Atheism

Atheism is the identity attached to Lucien de Chrétien and a recurring point of tension in the religious and political life of Louis XIV’s court. The novel does not set out a systematic doctrine for it. Instead, it makes the position legible through Lucien’s conduct: he questions religious objects and inherited accounts, refuses to disguise his skepticism with deference, and argues that claims about the sea people must be tested through evidence. At the same time, his private recognition that atheism is safer than Protestantism reveals how belief and unbelief carry sharply unequal risks under royal power.

Identity and Courtly Perception

Madame identifies Lucien not as a Protestant but as an atheist, distinguishing his position from the religious dissent that the court is trying to suppress. Her remark comes amid a discussion of his attractions and shortcomings, but she singles out his religion as the more consequential matter. Marie-Josèphe is startled by the claim, expecting that Madame will reveal it as a joke; instead, the label is presented as an established fact about the King’s adviser.

That public knowledge sits uneasily beside Lucien’s title. The Marquise de Maintenon never addresses him by it, and the narrator notes the irony that people readily apply Count de Chrétien to an atheist. His standing at court therefore does not erase the friction between his social position and the religious identity others attach to him. Nor does that friction make him openly hostile in every encounter. He takes pride in addressing the Marquise de Maintenon in a friendly, respectful manner, resisting opportunities to turn his wit against her even when she provokes him. His skepticism is not presented as a simple refusal of civility.

Religious Stories and the Record of the Past

Lucien’s response to the Marquise de Maintenon’s embroidery gives his skepticism a concrete form. The work depicts torture and execution as a warning against heresy and disobedience; she explains that her pupils at Saint-Cyr are to consider the consequences while stitching it. Lucien identifies the figures as free-thinkers, libertines, and dangerous heretics, but he challenges the story the embroidery tells about Éon de l’Étoile. When the Marquise insists that Éon must have been burned, Lucien corrects her: the Church imprisoned him, and he died; his followers were burned, but he was not.

The disagreement is not merely about a detail in an image. The embroidery turns punishment into a moral lesson, while Lucien separates what happened to the leader from what happened to his followers. The Marquise does not accept the correction as a reason to change her judgment; she says that Éon should have been burned regardless. The scene thus places Lucien’s attention to the historical record against a religious narrative that values exemplary condemnation over accuracy. His challenge is precise rather than a broad denunciation: he contests the claim that the image makes about a particular person and his fate.

Objects, Authority, and Political Risk

Lucien’s skepticism also appears when Louis XIV receives a domed cylinder containing a relic from Pope Innocent. He dismisses the relic as something the Pope had no use for and Louis XIV did not need, including its cage, and wonders at the idea of a body dismembered and enclosed piece by piece in supposed magical amulets. Louis XIV answers with amusement and gently checks Lucien’s atheistic wit, saying that the Pope has made peace with him and that he will assume the gift is not an insult. The exchange leaves Lucien’s skepticism audible within the council, but Louis XIV’s response makes clear that it is tolerated in a setting where royal diplomacy matters.

The sharper danger emerges in the discussion of troops being quartered among Protestants. Louis XIV signs the orders to extend the policy. Lucien has already argued against it, but believes that nothing he can now say will change the King’s mind. In his view, the measures meant to force conversion have brought disaster and treason and enriched undeserving men; he also believes that the King’s intolerance prevents him from seeing the damage done to France and to his own rule. Lucien privately concludes that atheism is easier and less dangerous: the troops have no permission to quarter in his house, loot it, or abuse his household. His comparison is not a claim that atheists face no constraints. It shows that, under these particular orders, Protestant identity exposes people to a form of state intrusion from which Lucien considers himself exempt.

Proof, Inquiry, and the Sea People

Lucien’s defense of inquiry becomes especially important when Marie-Josèphe argues that the sea monster is more than an animal. At the Academy demonstration, a senior scholar mocks her as having mistaken the creature for a fish, and Yves objects to her intervention. Marie-Josèphe answers in Latin that the sea people possess an anomalous lung lobe. This exchange exposes how readily her testimony is dismissed, but it does not itself establish that the creature is human or understands her.

Later, when Louis XIV considers Marie-Josèphe’s claim, Lucien asks him to consider whether she might be right. He acknowledges that she has proved the sea monster understands her, while Louis XIV counters that this is no more decisive than the possibility that his cat understands him. Lucien then distinguishes between evidence of understanding and the further question of language: what remains to be proved, he argues, is whether the creature speaks a human language and is therefore not merely a creature. He asks Louis XIV to let Marie-Josèphe demonstrate her claim, grounding the appeal in the demands of science for proof.

The novel consequently links Lucien’s atheism with resistance to treating inherited religious or social classifications as sufficient evidence, without claiming that disbelief alone explains his position. His argument does not ask the court to accept Marie-Josèphe’s conclusion on trust; it asks that her claim be tested. In that respect, atheism marks not only a private religious identity but also Lucien’s place in a court where royal authority, Church teaching, and scientific inquiry compete to decide what may count as truth.