I’m now twelve pages into reading Louis XIII: The Making of a King, by Elizabeth Marvick. It’s part of my research for the next book. The fellow in the picture is Jean Héroard, the personal physician to the infant prince. I can’t say that I’m warming to Monsieur Héroard. One day after Louis was born, the physician decided that he wasn’t suckling properly, and called in a surgeon to cut in three places the membranes at the base of the baby’s tongue. Apparently this was a common practice at the time. Marvick states that recent research suggests that flooding the neonatal sensory system with such a stimulus is likely to be a setback to normal development. That seems to be putting it mildly.
Héroard closely supervised the wet-nursing, and interfered in the process, causing the nurse considerable anxiety, which must have been disturbing for the future king. He also took control of the baby’s excretory functions. On Louis’s tenth day he decided to administer a suppository, and continued to do so habitually, making it impossible for Louis to develop a sense of control over this bodily function. I shall quote Marvick here, because she puts this delicate point so beautifully. “Héroard’s control through the rectum not only prevented the baby from gaining a sense of power over his own internal process; it probably also helped determine the importance of the anal zone as a later focus for the prince’s relationship to the outside world.”
I suppose I can’t blame Héroard completely for Louis’s difficult infancy. His mother, Marie de Medici, handed Louis over as soon as he was born, and didn’t embrace him again until he was six months old.
I’m wondering how to deal with these influences on Louis’s life in my fifth book. It is likely to begin in 1613 or 1614, by which time Louis will be twelve or thirteen. We know so much about Héroard and the young prince because Héroard kept detailed diaries. So I’m picturing another physician seeking advice on setting up a practice in Paris. If you’ve read Called to Account, I don’t need to tell you who that will be. A messenger will arrive and call Héroard away. The young doctor will browse through the diaries in Héroard’s study. An expression of horror crosses his face. I shall leave it there for now. My posts are to provide an insight into the development of book five, but without spoilers.