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"Kings are never children". Royal Education in the Great Century: Routine or Adventure?

« Les Roys ne sont jamais enfans » L’éducation royale au Grand Siècle : avanie ou aventure ?

Abstract : Obviously, if we examine treaties for the education of Princes written in 17th-century France merely from a chronological and factual perspective, focusing on their codes and norms only, we shall find nothing adventurous about them. However, if we choose to put that period in the wider historical context of representations and mental realities, a rich educational imagery is then conjured up to be studied and interpreted, with adventure as a most useful focus to examine how the formative years of Louis XIII and Louis XIV were perceived at the time, how they were then turned into meaningful “signs”. Two vivid and colourful narratives have thus gone down in history; these are stories fraught with many exciting events which have drawn a double portrait of the Bourbon dynasty: that of Louis XIII, who was an adventurous king, and that of Louis XIV, who was both a king and an adventurer.