The French court of the 17th century saw a degree of splendour unprecedented in the history of civilization. Culture, the arts and distinction adorned a lifestyle aimed at refining every aspect of human existence.
Louis XIV, the great and incomparable Louis XIV, gathered around himself experts in a variety of arts and sciences, political and great military figures, as well as the highest nobility of the Île-de-France; together they made up a magnificent cadre of illustrious personalities – shining stars orbiting around the Sun King.
However, the end of this splendour was looming on the horizon. It had certainly been a fruit of the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ and one of the most beautiful aspects of the Christian Civilization that arose from it, but it was now no more than a mere veneer concealing a frivolous and dissolute nobility. Sooner or later, that decayed fruit would fall, despite its still-pleasing rind.
But the “Heart which has so loved men”1 was not indifferent to this demise. The Saviour’s greatest desire was to win the heart of Louis XIV, which would entail changing his life… and the life of an entire nation. In fact, France, the first-born daughter of the Church, still enjoyed divine favour. For this reason, a final heavenly appeal would invite her, through her monarch, to conversion.
The King of Heaven addresses the King of France
In June 1689, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque wrote a letter to her superior in which she recounted a supernatural message she had just received from the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was a communication to be given to Louis XIV.
The King of Heaven addressed the monarch in the following terms:
“Make it known to the firstborn of my Sacred Heart that, just as his temporal birth was obtained through devotion to the merits of my sacred infancy, so his birth into grace and eternal glory will be obtained by his consecration to my adorable Heart, which wants to triumph over his heart, and through it, over that of the great ones of the earth.
“It wants to reign in his palace, to be painted on his banners and engraved on his arms so that they may be victorious over all his enemies. It wants to cast down at his feet these proud and haughty heads, so that he may be triumphant over all the enemies of the Church.”2
To whom had the God-Man himself ever granted such a gift? What intimacy, what love and what promise! The road to the restoration of France had to begin in the soul of the king, a truly chosen and favoured man… the “firstborn” of the Heart of Jesus!
The “God-given” king
In His communication, Our Lord alludes to “two births” of King Louis XIV, each of which is closely linked to providential designs. Let us analyse them both.
After Louis XIII’s marriage to Anne of Austria in 1615, years went by without a dauphin being born in France, due to the queen’s sterility. In addition, Anne of Austria’s temperament, firm and impetuous, was not well suited to Louis XIII’s cold and timid habits, which made the conviviality between the two even more challenging.
However, on the night of November 3, 1637, an Augustinian friar named Fiacre, while praying in his cell in a Paris convent, was graced with a heavenly vision: the Blessed Virgin presented him with the child that God wanted to give to the crown of France. But for this grace to be achieved, the queen had to recite a novena in honour of Our Lady of Grace, whose image was venerated in the shrine of Cotignac.
And her prayers were answered: after twenty-three years of sterility, Anne of Austria gave birth to little Louis, who, because of his providential birth, was given the second name Dieudonné, that is, God-given.
On the road to conversion
His heavenly predilection had been manifested in his earthly birth. But the king still needed a second “birth”, “into grace and glory”, because the disastrous moral crisis that was raging at court had, unfortunately, a lamentable model in Louis XIV.
Disregarding his marriage commitments, the monarch had sunk into a dissolute life, unworthy of the august title of Most Christian King. His conduct sanctioned with the “royal seal” the similar follies of his noblemen.
However, the Sacred Heart of Jesus was preparing that chosen soul to receive His call with generosity. After the death of Queen Thérèse of Austria, the king contracted a second marriage in 1683 with Madame de Maintenon, a discreet lady with distinct religious qualities. This lady exerted a beneficial influence on the monarch, encouraged him to practise piety and helped him to put his moral life in order.
In fact, Madame de Maintenon’s great ambition was the king’s conversion, and to a good extent she succeeded in obtaining it, favouring her husband’s better dispositions so that he would hear and heed the heavenly call that would be addressed to him in just six years’ time.
The pivotal point that could have changed history
In a letter of August 1689 to her superior, St. Margaret Mary reiterated even more explicitly what she had written in June: the adorable Heart of Our Lord truly desires to “establish its empire in the court of our great monarch, whom it wishes to use to […] erect a building where the image of this Divine Heart will be exhibited, to receive in it the consecration and homage of the king and the whole court. Furthermore, this Divine Heart wants to be the protector and defender of his sacred person against all his visible and invisible enemies, from whom He wishes to defend him and by this means ensure his salvation.
“For this reason, He has chosen him as His faithful friend to obtain the authorization of the Holy Apostolic See to celebrate Mass in His honour, and to obtain the other privileges that will accompany this devotion to the Sacred Heart.”3
Small actions can have big consequences, especially when performed by souls with a high calling. What would have happened if the King of France had consecrated himself to the King of kings? Everything suggests that the reins of history would then have been passed over to the Dieudonné king, and that his handling of them would define the future of the West.
The consecration, however, did not take place. Why? The hypotheses are countless… We do not even know for certain that the message – which was supposed to be given to the king’s confessor, Fr. de la Chaise, and through him to the monarch – ever reached its destination.
In 1789, precisely a century after the divine appeal to France, the cries of the revolting mobs echoed through the streets of Paris and blood began to flow in abundance on French soil.
“Rouget and soldiers of the republic singing La Marseillaise”, by Henri Gervex – Museum of the French Revolution, Vizille (France)
It is true that Louis XVI, already a prisoner of the revolution, consecrated himself, his family and the entire French nation to the Heart of Jesus. But it was too late…
Could Louis XIV have averted the French Revolution? What direction would Christendom have taken? What kind of world would we live in today? These are questions whose answer will only be clear on the Day of Judgement… ◊
Notes
1 Words spoken by Our Lord to St. Margaret Mary in an apparition in June of 1675.
2 SAENZ DE TEJADA, SJ, José María. Vida y obras principales de Santa Margarita María de Alacoque. Madrid: Cor Jesu, 1977, p.242.
3 Idem, p.257.
