The Triumphs of Louis XIII
Emily Handlin
Jean Valdor (616-1670), Les triomphes de Louis le Iuste XIII. du nom, roy de France et de Nauarre. : Contenans le plus grandes actions ou Sa Maiesté s'est trouuée en personne, representées en figures ænigmatiques exposées par vn poëme heroïque de Charles Beys, & accompagnées de vers franç̧ois sous chaque figure, composez par P. de Corneille. Avec les portraits des rois, princes et generaux d'armees, qui ont assisté ou seruy ce belliqueux Louis le Iuste combattant; et leurs deuises & expositions en forme d'eloges, par Henry Estienne, escuyer, sieur des Fossez, poëte & interprete du roy és langues grecque & latine. Ensemble le plan des villes, sieges et batailles, auec vn abregé de la vie de ce grand monarque, / par Rene Barry, conseiller du roy, & historiographe de Sa Maiesté. Le tout traduit en Latin par le R.P. Nicolai, docteur en Sorbonne de la Faculté de Paris, & premier regent du grand conuent des Iacobins. Ouurage entrepris & finy par Iean Valdor, liegeois, calcographe du roy. Le tout par commandement des Leurs Maiestéz.. A Paris : En l'Imprimerie royale, par Antoine Estiene, premier imprimeur & libraire ordinaire du roy., M. DC. XLIX.
(The Triumphs of Louis XIII, the Just by name, king of France and of Navarre: Containing the greatest deed where His Majesty was found in person, represented in enigmatic figures explained by a heroic poem by Charles Beys, and accompanied by French verses underneath each figure, composed by P. de Corneille. With portraits of kings, princes and generals, who served or assisted at the wars fought by Louis the Just. And their devices and explanations in the form of eloges by Henry Estienne, squire, sieur of Fossez, poet and interpreter to the King in Greek and Latin. Together with the plan of the cities, sieges and battles with an overview of the life of this great monarch by Rene Barry, counselor to the King and historiographer to His Majesty. All was translated into Latin by R.P, Nicolai, doctor at the Sorbonne and the Faculty of Paris, and first regent of the great Convent of the Jacobines. The work was undertaken and finished by Jean Valdor, knight, calcographer of the king, all at the command of His Majesty.)
Les triomphes de Louis le Iuste XIII was published in 1649, six years after the death of French King Louis XIII (1601-1643). Composed to pay tribute to the fallen King and to glorify his reign, Les triomphes… was a huge undertaking and involved more than six named collaborators. The work, written in French with Latin translations, includes an account of the life and military victories of Louis XIII, emblematic portraits of his allies and military leaders, and a series of detailed maps and plans of battlefields. Despite the work's multiple authorship and its varied subject matter, all the contributing authors uniformly employ a neo-classical vocabulary to honor Louis XIII and record his many triumphs. However, while Les triomphes... celebrates the king and his accomplishments, Louis XIII is not the book's only character, nor is his the only story it tells: the book also speaks to the ambitions of its primary author, Jean Valdor. Les triomphes... demonstrates that festival books, although published to commemorate important state events or in praise of the monarch, often served a multiplicity of interests and agendas.
Figure 1: La Reddition du Caen
The central section of the Les triomphes… is dedicated to twenty unsigned engravings illustrating the major military campaigns of Louis XIII's reign, each accompanied by six lines of verse composed by the already famous dramatist, Pierre Corneille, and a longer poem by Charles Beys, also a well-known playwright and poet. Both the engravings and the accompanying text retain the classical vocabulary seen throughout the book. The engraving depicting the 1620 siege of Caen, a walled port city in Normandy, casts Louis XIII as a Roman Imperator, complete with plumed helmet and classicizing robes (Figure 1). The accompanying verse informs the reader that Poseidon, pictured to the King's right, and the god of wind, Aeolus, who hovers above, have joined the king to pay homage to his prodigious bravery, as fish-tailed tritones emerging from the sea bear offerings of coral for the King. The emphasis of the engraving is on the king and his power—or, as the accompanying poem notes, on his “fury, second to none”—rather than on the besieged town, which stretches across the horizon line in the background.
Figure 2: Le Siege de la Rochelle
Similarly, the engraving and accompanying poem commemorating the siege of la Rochelle foregrounds the King's military might rather than the particulars of the military campaign (Figure 2). The bloody siege and blockade of La Rochelle, which lasted for fourteen months from 1628 to 1629, was front-page news, and written accounts of the military effort, the town's surrender, and the King's triumphant entrée circulated widely. The engraving, however, depicts La Rochelle as an allegorical figure kneeling before the king, who, as in the celebratory image of the battle of Caen, appears in the garb of a Roman general. In front of the two central figures, the keys of the city and weapons have been cast on the ground before the triumphant king. The four-line stanza appended to the image contrasts the personified town's impiety and arrogance with the King's valor and clemency. In both images, then, the classical allusions and language heighten the drama of the depicted scenes and glorify the king's victories.
Figure 3: Hercule
Both the text and engravings of Les triomphes… are packed with allusions to heroes from Greek and Roman literature and mythology ranging from Aeneas to Hercules, the demigod to which Beys, as well as the book's other collaborators, most frequently liken the monarch. For instance, Louis XIII appears as Hercules in the text's first engraving (Figure 3). Draped in a lion skin and clasping a club, the King's body is transformed into an ideal nude inspired by ancient Greek marbles such as the Belvedere Torso. The king also sits surrounded by the tools and accoutrement of art and science, including a palette and paintbrushes, a trumpet, an astrolabe and a compass, as well as several weighty tomes. In the engraving, then, Louis conforms to the classical ideal of might married to intellectual judgment.
Yet, Les triomphes de Louis le Iuste was also written as a testament to the artistic and creative powers of its main author and publisher, John Valdor, an engraver who trained with the printmaker Wenceslas Hollar. The book's title page identifies Valdor as the “calligrapher of the King,” a title he earned from Louis XIV through his work on this project, and attributes the allegorical compositions scattered throughout the work to Valdor's hand. In the section of the book devoted to emblematic portraits of the King's allies, Valdor also writes that he devised the engraved compositions. Yet, scholars have cast doubt upon Valdor's primary role in the book's creation. As Anthony Blunt writes, “the share of Jean Valdor in the production of the book remains uncertain...its claim that the engraved compositions were 'invented' by him probably means nothing more than that he suggested the subjects and possibly gave some indication about how they should be treated. Whether he did more must remain doubtful.” (Blunt, 161). Pierre-Jean Mariette, the eighteenth-century connoisseur and author of a dictionary of artists, also questioned Valdor's creative authorship. According to Mariette, Valdor was a sycophantic self-promoter and charlatan who often passed off engravings and prints created by others as his own. Mariette notes: “[Valdor] claims to be a connoisseur; properly speaking he is a second hand goods dealer.” (Mariette, iv, 45) Of Les triomphes de Louis le Iuste, Mariette writes, “in 1649 he produced the book the Triumphs of Louis Juste, for the execution of which he borrowed different hands, as many designers as engravers, but he wanted it to be known that the work was entirely his own, and he claimed all the credit” (Mariette, iv, 365).
However, in many of the text's verses, Valdor also appears as a character alongside the king. In a sonnet that directly follows Beys' epic poem in praise of the monarch, the dramatist Tristan l'Hermite lauds Valdor for immortalizing “the name of the great Louis and the name of Valdor” (unpaginated original; reprinted in “Le Troisieme Valdor, Calcographe de Louis XIV,” 145). F. J. Nicolai, the work's Latin translator, also contributed five quatrains to the volume. In keeping with the book's neoclassical theme, Nicolai’s first verse extols Valdor's virtues by comparing him favorably to Phidias, the great ancient Greek sculptor: “In vain antiquity boast to us of its Phidias/ to address that which immortalizes his name/ Valdor you may well see has a hand more lasting/ That if his art fades, still his name will live on.” (“Le Troisieme Valdor, Calcographe de Louis XIV”, 146). Other works by F. Cassandre and Pierre Coreneille praise Valdor in similarly glowing and classically-inflected rhymes. Although the details of the book's creation are unknown, it is likely that Valdor commissioned these encomia to himself. In light of Mariette's scathing account, the fact that these poems appear repeatedly through the text and from different authors suggests that Valdor may, at the very least, have exercised some influence over their content. Thus, “Les triomphes” should not only be seen solely as a vehicle for the king's aggrandizement, but also as a platform for Valdor's own aspirations and a monument to his own ambitions. Indeed, Valdor's efforts were a success. After Les triomphes... was completed, Louis XIV knighted Valdor.
Bibliography
“Le Troisieme Valdor, Calcographe de Louis XIV” in Bulletin de L'Institut Archeologique Liegeois, vol. VII (1865), 123-170.
Mariette, Pierre-Jean. Abecedario, v. i-iv(Paris: F. de Nobele, 1966).
Blunt, Anthony. “Stefano della Bella, Jean Valdor and Cardinal Richelieu” Master Drawings, 16:2 (Summer, 1978), 156-162+217-221.