Celebrations of the Jesuit College of Paris for the Birth of Louis XIV (1638)

Etude des célébrations organisées par le collège jésuite de Paris à l'occasion de la naissance de Louis XIV, sur base de compte-rendus et de poèmes décrivant l'événement

(eng) I will first propose a reconstruction of the practical aspects of the multimedia festival (combining theater, music, dance, firework…) that was organized by the Collège de Clermont on 7 September 1638, only two days after the birth of Louis XIV. To this aim, several sources are available, including Jesuit and non-Jesuit reports of the event. I will then explore the potentialities of meaning linked to the allegorical figures that were staged on that occasion by confronting them to the contemporary genethliac production (poems and speeches, mainly in Latin, celebrating the birth of the French Dauphin – some of them stemming from the same Jesuit Parisian College).