Voyage to Luxembourg, 1687: The Curé’s People and the King

When Louis XIV traveled from Versailles to Luxembourg in May–June 1687, the Mercure galant compiled a 353-page special issue on the four-week voyage using reports from the field. The periodical recognized its opportunity for sustained observation of the king and its chance to elaborate the celebratory message for which the king sponsored this periodical. Accordingly, the Mercure created a utopian view of the king as he made his appearances in urban spaces and châteaux across the kingdom. Yet comparison between the actual map of the voyage contained in the Archives diplomatiques and the narrative map the Mercure offered its readers raises suspicions that the passage of the king through rural spaces and villages that the periodical’s account excludes may not have sustained the view of the king the periodical promised to produce. The journal of one curé whose village along the route witnessed three visits of the king in 1683 and 1687 reveals that his and his parishioners’ experience of the king’s physical presence did not match the claims of the Mercure galant. Juxtaposing the two sources offers unusual insights into popular views of Louis XIV, the misfit of views on kingship and the monarch’s responsibilities to his people that marred his reception in Saint-Jean, and how historians might broaden their use of documents, even those created for the king’s own image making, to move beyond the elite and would-be elite who were the readers of the Mercure galant.