The Politics of Promiscuity: Masculinity and Heroic Representation at the Court of Henry IV

The "Vert Galant" whose sexual exploits contrasted sharply with his immediate predecessor's sexual incompetence and the "Hercule Gaulois" who labored tirelessly to restore his war-ravaged kingdom: Henry IV embraced both figures as aspects of his image. Yet this very duality has obscured the intimate connection between the two images in the representational practices of the Bourbon monarchy. While Henry understood the political value of courtship (if one is being polite) or womanizing (if one is not), many of his contemporaries worried that the king would sacrifice the fragile political and religious recovery by indulging his sexual desires. Indeed, despite the heroic labors associated with Henry as the Gallic Hercules, his subjects often saw the king as dangerously out of control sexually. The obvious effects of concerns about dynastic succession aside, historians have tended to overlook the complexities of representation created by the complex dialogue about Henry's sexual behavior to which the king, the court, and the populace all contributed. ¹

Images are crucial in this story as both markers and makers of gender and sexual anxiety. However, because so little is known about the specific genesis of particular images in the early modern period, historians are often deeply uncomfortable making claims about the relationship of events to images. ² Roger Chartier, for instance, in his analysis of Louis Marin's understanding of seventeenth-century representation, expresses concern about the lack of certainty with respect to the impact of images on contemporary readers. ³ On the other hand, as Harry Berger, Jr., has pointed out, images can provide a great deal of information about the tensions embedded in their production. Portraits, Berger argues, fabricate poses that are self-presentations designed to appeal to accepted notions of personal identity. The pose and performance, however, often render the self-presentation problematic: "[A referential gesture] . . . always makes and always breaks the promise of reference." ⁴ Berger's intervention suggests that intertextual reading of images, which posits that a counter-image is always implicit in the construction of an image, can allow for recuperation of the dynamics that shaped image production. ⁵

In the case of Henry IV, the parameters of our knowledge of the general historical circumstances facilitate understanding the dynamics in play. We know that Henry was aware of and interested in persuading his subjects of his legitimacy as a king and a Catholic. We also know that Henry was acutely concerned about his dynastic future. We know, moreover, that Henry was actively interested in the development of new modes of visual presentation. ⁶ What I am going to explore in the study that follows is how Henry IV's marital and reproductive entanglements became integral elements in the iconography of his kingship. In this story, events—some highly staged and others seemingly more spontaneous—were designed to forestall or respond to criticism about the king's behavior. Images, often commemorative and adulatory in tone, were created after the events, but often included aspects critical of the king. Because of the tensions they recorded, the images did not simply reflect the stresses of the moment; they often added to them. The shifting strategies within the imagery and the development of techniques to diffuse criticism of the king then furthered the dialogue between image and event.

Henry and his artists had a particularly difficult job in this conversation because they needed to be coherent with notions of the relationship between authority and masculinity. Rather than strictly binary formulations that posited femininity as simply passive, sixteenth-century writers saw gender performance on a spectrum. Activity and martial prowess defined masculinity, but female desire could overwhelm male fortitude and enervate or effeminize even virile men. Indulging in sexual pleasure could lead to impotence and debilitating exhaustion. ⁷ To avoid losing masculine authority, a man had to maintain self-control. Contemporaries believed both military prowess and...