“God Reigning through You, Reigns with You”: The Charenton Controversy and the Development of Royal Authority in Early Bourbon France

During the years of 1617–20, a little-known polemical debate raged between the Protestant ministers, led by Pierre du Moulin, in the town of Charenton, just outside of Paris, and the Jesuit Jean Arnoux, confessor to Louis XIII. Marked by the crisis of Henry IV’s assassination in 1610 and the revolt of the princes against the regency government of Marie de’ Medici, the first decades of the seventeenth century witnessed an intense debate over the nature of royal authority. The author argues that the Charenton Controversy, influenced by the ideological clashes that occurred during the Estates-General, demonstrates that the ambiguous notions of royal authority were beginning to take concrete form.