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Louis XIII was born September 27, 1601, to Henry IV, King of France, and Marie de Medici of Italian nobility. Henry was a powerful man, a warrior, an athlete, a hunter, a man with a prodigious appetite for life, including a voracious sexuality. He was an admired and beloved king, difficult footsteps for any child to
follow. Marie was just the opposite, described as being “stout, stiff, stubborn and proud” (p. 8). Her Italian heritage fostered political necessity, but did very little to make her feel comfortable or at ease in the French court. Both played major roles in the development of the young dauphin. A third figure, Jean Heroard, was to play a most prominent role in the life of Louis, and in this most fascinating work by Elizabeth Wirth Marvick.
Jean Heroard, an ambitious and powerful man in his own right, was appointed by Henry to be the personal physician to the heir to the throne. Heroard took his appointment very seriously, and as a result became more than physician, but teacher, advisor, confidant, and perhaps most important, chronicler. The doctor kept a very detailed and continuous personal history of the growth and development of Louis XIII from birth until age 26. It is this in-depth history of Louis XIII that provides the material for the understanding of this most complex figure in French history.
Elizabeth Wirth Marvick is a visiting lecturer in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. She began research on Louis XIII: The Making of a King in 1965. Drawing on her knowledge of development via Freud, Winnicott, Greenacre, Spitz, and Mahler, she describes the psychodynamics of Louis XIII utilizing the report of Jean Heroard. The early years are explored in exquisite detail, focusing on such issues as separation–individuation (Louis had a wet nurse until nearly three years old), toilet training, sexuality (as the heir to the throne he must produce the next king), and identification with and fear of father. The latter part of the