Rome

Rome functions less as a directly depicted setting than as the political and religious authority embodied by the Roman Catholic Church. Its importance emerges at Versailles, where Louis XIV and Pope Innocent publicly reconcile, making the relationship with Rome a matter of ceremony, diplomacy, and religious policy.

Rome as Diplomatic Power

The reconciliation carries the weight of an earlier contest over precedence. Louis XIV had compelled Rome’s representatives to yield precedence to French representatives, and the history of papal humiliation made the new meeting politically delicate. Yet he did not require the elderly Pope to approach on foot: he allowed the papal carriage to reach the chateau entrance, judging that diplomatic restraint mattered to preserving the treaty. The accommodation did not erase the hierarchy at court—the Swiss Guards still walked—but it showed the King managing ceremony in service of an alliance.

The Public Alliance

Before the assembled courtiers, Louis XIV welcomed Pope Innocent as a cousin and acknowledged the sorrow caused by their estrangement. Pope Innocent rejoiced in the reconciliation of France with Rome and in their alliance. Louis XIV then presented that alliance as a joint campaign against Protestantism, promising to eradicate its heresy from France, Europe, and the world. Rome’s significance in this scene is therefore not merely ceremonial: reconciliation gives the King’s religious policy the public appearance of shared purpose with the papacy.

The Relic and Its Reception

The Pope’s gift makes the alliance tangible. A bishop brought forward a gold reliquary encrusted with pearls and diamonds, containing a bone or piece of flesh from a saint’s preserved body, intended to remain in France. Pope Innocent raised the domed vessel to his lips before handing it to Louis XIV, who passed it to Lucien de Barenton, Count de Chrétien; the count then gave it to François de la Chaise. Pope Innocent briefly frowned at the count’s seemingly casual handling, while Marie-Josèphe judged that the relic deserved a golden altar or at least a velvet cushion. The exchange contrasts the sacred value attached to Rome’s gift with the court’s own chain of custody, showing how religious authority enters the French court through objects as well as political declarations.