Robert Darnton
An Early Information Society

[Page 15]

For historians, the story can be taken as a symptom of a rupture in the moral ties that bound the king to his people. After the death of Mme. de Châteauroux on December 8, 1744, Louis never again set foot in Paris, except for a few unavoidable ceremonies. In 1750, he built a road around the city so that he could travel from Versailles to Compiègne without exposing himself to the Parisians. He had also ceased to touch the sick who lined up in the Great Gallery of the Louvre in order to be cured of the King's Evil, or scrofula. This breakdown in ritual signaled the end—or at least the beginning of the end—of the roi-mage, the sacred, thaumaturgic king known to us through the work of Marc Bloch. By mid-century, Louis XV had lost touch with his people, and he had lost the royal touch.²¹

That conclusion, I admit, is much too dramatic. Desacralization or delegitimation was a complex process, which did not occur all at once but rather by fits and starts over a long time span. In recounting this tale about Louis's love life, I did not mean to argue that he suddenly lost his legitimacy in 1744, although I believe he badly damaged it. My purpose was to suggest the way stories struck the consciousness of Parisians by the middle of the century.

To modern Americans, the story of the three sisters may read like an unconvincing blend of folklore and soap opera. But to eighteenth-century Parisians, it served as a gloss on current events—Louis XV's brush with death at Metz in August 1744, the disgrace of Mme. de Châteauroux, the general rejoicing at the king's recovery, and the general consternation at his decision to recall his mistress. The story also conveyed a prophecy of doom. Louis XV had compounded adultery with incest, because fornicating with sisters had an incestuous character in eighteenth-century eyes. Thus the report of a spy who warned the police about the public's consternation at the king's affair with Mme. de Châteauroux in 1744: "Businessmen, retired officers, the common people are all complaining, speaking ill of the government and predicting that this war will have disastrous consequences. Clergymen, especially the Jansenists, take that view and dare to think and to say aloud that the evils that will soon overwhelm the kingdom come from above, as punishment for the incest and irreligion of the king. They cite passages from Scripture, which they apply [to the present circumstances]. The government should pay attention to this class of subjects. They are dangerous."²²

Sin on such a scale would call down punishment from heaven, not merely on the king but on the entire kingdom. Having been anointed with the holy oil preserved since the conversion of Clovis in the cathedral of Reims, Louis XV had sacred power. He could cure subjects afflicted with scrofula, simply by touching them. After his coronation in 1722, he had touched more than 2,000, and he continued to touch the diseased for the next seventeen years, particularly after taking Communion on Easter. In order to exercise that power, however, he had to cleanse himself

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