or destiny) and the nation meet. There is no unresolved rivalry here (Keller 127). The ode’s concluding stanzas (thirty-eight through forty) argue that Malherbe is the right poet for Louis because the poet’s reputation and achievement are 286 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes unmatched, but they also make clear the precise nature of the claims which Malherbe makes for the royal odes: Soit que de tes lauriers ma lyre s’entretienne, Soit que de tes bontés je la fasse parler: Quel rival assez vain prétendra que la sienne Ait de quoi m’égaler? Le fameux Amphion, dont la voix nonpareille, Bâtissant une ville étonna l’univers, Quelque bruit qu’il ait eu, n’a point fait de merveille Que ne fassent mes vers. Par eux de tes beaux faits la terre sera pleine: Et les peuples du Nil, qui les auront ouïs, Donneront de l’encens, comme ceux de la Seine, Aux autels de Louis. (vv. 149-160) [Whether my lyre converses about your laurels, or I make it speak about your virtues: / What rival is vain enough to claim that his lyre / Can rival mine? / / The famous Amphion, whose incomparable voice / Astonished the universe by building a city, / Whatever fame he may have had, has not accomplished any greater wonder / Than my own verse. / / Through them the earth will fill with your glorious exploits: / And the peoples of the Nile, who will hear them, / Will offer incense, like those of the Seine, / To the altars of Louis.] The reader is by now familiar with some of these themes: the unrivaled glory of Malherbe’s poetry will spread Louis’s reputation across the face of the earth, notably to the eastern borders of the imaginary empire of Christendom which Louis will reestablish during his reign. The “altars” at which Egyptians and the French will worship Louis suggests that the king will have assumed the power and the god-like status of a Caesar after having imposed the French equivalent of the Pax Romana. Here the poet retains his traditional role as purveyor of universal fame and immortality for the powerful. Less obvious, and far more interesting, are the implications of the hyperbolic comparison of Malherbe to Amphion. Amphion built the walls of Thebes: “movit Amphion lapides canendo” [Amphion transported stones with the power of his singing] (Horace, Odes 3.11.2). This feat earns Amphion a place alongside Orpheus in the Ars Poetica, where Horace honors these poets for being the founders of cities and of civilization (394-396). This illustrious ancestry gives all poets “honor and fame” (Ars Poetica, 400), and the comparison of stanza 287 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled thirty-nine clearly inserts Malherbe in this lineage. While it is tempting to dismiss this genealogy as mere self-serving hyperbole, if we do so, we will miss the allusion to the ideological function that Malherbe has been claiming for his odes. The analysis of the royal odes throughout this book has tried to show how their praise for the Bourbon sovereigns presupposes a new conception of the nation, unified no longer by a common faith but rather by unwavering allegiance to the monarch, who embodies the collective energies, the common good, and the privileged destiny of France. The arguments and imagery advocating for this ardent patriotism consistently point to the king’s, or the queen regent’s, magnanimity in serving the nation both as the justification for loyalty and service and as the model for a new civic ethos. Gone are the days when the great nobles used to strive with the king. From now on, all subjects, greater and lesser, strive with one another pro rege et patria. As one can see from the first stanza cited above, the Malherbian poet is no longer a singer-musician. The “lyre,” that is, poetry (“mes vers” [my verses] v. 156), is associated with speaking (s’entretenir [to converse] v. 149; parler [to speak] v. 150; la voix [voice] v. 153). This speaking lyre, which allegedly surpasses Amphion’s “voix nonpareille” [incomparable voice] (v. 153), recalls Cicero’s alternative version of the foundation myth of civilization. In De Oratore, it is not the poet’s song but the orator’s eloquence that civilizes humans and organizes them into cities (De Or. 1.8.33-44). The allusion to Amphion reflects Malherbe’s conception of poetry’s role in the ideological foundation of power. The royal odes attempt to create a way of living one’s world, that is to say, to shape the ways in which subjects of the French monarchy see and live their monarch and their nation. To judge by the odes’ stylistic and argumentative decisions, the intention has been to use poetry to substitute idealized images for raw perception, but also to disseminate by example the civic consciousness of the new nation. For Malherbe, it was never a question of dismissing religion out of hand, but of finding a worthy substitute in classical literature. That is to say, the poet mines classical literature, including the Old Testament, for compelling images and examples to create a new national myth able to compete with the version of national identity that led to the Wars of Religion. Like Jorge Louis Borges in the “Parable of Cervantes and the Quixote,” Malherbe understands that time smooths away the discrepancies between myth and history. Malherbe’s particular insight is to exploit poetry’s claims of immortality, but to do so in the present for the living, accelerating, as it were, the passage of time by lifting the odes’ historical protagonists into the timelessness and universality of classical literature. 288 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes 31 Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Jonathan Bennett (2017), www.earlymoderntexts.com/ a ssets/ pdfs/ machiavelli1532.pdf The odes’ hyperbolic praise of the powerful may seem fulsome and insincere, but twenty-first-century readers must not overlook the importance of esteem in early modern politics. A useful early modern framework to clarify the power of esteem, as well as poetry’s capacity to produce it, can be found in Machiavelli’s The Prince. 31 While the famous Florentine measures the strength of states in terms of arms, money, and fortresses, he does not overlook symbolic power. A weak prince, for instance, “who has a strong city and hasn’t made himself hated won’t be attacked; anyone who did attack him would be driven off, humiliated” (The Prince X, p. 23). In this example, alongside military superiority, a moral state of affairs prevails: the assailant loses his honor. Machiavelli’s advice for the acquisition and the maintenance of power thus runs along a dual track. He counsels the study and practice of war (The Prince XIV, p. 31), but he also recommends that a prince’s reputation for virtue be maintained whenever possible (The Prince XV, p. 33). In Machiavelli’s view, it is less important to be virtuous than to seem so, especially to be publicly acknowledged as such. At the very least, a prince who has learned how not to be good must avoid the infamy of vice. Above all, he must avoid being hated. But it is much more advantageous to be loved and esteemed, that is, to be honored for virtue in the eyes of one’s subjects and peers. Indeed, at times, Machiavelli appears to rate the power of esteem above the power of arms, especially with respect to the management of internal political affairs. On the question of fortresses, for instance, whether to erect or demolish them, Machiavelli defers to the individual judgment of the prince, since it is difficult to form a rule to meet every situation. But he does offer this general observation: “The best possble ‘fortress’ for a prince is not being hated by his people. If you have fortesses, and your people hate you, the fortresses won’t do you any good” (The Prince XX, p. 46). This fortress without walls is built from a prince’s reputation for virtue, and its bricks are moral qualities: “greatness and courage, seriousness, and fortitude, ” (The Prince XIX, p. 39). Although the actual possession of such virtues would be a boon, it is more important to appear to possess them, whether or not one actually does (The Prince XVIII, p. 38). In essence, stanza thirty-nine of “Pour le Roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois” (1627; 1635) declares that the royal odes have built a fortress without walls for the Bourbons. Over and above the light they shine on the monarch’s virtues (courage, justice, and practical wisdom), the royal odes’ majesty and grandeur become imperceptibly attached to his or her person by 289 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled the habit of association. Pascal recognized this mechanism in the Pensées: “on ne sépare point dans la pensée leur personne d’avec leur suite qu’on y voit d’ordinaire jointe” [one does not separate in thought their person from the retinue that one ordinarily sees accompanying them] (#59, éds. Ferreyrolles and Sellier). One could consider the poet to be part of the king’s retinue, and the reader’s imagination attaches the odes to their subjects of praise, creating an ideological bulwark in the admiration, esteem, and emulation which they inspire. The fortress without walls is not the odes themselves, but the civic consciousness fashioned by the odes for the subjects of the new nation. The ethos of magnanimity praised, exemplified, and disseminated by the odes is the form which this patriotism for the new nation is supposed to take. The ode’s six-line envoi marks a formal and a temporal break. Written in the rhyme scheme of the sestet of the Petrarchan sonnet, no longer addressed to Louis, it presents in retrospect the outcome of the campaign against La Rochelle: Enfin mon roi les a mis bas Ces murs qui de tant de combats Furent les tragiques matières. La Rochelle est en poudre: et ses champs désertés N’ont face que des cimetières, Où gisent les titans qui les ont habités. (vv. 161-166) [At last my king has laid low / Those walls which of so many combats / Were the tragic material. / / La Rochelle lies in dust: and its deserted fields / Are covered with graves, / Where the Titans that occupied them now lie.] The ode was completed and published well in advance of La Rochelle’s sur‐ render, even if the capitulation of the Protestant stronghold looked like a foregone conclusion to any objective observer. In this envoi, the War of the Giants returns. The mighty walls of the citadel have crumbled under artillery fire, as the pun on the word “poudre” [dust, powder] suggests. Again, the collective effort of the assault is attributed to Louis (“mon roi” [my king] v. 161), the punishing Jupiter whose thunder has destroyed the city and turned its fertile fields into cemeteries. The rebels are the Titans buried in the graves. The movement is from high to low: the arrogance of the rebels has been brought down. The sober tone shows no hint of gloating, but what the poet predicted in the ode has come true in the envoi. Wrathful justice has prevailed. With this conclusion to this final ode, the prophecy announced in “À la Reine sur sa bienvenue en France (1600; 1601) and in “Prière pour le Roi allant en Limousin” (1605; 1607) has been fulfilled. The son has arrived and has 290 Part II The Sequence of Royal Odes undertaken the completion of the unfinished labors of the father. The hero cycle of the sequence has also come full circle. The magic boon which the hero brought back from his voyage east has produced the savior of the nation. Peace, justice, and prosperity reign at home, and the defeat of the rebels and the English at La Rochelle announces the beginning of a new French empire. It is one of the subtle ironies of history that the Golden Age of France which the royal odes imagined would in its broad outlines be fulfilled in 1659 with the Treaty of the Pyrenees. The surrender of Spain opened the way for unrivaled French dominance on the European continent, at least for a time, that is, before Louis XIV began the slow process of squandering France’s economic and cultural might on unsuccessful wars of aggression, beginning in 1672 with the War of Holland. François de Malherbe died on October 6, 1628. While he certainly had great hopes for Louis XIII and the nation, did he ever believe that one day his dreams would come true? 291 Chapter 8. The Prophecy Fulfilled 1 Jean-Marie Apostolidès, Le Prince sacrifié (Paris: Éditions de minuit, 1985) 13: “Exercer le métier du roi, pour Louis XIV comme pour ces prédesseurs, c’est un sacerdoce dont le caractere secret tient au rapport privilégié que le prince entretien avec Dieu.” Conclusion Exercising the vocation of king, for Louis XIV as for his predecessors, is a min‐ istry whose secret character stems from the privileged relationship which the king has with God. 1 Jean-Marie Apostolidès, Le Prince sacrifié In his analysis of the sacerdotal foundations of kingship in medieval France, Jean-Marie Apostolidès traces the etymology of the French word métier (pro‐ fession, trade, job) to the Latin ministerium, which in the twelfth century denotes the vocation of a priest while still retaining an association with mysterium (Apostolidès 13). His intention is to resuscitate the sacral function underlying the business-like tasks and responsibilities of the “métier du roi.” Apostolidès holds that though the monarch progressively became a statesman, even a technocrat, he remained first and foremost a priest exercising a ministry. However, as the preceding pages of this book have argued, an exception to this general observation must be made for the kingship of Henri IV. With the eruption of patriotism that decoupled religion and state in the 1580s and 90s, Henri IV “was unable to rely exclusively on the power of royal ritual and ceremony nor on the traditional appeal of sacral monarchy to reconstruct a sense of national community” (Holt, Renaissance and Reformation France 204). Henri supplemented this limitation with a broad and diverse propaganda campaign that included an array of literary talents, and François de Malherbe approached the task with an unmatched intellectual seriousness and patriotic fervor, embracing the lofty ambition of reimagining the myths and symbols of the nation. The royal odes’ reimagination of the nation along the lines of service and loyalty to king and country does not exclude religion but displaces its centrality in the fabric of French identity. The unforgiveable offense is no longer heresy but sedition. To involve the imagination of the nation’s diverse communities in a common political adventure, the royal odes weave a national myth with the structure of a quest. The quasi-divine Bourbon monarchs will usher in a new Golden Age, navigating the ship of state through the storms of political discord to the halcyon seas of peace, justice, and prosperity at home and French hegemony abroad. While no single ode contains the complete elements of the story, the sequence as a whole exhibits the clear outlines of what Joseph Campbell calls the hero cycle, in which a protagonist embarks on an adventure filled with trials to obtain a life-renewing gift that transforms himself and his people. The first ode presupposes the departure of the ship of state, posits the arrival of a new Golden Age, and foresees the creation of a new French empire. The final ode confirms the fulfillment of that prophecy while deferring the actual arrival of utopia. The odes in-between deal with the various trials of the adventure, including the death and the apotheosis of the hero. The key images and examples, supplied by Greco-Roman and Old Testament intertexts, seek to induce cognitive and emotional transformation, mobilizing rational argument and powerful emotions, both the forensic and the sublime, to move the reader from a partisan point of view to a collective national sentiment. Patriotic devotion to king and country would constitute the utopia which the royal odes seek to create. Already in 1627, however, this quasi-secular vision of the nation appears no longer adequate. The final ode, “Pour le Roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois” (1627), despite its ardent patriotism and deification of Louis XIII, reflects a different ideological climate. First, in 1614, when Condé and the other great nobles withdrew their support for Marie de Medici’s regency, the spirit of national unity had dissolved. Second, in 1617, Louis XIII’s coup d’état, with the assassination of Concini, marks the dramatic return of religious fervor. As Jean-Vincent Blanchard observes, the destruction of Concini’s corpse by a violent mob, tearing it to pieces and in some cases eating it, attests to the consciousness of a profound re-sacralization of the monarchy (Blanchard, “Dies Irae” 36-37). The mob sacrificing and ingesting the victim whose death represents the recapture of sovereignty reflects and expresses the king’s anger through an act of divine inspiration. The coup, furthermore, announces the beginning of a conspicuous bifurcation between the aspirations of the nobility and the growing power of the state, and seals the fate of the Protestant “state within the state,” given the young Louis XIII’s commitment to unify the kingdom under one faith. The fact that Malherbe’s royal muse went silent during Louis’s 1620 military campaign into southwest France speaks volumes. Although the king’s army did not even fire a shot, such occasions had not stopped Malherbe in the past. The difference in this case, I would suggest, is that Louis’s foray into Béarn, at the behest of the ultra-Catholic duke of Luynes, was not the sort of demonstration of royal authority that Malherbe had previously celebrated. Even if the king and the Catholic Church had legitimate grievances against the 294 Conclusion 2 See Max P. Holt, Renaissance and Reformation France (Oxford UP), “Chapter 8: Re‐ drawing the Lines of Authority,” 202-228. Protestants in Pau (Holt, French Wars of Religion 182), the reestablishment of Catholic dominance there clearly elevates religion above the patrie [fatherland; nation; country] as the unifying thread of the nation. Royal authority was restored, but perhaps on terms that Malherbe found unpalatable. La Rochelle, however, was another matter, and it presented Malherbe with a last chance to make his case. As Mack P. Holt so eloquently observes, the shockwaves which the news and propaganda of Pau sent rippling through the Protestant community were undoubtedly responsible for the rebellion of La Rochelle, the most strategic of Protestant strongholds whose celebrated harbor kept open the hope of assistance from English and Dutch brethren (Holt, French Wars of Religion 182). The militant wing of the Huguenot party, having in effect established the city as the capitol of Huguenot-controlled territory in southwest France, “indeed trespassed upon royal authority by issuing their own commissions for the levying of troops, administering their own justice, and setting up their own fiscal and political machinery of government” (Holt, French Wars of Religion 184). In this case, Malherbe could join his voice to Pierre Jeannin’s, “a moderate Leaguer in his native Burgundy in the 1590s,” who urged Louis not to make the campaign against La Rochelle into a “war of religion” (Holt, French Wars of Religion 185). But unlike Jeannin, Malherbe’s final ode would call for violence to deliver “le dernier coup à la dernière tête / De la rébellion” (“Pour le Roi allant châtier la rébellion des Rochelois,” vv. 3-4). Reason of state, if there ever was one: this is the king’s opportunity to put an end once and for all to Protestant sedition. The stakes are nothing less than the security of the nation. The silence of Malherbe’s royal muse between 1614 and 1627 did not prevent the poet from composing other kinds of poetry: political sonnets, songs, ballet libretti, stances etc. While Louis XIII and Richelieu, responding to contingent events, doggedly and haphazardly laid the foundations of royal absolutism (e.g. they reduced Protestant opposition, centralized client networks, increased tax revenues, in part by selling more royal offices, funded the largest standing army France had ever seen, and stymied Habsburg ambitions in Europe), 2 the nobility invented a new ethos of sociability and reveled in stories of unabashed heroism and love. The focus of aristocratic life migrated away from court into salons and private residences, where poets explored the refinements of honnêteté and galanterie. Malherbe participated in this reorientation, composing at least one famous lyric poem for the Marquise de Rambouillet. But the old poet’s version 295 Conclusion of gallantry, with its virile appetites and stoic ultimatums, must have sounded antiquated to the refined sensibilities of this new literary milieu, where the urbane elegance of Voiture’s poems later set the tone. Salon habitués routinely tossed off madrigals and rondeaus—lyric poetry became a special form of polite conversation. Malherbe’s royal odes exerted a negative influence on this emerging poetic style. “With the explosion of salon life and the vogue for light poetry discrediting more serious genres, the ode, given its hyperbolic tone and its paraphernalia of epic comparisons, looks increasingly intimidating and tiresome” (Chauveau 66). The sociopolitical function of the new poetry was not to reimagine a national community. Instead of celebrating the monarch or the grandees at court, the poetic vanguard now portrayed hôtels, parks, gardens, and salons as “the good life,” aiming to immortalize a privileged few—including the poets themselves—in the eyes of their aristocratic peers. In mythologizing the present and idealizing aristocratic elites, salon poets redirected the collective imagination toward priv‐ ilege and exclusivity. The novelists admired by the salon community espoused adventure and larger-than-life heroes gallantly devoted to their loves, while the playwright they most discussed, Corneille, examined the conflict between the chivalric ideals of the old nobility and the new imperatives of the absolutist state. It is no exaggeration to say that the new generation’s worship of the duke of Enghien, future Grand Condé, dwarfed any official praise of Louis XIII or Richelieu. Malherbe’s dream of national unity was not shattered but refracted into a national consciousness reflecting the diverse ideals and concerns of the nobility. As Jean-Pierre Chauveau aptly observes, the “finality” of the ode developed by Malherbe was no longer appropriate to the political and cultural climate (Chauveau 66). Without grasping the purpose of the odes, admirers and emula‐ tors could only ape the odes’ rhetoric and their letter—whence Costar’s trivial pedantic dispute with Godeau and Chapelain over their improper imitation of Malherbe (Chauveau 65). The loss of the goal, or end, for which the odes’ mythological allusions and images were mobilized reduced high ambition to mere stylistic exercise, a game, pure flattery. More than simply “exalting ‘in the extreme’ his king” (Chauveau 62) or translating the “national fervor” (Chauveau 66), the ambition of Malherbe’s royal odes is to reimagine the nation on the basis of patriotic loyalty to the Bourbons. If such a purpose became less and less perceptible as the seventeenth century progressed—perhaps as early as 1633, the year Costar “engaged in the demolition of two odes, both pale and awkward imitations of the Malherbian model, the ode ‘Au Roi’ by Godeau and the ode ‘Au Cardinal’ by Chapelain” (Chauveau 65)—then the soaring ambition 296 Conclusion of Malherbe’s odes also came to naught. Despite his fame, his influence, and his popularity with the salon crowd, Malherbe was misunderstood as a poet (and has been ever since that time). In which case, Malherbe’s sardonic quips to Racan are cast in a still more complex light. To demean poets as “good players of skittles” and “arrangers of syllables” is undoubtedly an ironic posture intended to delight Malherbe’s close friends, most of whom were poets and quite committed to correct diction, grammar, and meter. 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Edited by Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein. London: Verso, 1991. Bhabha, Homi. Nation and Narration. New York: Routledge, 1990. Carabin, Denise. Les Idées stoïciennes dans la littérature morale des XVIe et XVIIe siècles (1575-1642). Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004. Donohue, Brian. “God and Aristotelian Ethics.” Quaestiones Disputatae 5.1 (Fall 2014) 65-77. Hadot, Pierre. Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? Paris: Gallimard, 1995. Howland, Jacob. “Aristotle’s Great-Souled Man.” The Review of Politics. 64.1 (Winter, 2002) 27-56. Kosman, Aryeh. “The Divine in Aristotle’s Ethics.” Internet PDF Article. www2.swgc.m un.ca/ animus/ Articles/ Volume%2013/ 9_Kosman.pdf Menn, Stephen. “Aristotle and Plato on God as Nous and as the Good.” The Review of Metaphysics. 45.3 (Mar., 1992) 543-573. MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, second edition, 1984. Newell, W.R. “Superlative Virtue: The Problem of Monarchy in Aristotle’s ‘Politics.’” The Western Political Quarterly 40.1 (Mar., 1987) 159-178. van Hooft, Stan. Understanding Virtue Ethics. Chesham: Acumen Publishing, 2006. White, Stephen A. Sovereign Virtue: Aristotle on the Relation between Happiness and Prosperity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992. 308 Bibliography Index absolutism 17, 26, 28, 80, 91, 132, 161, 281, 295 Achilles 40, 77, 83, 139, 143f., 184f., 200f., 204f., 216, 219, 229, 261, 267, 277, 279, 283 admiration see wonder Aeneas 216, 219, 253 Ages of Man 163, 166 Alexander (the Great) 60, 141, 188ff., 192, 229, 231, 248, 258, 273, 277 allegory see figures of thought Amazon 242-246 Amphion 24f., 82, 287f. androgyne 234ff., 243, 247, 274 Aphrodite 77, 229, 231, see Venus Argo 29, 81, 127, 180, 196, 200-204, 253ff., 262, 271f., 274ff., 279, 284 Apollonios Rhodios 201, 244, 254, 274 Argonauts 201, 203, 254, 272 eyes of Lynkeus 274 pilots Tiphys and Ankaios 254f. Valerius Flaccus 203, 244, 276 Aristotle 21, 33, 38ff., 57f., 60, 67f., 73f., 76f., 79, 85f., 93, 96f., 99, 102, 105, 108, 115f., 118-121, 133, 145, 147, 183 De Anima 116, 119f. Nicomachean Ethics (NE) 38, 57, 60f., 67f., 145 Poetics 93, 119, 121 Politics 5, 39, 73ff., 77, 79, 133, 145 Rhetoric 21, 33, 40, 57f., 67, 85f., 93, 96f., 108, 113-117, 119, 121f., 142f., 147, 168, 183, 186, 195, 206, 223, 246, 270f., 274 Astraea 77f., 106, 122, 131-134, 138, 140, 150, 220f., 225, 228, 231f., 236f., 239, 242f., 245 Athena 22, 77, 229, 231f., 250, 254f. Augustine 34, 85, 89, 108 Bellegarde, Roger de Saint-Lary de Termes, seigneur de 26, 45, 52f., 55, 158, 180, 196-211, 271 Biester, James 22f., 42, 78, 84, 98ff., 103- 107, 112, 118, 121-124, 167 Bodin, Jean 39f., 71ff., 75ff., 103, 132f., 272 body politic 17, 24, 29, 35, 51-54, 58, 75f., 81f., 108, 124, 153f., 164, 170, 223, 228, 274f. Caesar 32, 60, 287 Campbell, Joseph 36f., 47f., 78f., 128f., 138, 145, 165, 189, 197, 217f., 221, 237f., 247, 294 Castiglione 99 Castor and Pollux 197, 202ff. character 12f., see ethos characters of style see style Cicero 19, 21, 25, 31f., 37, 40, 42, 45, 54, 57, 67, 73, 82-86, 105ff., 109-113, 116ff., 151, 265, 288 Atticism 19, 31, 45, 84, 109ff., 117 Brutus 31, 85, 109f. De Oratore 25, 31, 40, 57, 82, 85, 109f., 288 Orator 31, 43, 57, 85f., 109f., 116 Rhetorica ad Herennium 29, 46, 85, 95, 127, 133, 151, 153, 167, 185, 192, 196, 201, 217, 229, 231, 253f., 274 civic art 21, 195 commonwealth 13, 15, 17, 29, 58, 75, 102, 114, 142, 152, 155, 157, 159, 161, 165, 170, 178 citizen 40f., 57, 117, 133 common good 79, 133, 135, 151, 182, 224, 230, 262, 268, 270f., 288 common interest 13, 73, 75 general welfare 20, 29, 32, 34, 36, 38, 114, 124, 141f., 146, 156, 160, 162, 165, 175 public good 13, 15, 34f., 80, 102, 129, 143, 155, 159, 162, 171, 256, 258f. Public Weal 15 the good 15, 40, 69, 74, 76f., 81, 96, 120, 146, 153, 162, 179, 186, 245f., 257, 296 comparison 47, 49, 73, 77, 121, 127ff., 131, 138f., 143, 161f., 168, 171, 181, 183-190, 195ff., 199f., 203, 205, 207, 221, 226f., 232, 239, 243f., 246, 250, 252-255, 267, 276, 285, 287, 296see image, see proof conceit 73, 81, 84, 106, 123f., 130f., 133f., 138f., 146, 152, 154, 163, 172, 176, 181, 189ff., 196, 199-202, 211, 221, 226, 228, 237, 242, 249f., 252f., 260f., 265, 268, 281, 283 court (royal) 25, 27, 31f., 49, 53-56, 58, 63f., 67, 83f., 87, 90, 92, 98f., 102, 108, 111, 158, 199, 207, 211, 248f., 284, 295f. courtier 64, 67, 98f., 104, 199, 201, 204 craft 25, 33, 40f., 50, 192, 195, 240 technē 40f., 57, 82, 115, 118 daemon 35, 78, 139f., 150, 163ff., 174, 176, 179, 185, 217, 226, 268, 278 deliberative speaking see genera dicendi (kinds of speaking) desacralization 22, 70 Du Perron 19, 32, 55f., 87, 90, 92, 107 Du Vair 19, 33, 55f., 69, 87f., 92, 177 Eden, Kathy 42f., 57, 118-123 elocutio see style eloquence 11, 16, 19ff., 24f., 30-33, 39, 41f., 45, 48, 51, 56, 59, 82ff., 86-93, 96f., 104f., 107, 109, 111, 125, 131, 149, 151, 162f., 182, 188, 193-196, 200, 251f., 265, 285, 288 anti-Theophrastean 105 Ciceronian 42, 84, 110, 112 deliberative 32, 96, 104, 112, 116, 250, see genera dicendi (kinds of speaking) epideictic 32, 41, 55, 85f., 89, 92-97, 104, 112, 125, see genera dicendi (kinds of speaking) Jesuit 45, 90f., 108f. judicial 85f., 88f., 92, see genera dicendi (kinds of speaking) royal 31, 48, 56, 83, 91 sacred 87, 89f., 105, 151 sacred oratory 19, 24, 83, 118 sacred rhetorics 21, 33, 37 emotion 16, 20f., 23, 25, 28, 33ff., 45, 53, 59, 82, 84, 91f., 98f., 103, 105f., 108f., 113, 115-120, 122, 124f., 134, 143, 147, 151, 167, 170f., 191, 265ff., 294, see proof emphasis see figures of thought encomium 43f., 55, 180, 196, 198, 242, 249, 274 encomiastic poetry 11, 19, 21, 32, 40, 45, 48, 55f., 59, 64f., 93, 96ff., 122, 125, 130f., 137, 187, 196, 232, 239ff., 243, 273f., 283 epic poetry 30, 92ff., 96, 119, 121, 123, 129, 148, 181, 183f., 186, 207, 212, 216, 229, 253, 261, 267, 272, 276, 296 epideictic speaking see genera dicendi (kinds of speaking) ethos 12, 17, 25, 33, 39, 41, 45f., 51, 57-65, 67ff., 76, 82f., 98, 104, 108, 112-116, 118f., 121-125, 150, 172, 177, 195, 197, 211, 213, 232, 240, 245, 250, 265, 267, 310 Index 288, 290, 295 character 21, 25, 39, 41, 43, 57-61, 63, 65, 68, 71, 76, 78, 82, 100, 102, 104, 108, 113ff., 117f., 121-124, 136, 145, 157, 162, 169, 185, 187, 195, 198, 210, 238, 240, 244, 267, 269, 271 ēthos see proof eunoia (goodwill) 33, 108, 116 megalopsychos see magnanimity portrait 72, 84, 101, 118, 121f., 124, 136f., 185f., 201, 205, 213 example 30, 35, 37, 39, 46f., 59, 63, 79, 81, 84, 95, 99, 101f., 115, 118, 120f., 123f., 128-131, 140f., 147ff., 160ff., 168, 170, 184f., 188, 195, 199ff., 204f., 207, 215f., 218f., 225-229, 231f., 239, 241ff., 245, 248ff., 253, 255, 261, 265, 267, 269, 271, 273f., 276f., 279f., 283f., 288, 294see image, see proof figures of thought 11, 14, 25, 33, 37, 45, 83f., 90f., 98, 105, 107f., 117ff., 122ff., 172, 179, 265 allegory 29, 38, 84, 93, 98, 104f., 107, 118, 123, 132f., 140, 164, 173, 202, 223, 233ff., 244f., 251, 253, 255f., 274ff., 279, 282 ekphrasis 90 emphasis 29, 33, 37, 46f., 127f., 133, 135, 151, 154, 182f., 222, 242, 255, 267, 270, 279 hypotyposis 37, 90, 105 prosopopoeia 37, 90, 105ff., 277 ratiocinatio 33, 37, 267 significatio 29, 33, 37, 46, 84, 104ff., 124, 127, 133, 137, 140, 151, 153, 167, 185, 192, 201, 217, 229, 231, 253f., 274 Fumaroli, Marc 19ff., 23, 31ff., 38, 41-44, 48, 55f., 67, 82f., 87-93, 96f., 107, 110ff., 132, 173 Garver, Eugene 21, 33, 40ff., 57, 82, 96f., 104, 113-118, 195 genera dicendi (kinds of speaking) 11f., 15, 20, 85ff.96 Golden Age 17, 30, 36f., 48, 78, 81, 106, 124, 127, 129ff., 140f., 145, 149, 151, 155, 158f., 165, 169, 173, 195, 202, 208, 213, 221, 229, 231f., 236ff., 242, 245f., 248f., 256f., 265, 272, 284, 291, 293f. Golden Fleece 197, 202f., 259, 272, 276 Grand Condé (also duke of Enghien) 60, 64, 296 greater good 47, 206 great soul see magnanimity happiness 96f., 104, 114, 125, 145, 155, 162, 176, 194, 225, 228, 281 felicity 151f., 154, 158f., 162f., 169, 203, 227f., 230, 232, 244f., 258 Hellenistic rhetoric Demetrius 85, 89, 105, 107 Dionysius 85, 89, 105 Hermogenes 85, 89, 105, 107 Longinus 105, 113, 121 Hercules 22, 28, 36, 70, 72f., 77f., 101, 132, 143, 160, 162, 174, 181, 183, 187ff., 192, 223, 243, 267, 272, 276f., 279 hero cycle 36, 47f., 128, 145, 180, 182, 189, 197, 221, 237, 247, 265, 268, 284, 291, 294 adventure 36, 38f., 46f., 78, 127ff., 131, 133, 140, 163, 165, 180, 183, 189, 196f., 202, 210, 216, 221, 261, 272, 293f. quest 17, 37, 46f., 78, 84, 106, 124, 128, 130, 133f., 145, 160, 165, 182, 189, 197, 201f., 208, 210, 221, 223, 237f., 246, 250, 259, 261f., 265, 271, 274, 276, 279, 293 quest cycle 150, 165 quest epic 196, 200, 202 311 Index Holt, Mack P. 12f., 27, 29, 42, 72, 80, 88, 102, 263, 293, 295 honnête homme 64f., 67f. Faret, Nicolas 64f., 67 honnêteté 49, 64, 66-69, 81, 295 Horace 30, 38, 67, 93f., 102, 107, 118, 133, 193, 205, 209, 223, 225, 241, 285, 287 Huguenots 27, 34, 36, 142, 151, 154, 170, 181, 263ff., 280 image 17, 19, 8095230 eikōn 118-121, 123 enargeia 119 energeia 119 imago 120f., 235ff., 246, 259 of the monarchy 24, 79 of the nation 12, 24 poetic-rhetorical 119-123 psychological 84, 119ff., 123f. public image 11, 25f., 56, 63, 100f., 220 imago see image Iron Age 131, 257 Jason 196f., 201ff., 253, 272, 276 Jesus 79, 216f., 219 judicial speaking see genera dicendi (kinds of speaking) Jupiter 77, 139, 146, 184ff., 192, 203, 215, 267, 276-279, 283, 290 Kantorowicz, Ernst H. 24, 35, 53, 58, 61f., 75, 268 Keller, Marcus 11ff., 28, 42, 134f., 137, 139- 142, 152, 164f., 168, 170, 174f., 238, 264, 267f., 280, 283, 286 La Rochelle 27, 49, 64, 114, 123, 249, 263- 267, 269, 271f., 274, 277-281, 283, 290f., 295 League 26ff., 34, 55, 61, 69ff., 97, 100, 103, 135, 142, 151, 154, 161, 170, 181, 295 logos see proof Louis IX 277, 283 Lynkeus or Tiphys 276 lyric poetry 19, 49, 54, 81, 93-97, 106f., 121ff., 193, 241, 249ff., 263, 295f. Machiavelli 99, 289 magnanimity 17, 19, 23, 36, 38f., 45, 51, 60-63, 65, 67ff., 73-76, 78-82, 101, 113, 123ff., 131, 137, 149, 157, 160, 162, 171, 177, 185f., 189, 191, 194, 196ff., 201, 204-207, 210f., 213, 224, 232, 245f., 250, 260, 265, 267, 271, 274f., 277, 288, 290 great soul 39, 45, 51, 60f., 63, 74, 76, 81ff., 108, 112f., 118, 123ff., 130, 147, 150, 196, 198ff., 206, 220f., 224, 226, 245f., 250, 265, 274, 285 megalopsychos 51, 60f., 74, 108, 112f., 122f., 195, 198, 207, 209f., 224, 232, 243, 250, 261, 271 Mars 77, 184f., 205, 285 Medea 202f. megalopsychos see magnanimity metaphor 19, 30, 33, 46f., 84, 104ff., 118- 123, 129, 148f., 153f., 181ff., 193, 197f., 209, 214, 223, 225, 231, 241, 247f., 255f., 265, 270, 274 Minerva 45, 137, 220f., 227, 231-234, 236f., 239, 243, 245, 250, 255 Portraits 220f., 231-234, 236f., 243, 250 monuments 16, 128, 193, 205, 218, 225 mystical body (of the king) 29, 35, 53, 58, 143, 246f. mythology 11, 25, 30, 37, 130, 163, 169, 174, 227, 279 mythological pattern 47, 127, 139, 276f. underlying myth of the sequence 29f., 127 nation 11-20, 23ff., 27-32, 34-39, 45, 47ff., 52f., 58f., 61ff., 65, 69ff., 74-81, 83, 100f., 103f., 108, 110, 112ff., 117, 123ff., 127, 130f., 133ff., 137f., 140-143, 145f., 149- 312 Index 153, 155ff., 159-165, 168-171, 173-183, 186, 191, 193-198, 200, 202, 204, 206- 213, 217-224, 226, 228ff., 237f., 241f., 245ff., 249-252, 254, 256-262, 265, 268- 279, 283-286, 288, 290f., 293-296 la patrie 24, 29, 31, 35, 37f., 58, 61f., 70f., 81, 101, 140, 151, 220, 295 myths and symbols of 11, 14, 29, 135, 279, 293 national community 12, 16f., 24f., 27ff., 33f., 38f., 43, 45, 49, 51, 63, 76, 79f., 117, 124, 127f., 130, 134f., 142, 149, 151f., 164, 170, 264, 271, 293, 296 national consciousness 13, 16, 31, 71f., 230, 296 national myth, mythology 118 national sentiment 15, 23, 34, 37, 46, 70f., 78, 128f., 131, 150f., 162, 191, 230, 294 national unity 14, 17, 32, 34, 70f., 80, 186, 191, 220, 222, 228, 237f., 270, 294, 296 patria 24, 29, 35, 61, 75, 269, 285 Niobe 211, 217ff. nobility 30, 39, 49, 53, 56, 61f., 64, 66ff., 81, 147, 195, 220, 223, 230, 256, 295f. definition 81 great nobles 37, 63, 147, 151, 155, 159, 161f., 180f., 184, 186, 188, 195, 199, 248 identity 11, 45, 49, 64-67, 82 of the robe 41, 56, 92, 177 of the sword 64f., 80f., 92, 108, 177 Odysseus 253 Old Testament 178, 227, 288, 294 Prophets 37 Psalms 37, 97, 150f., 155, 158ff., 179, 250 Ovid 86, 131, 133, 139f., 148, 150, 159, 163, 166, 184, 207, 211, 215, 217f., 229, 232 Metamorphoses 131, 133, 139f., 148, 159, 163, 166, 170, 207, 211, 215, 217f., 232 painting 38, 84, 239 la peinture spirituelle 84 Parlement 28, 40, 48, 56, 62, 68, 83, 87ff., 91f., 177 pathos see proof patrie see nation patriotism 15, 29, 31, 34f., 38f., 55, 61ff., 70f., 152, 206, 241, 245f., 262, 265, 272, 284, 288, 290, 293f. patriotic devotion, loyalty 294, 296 patriotic ethos 24, 62, 77, 81f., 104, 123 patriotic feeling, fervor, sentiment 16, 31, 34, 104, 275f., 293 patriotic ideal 39, 63 patriotic subject 62 peinture 38 phronēsis 17, 21, 25, 33, 40, 45, 68, 74, 77, 82f., 98, 114ff., 155f., 159, 175, 191, 194f., 220ff., 224ff., 231-234, 236, 250, 259, 261, 274 practical reason 21, 33, 113f., 125, 195 practical wisdom 40, 45, 68, 83, 108, 114ff., 122, 137, 154f., 160, 170, 206, 220, 222, 224ff., 231f., 234, 236f., 239f., 245, 249, 260, 265, 274f., 277, 289 pistis, pisteis see proof logos, ēthos, pathos 57, 115 political 32, 41, 55, 85-88, 92, 96f. political eloquence see genera dicendi (kinds of speaking) political function 45, 84, 93 polity 15, 39, 74f., 79, 129, 134, 161 aristocracy 241 monarchy 17, 27f., 34, 39f., 51, 69, 73, 313 Index 76, 79f. portrait 225, 239f., 254f., 262see ethos, see Minerva portraits of character 45, 125 practical reason see phronēsis practical wisdom see phronēsis Prometheus 276, 279 proof 17, 21ff., 84, 91, 95, 108f., 114ff., 118f., 125230 analogy 25, 29, 47, 105ff., 110, 115, 128, 133f., 143, 153, 159, 166ff., 180, 184, 201, 207, 209, 214, 218, 223, 230, 247, 254, 256, 279 artistic (pistis, pisteis, pl.) 21, 108, 116 ēthos 21, 28, 41, 125 logos 21, 28, 40f., 113, 116, 125 pathos 21, 28, 116, 125 pro rege et patria 24, 34, 62, 75, 81f., 102, 108, 131, 147, 149, 164, 191, 197f., 201, 209f., 265, 282, 288 Protestant 13, 22, 27, 32, 34, 37, 59, 61f., 64, 69ff., 80, 101f., 117, 150f., 155, 177, 207, 224, 256, 263f., 270, 272, 277, 290, 294f. prowess 66, 79, 113, 154, 186, 190, 196, 200, 204f., 225, 243, 269, 281 pulpit 56, 83, 87, 89 quest cycle see hero cycle quest epic see hero cycle Quintilian 21, 29, 47, 57, 67, 73, 85f., 106f., 113, 116, 118, 120f., 127f., 133, 137, 151, 154, 158, 168, 182ff., 193, 222, 242, 255, 267, 270, 276, 279 religious wars 16, 22, 25, 54, 65, 173, 256, 265, see Wars of Religion royal court 48, 56, 68, 87, 92, see court (royal) Rubin, David Lee 17, 30, 42, 46f., 127ff., 139, 144f., 147, 152-155, 159f., 163, 165ff., 176, 178, 183, 187ff., 193f., 197, 203, 211, 225ff., 241, 249, 259, 272, 275f. Saint Louis (Louis IX) 141, 175, 190, 248, 258 salons 49, 64, 68, 81, 96, 111, 295ff. seignurial nobility 161 Seneca 19, 67, 69, 86, 163, 166 Thyestes 163, 166ff., 170f., 173 ship of state 29f., 36, 38, 46f., 62, 78, 81, 106, 117f., 124, 127ff., 132ff., 137, 139f., 142, 149-152, 154f., 162-165, 169, 180, 182f., 196f., 202, 208ff., 215, 220-224, 227f., 231f., 236, 241f., 246, 250, 252, 254f., 259, 265, 271, 274, 276, 293f. Shuger, Debora K. 21, 24, 34, 37, 42, 57, 85, 87, 89, 105, 107, 109, 112f., 116ff., 151 significatio see figures of thought simile 115, 118ff., 184, 267 stoicism 28f., 36, 69f., 73, 164, 172, 175ff., 211, 213, 296 style 12f. characters of 108f., 112 elocutio 21, 45f., 82, 98, 104, 108, 118f., 121, 125 grand 19, 21, 30f., 34, 37f., 47, 51, 82ff., 96, 105-113, 117f., 125, 131, 151f., 157f., 178, 183, 187, 190, 194, 212, 240, 247, 265, 281, 289 Hellenistic 19, 37, 45, 84f., 98, 105ff., 117f., 151, 187, 247, 265 middle, sweet, tempered 90, 109, 111ff., 117, 122, 134 plain 19, 45, 105ff., 109, 118, 151, 157f., 187, 247, 265 Tacitus 97 political function of poetry 97 Theseus 101, 187ff., 192, 243 Troy 15, 29, 184, 186, 205, 232, 261, 272, 279 Trojan War 184f., 229, 231, 272 314 Index universal audience 75f., 81, 108, 112f., 128 Venus 78, 138f., 220, 229, 232, 236, 242f. Virgil 106, 122, 132, 150, 159, 203f., 209, 212, 257 virtue 21, 23, 25, 29, 33, 35f., 38-41, 45f., 51, 57f., 61, 64-70, 72-78, 80-84, 94f., 97f., 100, 102ff., 106, 108f., 113-118, 123, 125, 131, 136f., 144, 149, 153f., 157, 160, 162, 165, 169ff., 175, 177, 180, 183-187, 189, 194ff., 198ff., 202, 204, 206f., 209f., 212ff., 220ff., 225ff., 232- 249, 251f., 255f., 259, 261, 273, 281f., 286, 289 beauty 77, 106, 136, 138, 141, 145, 178, 193, 200ff., 205, 217, 231, 234, 242 courage 65, 72, 74, 77, 97, 114, 122, 142f., 153ff., 160, 169, 171, 186, 201f., 205f., 208, 243, 254ff., 261, 265, 267, 274, 281, 285, 289 greatness of soul see magnanimity intellectual see phronēsis justice 30, 36, 69, 72ff., 76ff., 85, 88f., 106, 114, 122, 127, 131, 133, 142, 155ff., 160f., 171, 176, 187, 211, 221, 223, 228, 231f., 236, 247, 250, 256f., 264f., 269, 276f., 279, 282f., 289ff., 294f. moderation 65, 67ff., 177 War of the Giants 265, 268, 277ff., 290 Wars of Religion 11, 27, 32, 35, 46, 54, 60, 63f., 66, 68, 70, 153, 156, 161, 170, 181, 204, 206, 228 wonder 22f., 25, 33ff., 45, 78, 82, 84, 86, 98-108, 111f., 117f., 121f., 124f., 131, 133ff., 137f., 152ff., 157ff., 167, 169, 172, 179, 183f., 196, 202, 212f., 242, 245, 251f., 258, 264f., 276, 281f. Yardeni, Myriam 17, 31, 34, 38, 42, 46, 52, 54, 61ff., 70ff., 78, 81, 101, 230, 272 315 Index Biblio 17 Suppléments aux Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature herausgegeben von Rainer Zaiser Aktuelle Bände: Frühere Bände finden Sie unter: www.narr-shop.de/ reihen/ b/ biblio-17.html Band 195 Benoît Bolduc / Henriette Goldwyn (éds.) Concordia Discors II Choix de communications présentées lors du 41 e congrès annuel de la North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature New York University, 20-23 May 2009 2011, 245 Seiten €[D] 64,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6651-5 Band 196 Jean Garapon / Christian Zonza (éds.) Nouveaux regards sur les Mémoires du Cardinal de Retz Actes du colloque organisé par l’Université de Nantes, Château des Ducs de Bretagne, 17 et 18 janvier 2008 2011, 213 Seiten €[D] 58,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6659-1 Band 197 Charlotte Trinquet Le conte de fées français (1690-1700) Traditions italiennes et origines aristocratiques 2012, 244 Seiten €[D] 58,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6692-8 Band 198 Francis Assaf (éd.) Antoine Houdar de La Motte: Les Originaux, ou L’Italien 2012, 76 Seiten €[D] 39,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6717-8 Band 199 Francis Mathieu L’Art d’esthétiser le précepte: L’Exemplarité rhétorique dans le roman d’Ancien Régime 2012, 233 Seiten €[D] 58,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6718-5 Band 200 François Lasserre Nicolas Gougenot, dramaturge, à l’aube du théâtre classique Etude biographique et littéraire, nouvel examen de l’attribution du ‹‹Discours à Cliton›› 2012, 200 Seiten €[D] 52,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6719-2 Band 201 Bernard J. Bourque (éd.) Abbé d’Aubignac: Pièces en prose Edition critique 2012, 333 Seiten €[D] 78,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6748-2 Band 202 Constant Venesoen Madame de Maintenon, sans retouches 2012, 122 Seiten €[D] 49,00 ISBN 978-3-8233-6749-9 Band 203 J.H. Mazaheri Lecture socio-politique de l’épicurisme chez Molière et La Fontaine 2012, 178 Seiten €[D] 58,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6766-6 Band 204 Stephanie Bung Spiele und Ziele Französische Salonkulturen des 17. Jahrhunderts zwischen Elitendistinktion und belles lettres 2013, 419 Seiten €[D] 88,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6723-9 Band 205 Florence Boulerie (éd.) La médiatisation du littéraire dans l’Europe des XVII e et XVIII e siècles 2013, 305 Seiten €[D] 58,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6794-9 Band 206 Eric Turcat La Rochefoucauld par quatre chemins Les Maximes et leurs ambivalences 2013, 221 Seiten €[D] 58,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6803-8 Band 207 Raymond Baustert (éd.) Un Roi à Luxembourg Édition commentée du Journal du Voyage de sa Majesté à Luxembourg, Mercure Galant , Juin 1687, II (Seconde partie) 2015, 522 Seiten €[D] 98,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6874-8 Band 208 Bernard J. Bourque (éd.) Jean Donneau de Visé et la querelle de Sophonisbe. Écrits contre l’abbé d’Aubignac Édition critique 2014, 188 Seiten €[D] 58,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6894-6 Band 209 Bernard J. Bourque All the Abbé’s Women Power and Misogyny in Seventeenth-Century France, through the Writings of Abbé d’Aubignac 2015, 224 Seiten €[D] 68,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6974-5 Band 210 Ellen R. Welch / Michèle Longino (eds.) Networks, Interconnection, Connectivity Selected Essays from the 44th North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature Conference University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill & Duke University, May 15-17, 2014 2015, 214 Seiten €[D] 64,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6970-7 Band 211 Sylvie Requemora-Gros Voyages, rencontres, échanges au XVII e siècle Marseille carrefour 2017, 578 Seiten €[D] 98,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6966-0 Band 212 Marie-Christine Pioffet / Anne-Élisabeth Spica (éd.) S’exprimer autrement : poétique et enjeux de l’allégorie à l’âge classique 2016, XIX, 301 Seiten €[D] 68,- ISBN 978-3-8233-6935-6 Band 213 Stephen Fleck L‘ultime Molière Vers un théâtre éclaté 2016, 141 Seiten €[D] 48,- ISBN 978-3-8233-8006-1 Band 214 Richard Maber (éd.) La France et l’Europe du Nord au XVII e siècle Actes du 12e colloque du CIR 17 (Durham Castle, Université de Durham, 27 - 29 mars 2012) 2017, 242 Seiten €[D] 64,- ISBN 978-3-8233-8054-2 Band 215 Stefan Wasserbäch Machtästhetik in Molières Ballettkomödien 2017, 332 Seiten €[D] 68,- ISBN 978-3-8233-8115-0 Band 216 Lucie Desjardins, Professor Marie-Christine Pioffet, Roxanne Roy (éd.) L’errance au XVIIe siècle 45e Congrès de la North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature, Québec, 4 au 6 juin 2015 2017, 472 Seiten €[D] 78,- ISBN 978-3-8233-8044-3 Band 217 Francis B. Assaf Quand les rois meurent Les journaux de Jacques Antoine et de Jean et François Antoine et autres documents sur la maladie et la mort de Louis XIII et de Louis XIV 2018, XII, 310 Seiten €[D] 68,- ISBN 978-3-8233-8253-9 Band 218 Ioana Manea Politics and Scepticism in La Mothe Le Vayer The Two-Faced Philosopher? 2019, 203 Seiten €[D] 58,- ISBN 978-3-8233-8283-6 Band 219 Benjamin Balak / Charlotte Trinquet du Lys Creation, Re-creation, and Entertainment: Early Modernity and Postmodernity Selected Essays from the 46th Annual Conference of the North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature, Rollins College & The University of Central Florida, June 1-3, 2016 2019, 401 Seiten €[D] 78,- ISBN 978-3-8233-8297-3 Band 220 Bernard J. Bourque Jean Chapelain et la querelle de La Pucelle Textes choisis et édités par Bernard J. Bourque 2019, 296 Seiten €[D] 68,- ISBN 978-3-8233-8370-3 Band 221 Marcella Leopizzi L’honnêteté au Grand Siècle : belles manières et Belles Lettres Articles sélectionnés du 48e Congrès de la North American Society for Seventeenth Century French Literature. Università del Salento, Lecce, du 27 au 30 juin 2018. Études éditées et présentées par Marcella Leopizzi, en collaboration avec Giovanni Dotoli, Christine McCall Probes, Rainer Zaiser 2020, 476 Seiten €[D] 78,- ISBN 978-3-8233-8380-2 Band 222 Mathilde Bombart / Sylvain Cornic / Edwige Keller-Rahbé / Michèle Rosellini (éd.) « A qui lira »: Littérature, livre et librairie en France au XVIIe siècle Actes du 47e congrès de la NASSCFL (Lyon, 21-24 juin 2017) 2020, ca. 650 Seiten €[D] 98,- ISBN 978-3-8233-8423-6 Band 223 Bernard J. Bourque Jean Magnon. Théâtre complet 2020, 644 Seiten €[D] 128,- ISBN 978-3-8233-8463-2 Band 224 Michael Taormina Amphion Orator How the Royal Odes of François de Malherbe Reimagine the French Nation 2021, 315 Seiten €[D] 78,- ISBN 978-3-8233-8464-9 This new approach to Malherbe’s odes interweaves political, cultural, rhetorical, and literary history to show how they constitute a unified sequence whose ambition is to forge a new national community in the aftermath of the Wars of Religion, dislodging Malherbe from his moribund critical reception as a grammarian and technician and recovering the brilliance of a poetic genius whose political mythmaking stems from an impassioned patriotism. BIBLIO 17 Suppléments aux Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature Directeur de la publication: Rainer Zaiser www.narr.de ISBN 978-3-8233-8464-9