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of dissolution and Henri went on the offensive against Spain. In La conscience nationale en France pendant les guerres de religion, Myriam YardeniYardeni, Myriam painstakingly shows how Catholicity, indeed, religion itself, lost its privileged position as the unifying thread of the nationnational tapestry. The royal odes reflect this development, exhibiting a stance in diametrical opposition to LeagueLeaguer propagandists who subordinated the French state to the Catholic faith and would have preferred the dissolution of the monarchypolitymonarchy to religious plurality—going so far as to strip the HuguenotsHuguenots of their nationnational identity by treating them as foreigners. In a way similar to what one finds in ProtestantProtestant tracts predating Henri’s accession to the throne, the royal odes decouple religion and nationnation, while the implicit freedom of conscience that they grant to the ProtestantProtestant minority presupposes the arguments for tolerance staked out early on in the conflict by royalist Politiques concerned with national unitynationnational unity. Patriotismpatriotism, that is, one’s commitment and service pro rege et patriapro rege et patria, subordinating one’s private and partisan interest to the collective good, is henceforth to constitute the unifying thread of the nationnation. Malherbe has equally harsh words for ProtestantProtestants and Catholics whenever powerful nobles from either group revolt against the new regime. Similar to royalist pamphlet propaganda from the 1590s, the royal odes treat all political adversaries as traitors, bad Frenchmen, and propose instead that the nationnation prefer the legitimate monarch and choose the public goodcommonwealthpublic good. The same gamut of patriotic feelingpatriotismpatriotic feeling, fervor, sentiments, or national sentimentnationnational sentiment, which burst forth in the 1590s, animates the odes: wonderwonder, pride and gratitude inspired by the monarch; hatred, fear, and indignation directed at the rebels; joy, hope, and emulation shared by all good Frenchmen. If such patriotismpatriotism is always mediated by loyalty to the monarch, this is certainly because the monarchy is the only remaining symbol of national unitynationnational unity, but also because the Bourbons have demonstrably, or so Malherbe contends, put the general welfarecommonwealthgeneral welfare of the nationnation ahead of every other consideration, thereby proving that they deserve to rule. Working from ideological assumptions that emerged only toward the end of the Wars of ReligionWars of Religion, the royal odes propose to complete what has been only imperfectly accomplished.

      What is noteworthy, moreover, about their subordination of religion to the state is that the monarch and the patrienationla patrie [nationnation] occupy a transcendent position usually reserved for divine things eliciting love, joy, awe, and reverence. The Wars of ReligionWars of Religion disrupted the coincidence of two separate obligations, rex [king] and patrianationpatria [fatherland; nationnation; country], and the odes attempt to make them coincide once again, with the difference that the Church is henceforth subordinate to patrianationpatria. In KantorowiczKantorowicz, Ernst H.’s terms, amor patriae [love for the nationnation] has not simply been set against the corpus mysticum [mystical bodymystical body (of the king)] of the Church, but raised above it. The king’s virtuevirtue, so superlative as to be quasi-divine, should be seen as a reflection of the nationnation, that is, collective qualities inflected through this particular individual. To say that the king is the embodiment of the nationnation is to point to the king’s two bodies, the one collective (the body politicbody politic) and the other personal (the physical body). But it is this latter that serves as the concrete, sensuous representation of what cannot be otherwise directly perceived. The obscure forces operating behind the opportune arrival of this savior of the nationnation at this juncture in history, as well as behind the king’s extraordinary feat of turning back the tides of destruction that threatened to engulf the nationnation, are causes that one cannot fathom—although they go by various names in the odes: Dieu [God], le grand démon de France [the great daemondaemon of France], les destins [destiny]—and they constitute the imperceptible grounds of wonderwonder. Because the king’s will is the expression of the divine will, his person mediates the special relationship that allegedly exists between God and the French nationnation. As Christ is where God and humanity intersect, so the king is where transcendent forces and the French nationnation meet. The odes’ patriotismpatriotism is not a religion, but their God is a nationnational God. Only in the case of Marie de Médicis does the image of the French monarch begin to approach something like a world redeemer. Numinous feelings of awe, reverence, hope, and fear projected onto the monarch reflect back on the patrienationla patrie [nationnation]. Thus the patriotismpatriotism of the odes and their project of sacralization are related: sacralization demobilizes resistance to the new dynasty even as it elevates the monarch as the pattern of amor patriae [love of country], the proper affective commitment to the public goodcommonwealthpublic good. Such a model is charged with powerful emotionemotions but also redirects them toward the nationnation.

      Instrumental to this affective reorientation is the overarching myth that unifies the sequence of royal odes. The grand tableau that must be inferred from their classical and biblical exampleexamples and imagery is a subtle but powerful source of the civic unity which the odes seek to instill. Malherbe’s recourse to the classical commonplace of the ship of stateship of state to unify his poetic sequence and to model the new unity of the nationnation distances the royal odes from the neo-Stoicstoicism political ideology which was the “philosophico-ethical union at the root of the union between the HuguenotsHuguenots and the politicians for the defense of the state” (Crouzet 84). The odes share with royalist pamphlets the intention to integrate the new dynasty into the “mystico-prophetic legend of the French monarchy” (Crouzet 90), but the royalists’ “temporal messianism” (Crouzet 93) differs from Malherbe’s in significant ways. Such royalist pamphlets as Declaration du Roy de Navarre sur les calomnies publiées contre luy (1585), Panegyric Au très chrestien Henry IIII (1590), or Le Labyrinthe de l’Hercule gaulois triomphant (1601) depict Henri IV as a Christ-like stoicstoicism HerculesHercules whose reign is founded on “eternal Reason” (Crouzet 93), that is, “a historical necessity dictated by the order of the universe” (Crouzet 90), “a cosmic force acting through the royal figure” (Crouzet 90). Malherbe’s royal odes also acknowledge the special relationship that must exist between God and Henri given the miraculous arrival of this leader to perpetuate the providential history of France, but they underscore Henri’s virtuevirtue more, assign human actions more credit for victory or defeat, and so portray Henri rather as a classical hero whose magnanimitymagnanimity is virtuegreatness of soulmagnanimityso great as to make him a demi-god. The relationship of husband and wife (“one flesh”), and then of father and son (“one blood”), promote Marie and Louis to the level of co-equals. If the Bourbons are the captains and/or pilots of the ship of stateship of state, then their subjects are the crew, and all have embarked on a political adventurehero cycleadventure to quest cyclehero cyclerestore quest epichero cyclepeace, justicevirtuejustice and prosperity at home while returning France to imperial greatness abroad. The odes thank God for Henri, see his leadership as indispensable to the general welfarecommonwealthgeneral welfare and thus advocate for his unconditional acceptance by all good Frenchmen, but they also call for civic engagement by subjects of the new nationnation according to the portion of virtuevirtue allotted to each.

      While the accentuation of this nationnational myth is somewhat more secular, it is no less deeply spiritual. This is not simply because the odes endow the monarch and the nationnation with numinous feelings. Rather, the quest-like structure of the political adventurehero cycleadventure recalls the “hero cyclehero cycle” of Joseph CampbellCampbell, Joseph’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the pattern of departure-trial-return that underlies stories of adventurehero cycleadventure and/or spiritual illumination and describes the process of spiritual rebirth, whether personal, societal, or cosmic. “The hero is symbolical,” writes Campbell, “of that divine creative and redemptive image which is hidden within us all” (CampbellCampbell, Joseph 31). The royal odes’ portrayal of the Bourbons as mythical heroes, and the representation of the nationnation’s rebirth as the return of the Golden AgeGolden Age, attest to the nationnational myth’s spiritual objective, namely to move French subjects with love for monarch and nationnation. Such a universal change would be the nationnational rebirth which the odes herald, and it has two aspects. On the one hand, the hero saves the nationnation by action and exampleexample: the loyalty and service to the patrienationla patrie exhibited by the monarch models the same commitment

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