L'Etat comme fonctionnement socio-symbolique (1547-1635)by Denis Crouzet

L'Etat comme fonctionnement socio-symbolique (1547-1635) by Denis CrouzetReview by: J. H. M. SalmonThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Spring, 2001), pp. 193-196Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2671430 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 11:43

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The Sixteenth Century Journal is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to TheSixteenth Century Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.118 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:43:35 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Book Reviews 193

emerge from "religion" and "church" themselves. While admitting to some problems, O'Malley concludes this term is the best way to describe "the Catholic side." It indicates better than others that "what happened in Catholicism in the sixteenth century was an as- pect of Early Modern History, which it strongly influenced and by which it was itself in large measure determined."

O'Malley's fine study opens new paradigms and persuasively promotes a fresh way of understanding this period of Roman Catholic history. Donald K. McKim ......... . . .. . . . .. . . . Westminster John Knox Press

L'Etat comme fonctionnement socio-symbolique (1547-1635). Ed. Denis Crouzet. Histoire, Economie et Societe' 17 (1998):339-440. Paris: SEDES, 1998. ISBN 2-718191- 50-3. This special issue of the journal Histoire, Economie et Societe' contains five essays which,

according to Denis Crouzet, decode the symbols and semantics applied by early modern French society to the functioning of the state.Well known for the encyclopedic mastery of sixteenth-century French polemical literature displayed in Les Guerriers de Dieu (1990) and La Nuit de la Saint-Barthelemy (1994), Crouzet has a gift for inventive imagery conveying fresh insights into the psychology of the antagonists in the Wars of Religion. It cannot be said, however, that these essays conform uniformly to the rubric he sets forth in the intro- duction.

In the first paper Barbara Diefendorf reviews the role of the Parisian bourgeoisie in the massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572). The second, by Xavier Le Person, examines the sig- nificance of the tears shed by the lastValois king, Henri III, when he appeared before the parlement of Paris on 18 July 1585, for the registration of the edict of Nemours, whereby he appeared to surrender to the anti-Protestant demands of the Catholic Holy League. In the third piece Nicolas Le Roux describes the changing role of court favorites during the second half of the sixteenth century. The fourth essay, by Sylvie Daubresse, discusses the re- lationship between Christophe de Thou, the chief judge of the parlement of Paris, and King Charles IX (1560-74). In the concluding paper Brian Sandberg analyzes the attitudes of nobles in southwest France to the concept of revolt in the period 1610 to 1635.

Diefendorf's article should be read in the context of the recent debate about St. Bar- tholomew's Day that has divided historians of early modern France. In 1973 the English scholar Nicola Sutherland challenged the established view in The Massacre of St. Bartholomew and the European Conflict, 1559-1572. She placed the massacre in its European context and discredited the notion that assigned responsibility to the queen mother, Catherine de Medicis. Fourteen years later Jean-Louis Bourgeon published an article praising Sutherland and advancing his own thesis that the massacre was "the first great Parisian insurrection of modern times, to be placed at the head of the series 1588, 1648, 1789" ("Les legendes ont la vie dure: A propos de la Saint-Barth6lemy," Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 34 [1987]: 102-16 [116]) Bourgeon saw the bloodbath as the result of a coup against the mon- archy led by the ultra-Catholic magnate, Henri de Guise, and supported by the officers of the city hall and the magistrates of the parlement. Finding himself powerless before the city and the family of Guise, Charles IX reversed policy and saved face by authorizing the kill- ing of the Huguenot nobles gathered in Paris for the wedding of his sister to the Protestant Henri de Navarre. This in turn led to the wider violence. Bourgeon developed his argu- ment in further articles, culminating in two books, L'Assassinat de Coligny (1992) and Charles IX devant la Saint-Barthelemy (1995).

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.118 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:43:35 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

194 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXX11/1 (2001)

In his first book Crouzet chose not to confront Bourgeon's thesis directly, although he had reached different conclusions (Les Gtuerriers, 63, n. 2). His book on the massacre refuted the idea of an antimonarchical coup by Guise, and denied Bourgeon's thesis that Paris was in a state of revolt (La Nuit, 430-431). To the late Nancy Roelker, however, the thought of parlementaire complicity in a revolt against the crown was anathema. In her posthumous One King, One Faith: The Parlement of Paris and the Religioms Reformations of the Sixteenth Centuary (1996) Bourgeon was said to have misunderstood the nature of the French state, and to lack evidence for his interpretation of the massacre (318). Her view of the atrocities followed that provided in Barbara Diefendorf's Beneath the Cross (1991). It should be noted that it was Diefendorf who shepherded Roelker's One King, One Faith through the press, and that her own earlier book had appeared so soon after Crouzet's Les Gtierriers de Diett that she could not incorporate its findings in her own work, although she added a note expressing great admiration for Crouzet's achievement (Beneath the Cross, 182, n. 10). The explanation offered by Crouzet, Diefendorf, and Roelker denied any Guisard coup against the monar- chy. The Huguenot nobles reacted so strongly to the failed assassination attempt against their leader, Gaspard de Coligny, that the king panicked and accepted the advice of certain members of the royal council to authorize a preemptive strike against the Protestant elite. In this scenario Crouzet stressed the murderous hysteria of the Parisian populace, and the way in which contemporaries had later reconstructed events to bequeath dubious and contra- dictory accounts to posterity. For Diefendorf the main issue was to deny the involvement of the high bourgeois officeholders. The city fathers had been inactive, and the magistrates had temporized.

In her new essay Diefendorf reinforces her earlier interpretation and extends her criti- cism of Bourgeon. His assumption that the parlement went on strike in protest against the royal policy of religious reconciliation is disproved by a newly found document showing that at this time the high court's registers were closed because it was moving back into the Palais de Justice after occupying temporary quarters in the Augustins. The magistrates did register the king's subsequent declaration that he had ordered the killing, but they were concerned about an action that superseded proper legal process against the alleged Hugue- not plotters. Moreover, some judges had actually protected Huguenots during the massacre. The city councillors did not conspire with Guise against the king. Claude Marcel, a former mayor of Paris, was not a fanatical Guisard follower, but a client of Catherine de Medicis. The city officers were unable to control the militia, and even the radical ultra-Catholic group in the militia would not have particpated in the massacre without believing that they were commanded to do so by the king. The main concern of both city officers and magis- trates was to restore order, and it is inconceivable that they could have been part of a planned revolt. Here Diefendorf's assessment of the mentality of the high bourgeoisie fits Crouzet's rubric.

From blood to tears: Le Person points out that weeping at public ceremonies was a frequent device in sixteenth-century France, and that textbooks of rhetoric prescribed when and where it could be effective. Henri III, who took an interest in rhetoric, had wept at the 1576 estates general, when he declared himself head of the Holy League. He had done it again at an artificial reconciliation with Henri de Guise on 13 July 1585-five days before he appeared in the parlement for the registration of the edict of Nemours. The issue confionting Le Person is whether the king's lachrymose display on 18 July was prompted by artifice or sincerity. Using little-known documents, Le Person analyzes the king's speech in terms of its rhetorical parts, and decides that the tears were not manifest at the expected

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.118 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:43:35 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Book Reviews 195

points. He concludes that Henri III evidenced a genuine compassion, and, at the same time, sought to counter the image of weakness and hypocrisy created by leaguer propa- ganda. His purpose, in short, was to give notice of his intent to reestablish royal authority.

From tears to favor: Historians have tended to discuss theValois court in terms of cul- ture rather than institutional government. Le Roux demonstrates that under Henri III the royal household became for a time the center of political power. He divides the second half of the sixteenth century into three: (1) the reigns of Henri II and Charles IX, when royal favorites were used to create balance and concord; (2) the heyday of Henri III's so-called mignons (1574-80), when the king showered favors on an entirely new entourage of young courtiers who were mostly the sons of the noblesse seconde (i.e. the provincial elite below the magnates, including baillis/senechaux and town governors), and used them and their local clients to short-circuit the patronage systems of the magnates; and (3) the years 1581 to 1598, when the new system was engulfed in crisis. In the second phase, when the number of household appointments doubled, the mignons replaced the high officers round the throne and became significant instruments of government. Their intimate bonds with their royal patron provided an elaborate form of king-worship as well as a convenient screen be- tween monarch and subject. Eventually the two archimignons, the Dukes of Epernon and Joyeuse, attained high office outside the household, and proved ineffective against the more traditional magnates in the troubles of the League. Le Roux's paper offers a fresh approach to the mignons, and those interested in the sociopolitical aspects of theValois court will look forward to its illustration in greater detail.

From favors to the law: Christophe de Thou was in many ways the model of Nancy Roelker's loyal and Catholic parlementaire. He disapproved of the recognition of two reli- gions within the state, but he was also a conciliator who persuaded his less flexible col- leagues to accept royal edicts of pacification and toleration. While he had personal ties to the Guise, the Montmorency and the future Henri III, he opposed the power assumed by the factions of the magnates. Nor did he fail to defend the rights of the magistrates to safe- guard Gallican Catholicism against Rome and to criticize and remonstrate against royal or- dinances. One of his most telling remarks was that some edicts were like spiders' webs that restrained the lowly but were brushed aside by the great. He was appalled by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, but on behalf of the parlement endorsed the king's declaration of re- sponsibility. Much of Daubresse's revealing essay is based upon Charles IX's correspondence with De Thou, not only in the latter's role as premier president of the parlement, but also in his capacity as a member of the Paris city council.

From the law to the sword: Brian Sandberg refers to a chapter on the rituals of revolt in Arlette Jouanna's Le Devoir de revolte: La noblessefranfaise et la gestation de l'Etat moderne 1559-1661 (1989). His own study of the way the nobles of the southwest justified their role in the civil wars under Louis XIII is an example of such a ritual.The parlements of the time indicted rebellious nobles for treason, perfidy, disloyalty, and the like. Sandberg distin- guishes four ways in which nobles denied such accusations: they claimed that their oppo- nents were the real rebels; that they themselves had taken arms to prevent disorder; that, in the case of Protestants, they were defending their religious rights; or that they were loyal to a king whose authority was misused by others. The last of these defenses is probably the most important, and echoed a frequent justification for resistance in the religious wars of the previous century. The more radical arguments from that era about the duty of opposing a tyrant were still remembered but were not to be found in the declarations of nobles seek- ing to avoid the reproach of revolt against the crown. In fact personal vendettas and the

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.118 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:43:35 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

196 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXII/1 (2001)

clash of rival patronage networks often provided the real motives. For its part, the govern- ment denounced specious professions of loyalty as a cover for sedition. Sandberg argues that the rhetorical strategies of rebel nobles constituted a veritable culture of revolt.

The first of this diverse set of essays has been treated at greater length here because of its contribution to a historical debate of general interest, but all of them express stimulating viewpoints and reflect the brilliant revisionism of their organizer. J. H. M. Salmon, Emeritus ........ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bryn Mawr College

Giulio Romano, Master Designer. Ed. Janet Cox-Rearick. NewYork: Hunter College of the City of NewYork, 1999. 168 pp. + 47 plates and 98 b/w illus. $40.00. ISBN 188599821X. This exhibition, produced in conjunction with the quincentenary of the birth of

Giulio Romano, provided a unique opportunity to study his drawings from North Ameri- can public and private collections. The Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery facilitates a close working relationship with the teaching program in art history at Hunter College. Thus the exhibition catalogue, produced under the leadership of Janet Cox-Rearick, en- abled six graduate students to prepare essays and catalogue entries related to Giulio's oeutvre. The exhibition's purposes are to provide examples of Giulio's superb draftsmanship, to rep- resent different phases of his career, to show the wide range of his artistic endeavors, and to clarify his workshop practices. In addition to the thirty-six drawings chosen from North American public and private collections, the exhibit included three prints after lost draw- ings, and eight drawings selected from European collections.

In the introductory essay "Giulio Romano, Master Designer," Janet Cox-Rearick em- phasizes Giulio's virtuoso abilities as a draftsman and designer. Her discussion of his work is strongly linked to commentaries and insights provided byVasari, Aretino, and Armenini. Al- though the essay does summarize the substantial body of scholarship on the artist, its pri- mary focus is to explore the inventive capacities of an artist deeply versed in the study of classical antiquity. Her discussion sets the stage for the chronological study of his work.

The artist's opportunity to enter the service of Federico II Gonzaga in 1524 was stim- ulated by his role as Raphael's heir. According to Cox-Rearick, he shared his patron's so- phisticated taste and passion for antiquity. Giulio's role in designing the Palazzo Te and its interiors required preliminary drawings for the approval of his patron. The discussion of the shifts this created in Giulio's artistic output and drawing style is one of the most interesting essay segments.The artist's letters requesting approval from the duke are fascinating insights into the versatility that was demanded of him; they include references to designs for a mar- ble tomb for a favorite dog as well as festive decorations for the duke's marriage.Vasari noted in particular how Giulio was able to immediately set down a concetto or idea from his patron's words. Cox-Rearick associates this shift toward invention through preparatory drawings with the artist's master Raphael. For Giulio, however, these stages were abbrevi- ated since he was simultaneously involved in so many projects such as frescoes, easel paint- ings, and the decorative arts as well as architecture.

One of the exhibition's highlights is its illustration of Giulio's strategies to lighten his involvement. In some instances he sketched half a design, allowing his associate to visualize the missing mirror image. In other cases, his design might include alternative details for how a cassone or chest might be finished so that his patron could indicate a preference. He also used transfer techniques enabling him to reproduce drawings with the assistance of a stylus and the blackened back of a drawing. A drawing could be copied on a firesh sheet and

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.118 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:43:35 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions