Jean-Baptiste Fagon

Jean-Baptiste Fagon is the physician called to care for Marie-Josèphe de la Croix after she suffers a shock at court. His brief appearances show the authority of court medicine at work—and expose its limits when Lucien de Barenton, Count de Chrétien, challenges Fagon to respect Marie-Josèphe’s refusal of further treatment.

Identity and Role

At Louis XIV’s order, Lucien is to arrange for Fagon to attend Marie-Josèphe. The king remains calm as he forbids the creature’s butchering for that day and turns to her immediate care. Fagon’s presence thus places him within the royal response to the crisis, though the evidence gives little detail about his duties beyond treating Marie-Josèphe.

Diagnosis and Proposed Treatment

When Fagon examines Marie-Josèphe, he calls her pallid and hysterical and peers into her eyes as he asks what happened. Later, he attributes her breakdown to the unwomanly tasks she has undertaken. On that basis, he says he has planned an extensive course of bloodletting, treating her condition through a familiar medical intervention rather than accepting her own assessment that she is well.

Conflict Over Her Wishes

Lucien rejects the proposed treatment and tells Fagon that no more blood is to be taken from Marie-Josèphe. When Fagon challenges whether Lucien is instructing him in his profession, Lucien answers that he is conveying her wish for no further treatment and requiring Fagon to respect it. The exchange sets professional authority against the patient’s stated wishes: Fagon asserts his standing as a physician, while Lucien makes Marie-Josèphe’s refusal the decisive consideration. The scene establishes the limit placed on Fagon’s authority, though it does not show what treatment, if any, follows.