On the Education of Louis, the Dauphin, Son of Louis XIV, Addressed to Pope Innocent XI
Most Blessed Father, we have often heard Louis the Great say that the Dauphin, his only child and the safeguard of so great a family and kingdom, was deservedly very dear to him. Yet he desired life for his beloved son only on the condition that he live worthy of his ancestors and of so great an empire. He would rather his son did not exist at all than have him live in idleness.
From the very beginning, therefore, he resolved that the Most August Prince should become accustomed not to indolence or leisure, effeminate indulgence, games, or childish trifles, but to labor and virtue. From his earliest years, he was first to learn thoroughly the fear of God, on which human life rests and from which kings themselves derive their majesty and authority. Then he was to learn every noble discipline and art befitting so great a prince, especially those useful for governing and strengthening an empire, but also those that could in any way refine his mind, adorn his life, and win the goodwill of learned people. Thus the Dauphin himself would be regarded as a model of conduct and the flower of youth, an illustrious patron of talent, and, finally, a son worthy of so great a father.
1. The Rule Established by the King and the Course of Study
The King therefore established this fixed rule for the Prince’s studies: no day was to pass empty. Complete idleness is one thing; entertaining and refreshing the mind is another. Childhood should be enlivened by games and amusements, but not surrendered to them entirely. It should be recalled each day to more serious studies so that those studies do not languish through interruption.
Because the exceptionally busy lives of princes leave no day free of immense cares, childhood also had to be trained to devote several hours each day to serious matters. Then the mind, already directed toward seriousness and accustomed to it through study, could be entrusted with public affairs. This practice also belonged to the gentleness that should be used in forming young minds. The force of habit is gentle, and there is no need for a troublesome adviser when habit willingly performs the adviser’s office.
Moved by these considerations, the most prudent King assigned fixed hours each day to literary studies. These were sometimes enlivened with playful diversions so that the somber and forbidding face of learning would not frighten the boy. His expectation was fulfilled. Prompted by habit itself, the cheerful and eager royal boy returned to his customary studies almost as if at play, regarding them as another kind of game whenever he brought a willing mind to them.
The chief provision for his education, however, was the appointment of the Duke of Montausier, a man distinguished for military and literary glory, but most distinguished for piety. By both nature and training, he alone among all men was fitted to raise the son of so great a hero in a manly way. He never let the Prince out of his sight or his hands. He shaped him constantly, kept his ears pure even from improper speech, and made them inaccessible to corrupt minds. Through his admonitions, he kindled the Prince to every virtue, especially to the worship of God. He led by example, pressed the work forward with unconquerable constancy, and always continued on the same path. In short, he omitted nothing that might make the royal youth as strong as possible in both body and mind.
We are proud to have had this man closely associated with us everywhere. Since he excelled in every noble art, we found him an assistant in literary matters as well and followed him as our guide.
2. Religion
The daily studies, in the afternoon as well as the morning, always began with instruction in divine things. The Prince listened to everything concerning them with his head uncovered and with the greatest reverence.
When we explained the doctrine of the Catechism, which he retained in his memory, we repeatedly warned him that, besides the laws common to Christian life, many duties fall upon particular people according to their different circumstances and stations. Princes therefore have their own proper and principal duties, which they cannot neglect without grave guilt. At that time, we touched on their chief points while teaching that other, weightier, and more profound matters should be considered at a more mature age.
Indeed, through repetition we caused these three words, most aptly joined together, to remain in his memory: Piety, Goodness, Justice. These contain both the Christian life and the duties of royal government. We connected them in this way: whoever is devout toward God must also be exceedingly good toward human beings, who were created in God’s image and are God’s children. Whoever wishes good to all must give each person what is due, protect the good from the injuries of the wicked, restrain wrongdoing for the sake of public peace, and compel perverse and turbulent people to keep order. A pious prince, and therefore a good prince, does good to everyone and of himself burdens no one unless provoked by crime and obstinacy.
We related all our precepts to these principal points, which we later taught more fully. Everything flows from this source and returns to it. The Prince therefore had to be imbued with the best disciplines so that he could fulfill these duties promptly and easily.
From the beginning, he knew by heart and frequently recounted the sacred history contained in the two Testaments. In it, he saw above all the blessings God freely bestowed on pious princes and the dreadful judgments he pronounced against the impious and obstinate.
When he was somewhat older, he read the Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, and the beginnings of the infant Church. Through these, he was taught to love Jesus Christ: to embrace him as a child; to grow with him as he obeyed his parents, found favor with God and humanity, and gave new proofs of wisdom each day; then to hear him preaching, to marvel as he performed astonishing signs, to honor him in his beneficence, and to remain with him as he died, so that he might also follow him rising again and ascending into heaven.
He was then taught to embrace the Church with equal love and honor: humble, patient, tried by cares from her very beginning, tested by suffering, and everywhere victorious. In her, he saw the Apostles governing according to Christ’s commands and leading by both word and example; Peter taking the lead and presiding in all matters; and the people obeying their word and making no further inquiry after the apostolic decrees. Finally, he learned everything that could establish faith, raise hope, and kindle charity.
He was also taught to honor Mary and venerate her deeply as humanity’s pious advocate before Christ, while she teaches that divine blessings come only to those who obey Christ. He was often to consider how great a reward she received for chastity and humility when the most precious pledge was given from heaven, making her the Mother of God and joining her in holiness to the eternal Father. Here are the pure and chaste mysteries of the Christian religion: Christ was a virgin and was to be given to none but a virgin. Chastity must therefore be honored above all by those who revere Mary, who through chastity was raised to the highest dignity and fruitfulness.
If his mind happened to wander while reading the Gospel, or if for a time he fell short of the reverence due to it, we removed the book, teaching that it was sacred and should be read only with the greatest veneration. The Prince regarded this as the severest punishment. Through this practice, he gradually became accustomed to reading a little attentively and devoutly while reflecting on much.
We explained plainly and simply the passages that refuted heretics, noting in their proper places those they had wickedly distorted from the truth. Meanwhile, we warned him that many things surpass his age and many surpass human understanding. By these, pride is broken and faith exercised. In so great a matter, it is not right to indulge one’s own ingenuity. Everything must instead be received according to the understanding of our forebears and the decrees of the Church. Certain destruction threatens innovators, and any piety that departs from this rule is merely painted over and false.
After reading and rereading the Gospels, we took up the history of the Old Testament, especially the history of the Kings. In kings, God displays examples of his most severe vengeance. The higher their eminence, because they have been placed by God’s command over the greatest affairs, the stricter the subjection under which they are held. They are examples to everyone of how frail, indeed how utterly powerless, human strength is unless it rests on divine protection.
From the apostolic Epistles, we selected particular chapters that would form Christian character. We also sampled certain passages from the Prophets, showing with what authority and majesty God addresses proud kings; how by his very breath he scatters immense armies, overthrows empires, and brings victors and vanquished alike to equal destruction.
Whenever prophecies foretelling Christ occurred in the Gospels, we sought them out and displayed them in their original source. The Prince marveled at them while we pointed out how aptly the new agreed with the old, that God’s promises and threats concerning the future would never prove empty, and that the things he has appointed for the age to come are altogether certain. God is truthful everywhere, and events already accomplished prove his faithfulness regarding those still to come.
We often interspersed these studies with the lives of the Fathers, the more splendid acts of the Martyrs, and sacred history, which instructed and delighted him alike. So much for religion.
3. Grammar, Latin Authors, and Geography
Why recount the study of grammar? Above all, we took care that he should first know the proper use, and then the elegance, of both Latin and his native language. We relieved the tedium of this discipline by demonstrating its usefulness and by joining to it, as far as his age permitted, a knowledge of both things and words.
This enabled him, even as a boy, readily to understand the best Latin authors, penetrate even their hidden meanings, and hardly ever falter when he applied his mind. From them, especially from the poets, he committed to memory everything most delightful and useful. He recited these passages very frequently and, when an occasion arose, aptly applied them to events themselves.
While reading these authors, we never departed from our purpose of teaching piety and morality together with civil prudence. We used the fables of pagan theology and religion, with their unspeakable mysteries, to demonstrate the profound darkness in which human beings lived when left to themselves. The most cultivated nations, and those considered most skilled in civil wisdom, the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, were equally sunk in the deepest ignorance of divine things and worshiped the most absurd monstrosities. They never emerged from this darkness except under Christ’s leadership. From this it follows that the true religion must be attributed wholly to divine grace.
Nevertheless, we acknowledged that the pagans, so far as circumstances allowed, observed their sacred rites with purity and reverence and believed that the commonwealth depended especially on them. They also furnished many examples of morality and justice by which Christians would be condemned if, though taught by God, they did not preserve virtue.
We generally offered these observations familiarly rather than in the manner of instructors. Once the Dauphin had taken them to heart, he often recalled them spontaneously. We remember that, when Alexander was praised for undertaking with such courage the common cause of Greece against the Persians, the Prince observed on his own how much more glorious it would be for a Christian prince to repel and defeat the common enemy of Christendom, who was already threatening its very neck.
We also said that it was right to read an author’s work continuously and as if in a single breath, rather than cutting it into fragments, such as separating and detaching one or two books of the Aeneid or Caesar from the rest. In this way, the Prince would gradually become accustomed to considering not every separate detail but the sequence of events and the plan of the whole work. Individual parts possess neither their proper light nor their beauty unless the design and conception of the entire work, like that of a building, has been formed in the mind.
Among the poets, he took greatest delight in Virgil and Terence; among the historians, in Sallust and Caesar. He deeply admired Caesar as an outstanding master both of writing and of action. He took him as a guide in conducting war. We marched with the supreme commander, laying out camps, drawing up the battle line, undertaking and carrying out plans, praising and restraining the soldier, exercising him through labor, raising him by hope, keeping him ready and eager, and leading a brave and self-controlled army.
Caesar kept the army obedient through discipline and the allies through fidelity and protection. He adapted the whole conduct of war to the terrain and the enemy, sometimes delaying but more often pressing forward, and by his very speed leaving the enemy neither plans nor escape. He spared the defeated, subdued rebels, and settled conquered nations with equity and prudence. By these means, he both softened and secured his victory.
Why should I recount how delightfully and profitably the Prince amused himself with Terence, or how many examples of human affairs presented themselves there? He observed the deceitful enticements of pleasure and wanton women; the uncontrolled and blind impulses of young men; and unstable youth driven headlong into crooked paths by the services and flattery of slaves, then tormented by its own errors, tortured by its loves, and freed only by a miracle, scarcely finding peace at last when it returned to duty.
Here the supreme artist portrayed the nature of character, age, and desire. He also rendered the form and features of his characters, true-to-life speech, and finally that grace and propriety by which works of art commend themselves. Meanwhile, we did not spare this most delightful poet when he wrote too freely. Yet, marveling that many of our own poets had indulged in even more intemperate play, we restrained their licentiousness, so destructive to morals, with severe commands.
The work would grow without limit if we undertook to explain what we observed in each author, especially in Cicero, whom we heard jesting, philosophizing, and pleading causes.
Meanwhile, we traveled through geography as if at play and on a journey. At one moment, we drifted down a favorable river; at another, we traced the seacoasts; and soon we sailed into the deep ocean or penetrated inland. We journeyed through cities and ports, though neither in hurried stages nor as careless guests. We surveyed everything and investigated customs, especially in France: its widely differing peoples, its most warlike and often changeable nation, its extremely populous cities, and so great a mass of empire, which must be governed and held together with the highest skill.
4. History, Especially French History, Written by the Prince in Latin and French
We taught history, the teacher of human life and guide to civil prudence, with the greatest diligence. But we devoted our principal effort to ensuring that he knew French history above all, that is, his own history. We did not, however, give the boy laborious books to work through, although we selected certain passages for him to read from authors in the vernacular, especially Commynes and Du Bellay. Instead, we ourselves selected from the sources and from all the most highly approved writers those matters chiefly relevant to grasping the course of events.
We narrated these matters to the Prince aloud, giving him as much as he could easily retain in his memory. We then required him to recount the same events. Afterward, he wrote a brief account in French and then translated it into Latin. This served as his composition exercise, and we corrected both versions with equal care. On the last day of the week, he reread in one continuous course everything he had written during it. He divided the work into books and reviewed the books themselves again and again.
Through this constant writing, our history, composed by the Prince’s own hand and pen in both French and Latin, advanced to the most recent reigns. Once the Latin language was sufficiently familiar to him, we omitted the Latin version while continuing the rest of the history in French with the same diligence.
We conducted the work so that our history grew together with the Prince’s judgment. We treated ancient times more briefly and periods nearer our own more fully. Yet we did not pursue every trivial or curious detail. We considered the nation’s good and bad customs, the institutions of our ancestors, and its principal laws; revolutions and their causes; the secret workings of counsels; unforeseen events to which the mind must become accustomed and for which it must be prepared; the errors of kings and the disasters that followed them; the unshaken faith of our kings through so many ages from Clovis onward; and their constancy in defending the Catholic religion.
With this was joined their singular reverence for the Apostolic See, in which they especially gloried. Through these things, the kingdom itself had remained firmly established for so many centuries. After heresies arose, turbulent and frenzied movements appeared everywhere, royal majesty was diminished, and the most flourishing empire was nearly destroyed. It did not recover its former strength until heresy was finally struck down and broken.
So that the Prince might learn from history itself how affairs should be conducted, whenever we explained events, we first established the dangerous situation and began, as it were, a deliberation. We used to weigh every consideration and ask him what he would decide next. Then we followed the actual events, noted the mistakes, and praised what had been done rightly. Thus, with experience as our guide, we established a sure method for adopting and carrying out plans.
5. Saint Louis as the Model of a Prince
Although we draw examples of life and conduct from the entire history of our kings, we present Saint Louis alone as the model of a most perfect king. By uncovering the sources of his deeds and counsels, we demonstrate that he excelled not only in the glory of holiness, which everyone knows, but also in military renown, courage, constancy, equity, magnificence, and civil prudence.
From him comes the glory of the House of France, and it has been a supreme honor to the Most August Family that the forebear from whom it sprang should serve it as a model of conduct, a master of royal arts, and a most certain intercessor before God.
6. The King’s Example
After him, we commend to the most obedient Son the achievements of Louis the Great and the living history that we behold with our own eyes: the commonwealth established by the best laws; the finances set in order; the hiding places of fraud exposed; military discipline strengthened with equal prudence and authority; new arts for securing provisions, besieging cities, and governing armies; the unconquered spirits of commanders and soldiers; not only force of attack but strength and constancy; and the conviction fixed in the nation that, under so great a King, everything must be overcome.
The King himself is like a great army. From him come the power and coherence of counsels and those hidden designs that disclose themselves only in astonishing outcomes. Enemies are baffled and terrified; allies are defended with the highest fidelity and constancy; and, once victory has been won and secured, peace is granted on equitable terms. Finally, we commend the King’s incredible zeal for defending and enlarging religion and the efforts of this greatest of fathers to undertake everything excellent.
7. The Purpose of Teaching Philosophy and the Treatise on the Knowledge of God and Oneself
We divided philosophical subjects so that we taught seriously, and established by certain arguments, those things that were settled and useful to human life, while reporting historically those that were tossed about by opinions and disputes. Our aim was to make the Prince fair and benevolent toward both sides and to form him for governing affairs, since he was born not to dispute but to judge.
We understood that the chief purpose of philosophy was first to recall the mind to itself and then, from that established position, to raise it to God. We therefore began there. This is true philosophy and the most readily attainable: a person relies not on laborious reading of books, collections of philosophers’ opinions, or experiments sought from afar, but on his own experience and from there turns toward his author.
From the Prince’s earliest years, we sowed the seeds of this most beautiful and useful philosophy. We strove with all our effort to make the boy distinguish the mind from the body as clearly as possible, that is, the part that commands from the part that serves. Then, through the image of the mind commanding the body, he could recognize God as commanding the whole universe and even the mind itself.
When he was older and the time indicated that philosophy should now be taught in a systematic and reasoned way, we remembered the Lord’s command, “Take heed to yourselves” (Luke 21:34), and David’s saying, “Your knowledge has become wonderful from me” (Ps 138:6). We then composed the treatise On the Knowledge of God and Oneself.
In it, we explain the structure of the body and the nature of the soul, chiefly from those things that each person experiences within himself. Our whole purpose is that, since a person is most immediately present to himself, he should also contemplate God as most immediately present to him in all things, without whom he would possess neither motion, breath, life, nor reason.
This accords especially with the most philosophical saying of the Apostle, who disputed at Athens, in the very citadel of philosophy: “He is not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:27-28). And again: “He himself gives to all life and breath and all things” (Acts 17:25).
Since the Apostle assumes these truths as known to philosophy in order to lead minds onward to higher things, we undertook to draw out and awaken, from knowledge of ourselves, that awareness of divinity implanted by nature in human minds. By certain arguments, we caused those who wished to regard themselves as no better than beasts to be judged at once the most foolish, the most shameful, and the most wicked of all mortals.
8. Logic, Rhetoric, and Ethics
Why say more? From this foundation, we constructed dialectic and moral philosophy by cultivating the higher powers of the mind that we experienced in ourselves, namely the faculties of understanding and willing. We derived dialectic from Plato and Aristotle, not for a shadowy battle of words but to form judgment through reason. We dealt especially with the part that arranges topical arguments suited to the conduct of affairs and strengthens arguments that are weak in themselves by linking one to another.
From this same source, we then caused rhetoric to arise. To the bare arguments, like bones and sinews joined together by dialectic, rhetoric added flesh, breath, and motion. We made it neither shrill and melodious nor timid and insubstantial, but sound and vigorous. We did not paint it with artificial coloring, but gave it the true color and splendor that blossom from truth itself.
For this purpose, we applied selected precepts from Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, and others, though we worked more through examples than through precepts. We used to take speeches that especially moved and overwhelmed the mind, strip away their figures and verbal ornaments as if removing their skin, and reduce them to the structure of bones and sinews just described, that is, to simple and bare arguments. In this way, one could see almost with the eyes what logic supplied and what rhetoric added.
We showed that moral teaching should be drawn from no source other than Scripture and the decrees of the Christian religion. One who can be watered by a full river should not chase muddy streams. Nevertheless, we also followed Aristotle’s moral works and joined to them those wonderful and, for their time, sublime teachings of Socrates, which could force belief from unbelievers and a blush from the hardened.
Meanwhile, we taught what Christian philosophy censured in their doctrines and what it added, as well as the authority with which it confirmed what was approved and the teaching with which it illuminated it. Compared with such wisdom, philosophical gravity had to be confessed mere infancy.
9. Principles of Civil Law
We did not consider it irrelevant to sample something from Roman law: what law itself is and how many kinds it has; the condition of persons; the classifications of things; the principles of contracts, wills, and inheritances; the power of magistrates and the authority of courts; and other matters of this kind that contain the principles of civil life.
10. Other Parts of Philosophy
There is no need to mention metaphysics, which is chiefly concerned with the matters discussed above. We taught a great many principles of physics while explaining the human body. In keeping with our purpose, we treated the rest historically rather than dogmatically, without neglecting the teachings of Aristotle.
We had experiments in natural things presented in such a way that the Prince, through a most delightful and useful form of play, might admire the ingenuity of the human mind and the splendid inventions of the arts, by which people disclose and adorn nature and sometimes assist it. Above all, he was to admire the art of nature itself, or rather the providence of the supreme craftsman, at once most manifest and most hidden.
11. Mathematical Disciplines
He received the mathematical disciplines, those teachers of reasoning, from an excellent instructor. He learned not only the customary arts of fortifying and attacking cities and laying out camps, personally drawing fortifications with a practiced hand, arranging a battle line, and maneuvering it. He also absorbed the art of constructing machines, the equilibrium of liquids and solids, the various systems of the world, and at least the first books of Euclid’s Elements with such readiness of mind that spectators marveled.
All these things were gradually instilled in their proper order and place. Our principal concern was that everything should be supplied in due proportion so that it might more easily be digested and become firmly established.
12. Three Final Tasks for Gathering the Fruits of Study
Now that the course is nearly completed, we have undertaken three principal tasks.
The First Work: The Continuous Course of Religion and the Changing Fortunes of Empires from Universal History
We have reviewed universal history, ancient and modern, which had already been completed and arranged in two parts: the first from the origin of the world to Charlemagne and the fall of the ancient Roman Empire, and the second from the establishment of the new empire by the Franks. We review it so as to demonstrate clearly both the unbroken course of religion and the changes of empires, together with their causes traced from their deepest origins.
Religion, always unshaken as the mysteries of the two Testaments are interwoven and fitted together, has grown with the passage of time. New things built upon the old have added power and strength. By this weight, heresies have been defeated and cast down, while truth itself, together with the Church that defends and teaches it, has stood firm, resting upon the Rock.
Empires, by contrast, decay through time and, as if exhausted by mutual slaughter, fall one upon another. We therefore disclose the causes of religion’s firmness and of the ruin of empires.
Without excessive discussion, we examine the institutions of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, then the Greeks and Romans, and afterward those of the following age. We consider what each nation nourished that proved fatal to others and destructive to itself, and what lessons each provided for those that followed.
Thus, we gather a twofold fruit from human affairs and universal history. First, religion’s permanence establishes its authority and holiness. Second, from ancient examples we seek supports for empires that would otherwise fall of themselves. Yet we do so while reflecting that mortality, innate in human affairs, clings even to those supports and that hope must be transferred to heavenly things.
The Second Work: Political Principles Drawn from Scripture
Our second work reveals political principles, civil prudence, and the very sources of law from the decrees and examples of Holy Scripture. It shows not only with what piety kings must worship and appease God, and with what care and reverence the faith of the Church must be protected, rights preserved, and pastors appointed, but also where civilized life itself arose; from what beginnings human communities came together; by what art minds are to be guided, counsels undertaken, wars conducted, peace arranged, laws enacted, authority vindicated, and the commonwealth established.
It becomes altogether clear that, among all books that instruct civil life, the divine Scriptures excel as greatly in prudence and practical judgment as they do in authority.
The Third Work: The Condition of the Kingdom of France, Other Kingdoms, and All Europe
Our third work embraces the particular institutions of the Kingdom of France. When these are compared and contrasted with those of other empires, they delineate the condition of the whole Christian commonwealth and indeed of all Europe.
When these works have at last been completed, so far as time and our ability permit, we shall be ready to return his beloved Son to the King when he asks for him, adorned and refined at the King’s command and under his guidance by every noble art. He will then advance to greater studies under a better teacher, namely the King himself and the experience of affairs itself.
For our part, Most Blessed Father, we have done these things with the greatest fidelity and diligence, as our duty required. We have planted and watered; may God give the increase. Indeed, since he whose place you hold moved you, so that you alone among so many should apply a fatherly concern to our labors, we have also exhorted the Prince to every excellent thing in the name of Your Holiness. We have seen that this has been the greatest encouragement to virtue.
Blessed indeed are we to have as our helper in so great a matter so great a Pontiff, another Leo, another Gregory, indeed Peter himself.
Most Blessed Father,
Your Holiness’s
Most devoted and obedient son,
At the Palace of Saint-Germain, March 8, 1679.
Thus signed:
† J. Bénigne, Bishop of Condom.
And this was the address: To the Most Holy Lord, our Lord Pope Innocent XI.
