Louis XIV’s Attitude to the Chinese Rites Controversy

Although Louis XIV’s sponsorship of a French Jesuit presence in China is well known, his attitude to the major dispute over the Chinese rites which engulfed the mission has been barely explored. This article shows that, as the Chinese Rites Controversy reached its peak in Paris and Rome in the years around 1700, Louis XIV’s response was surprisingly inconsistent, reflecting the fact that the two groups of missionaries whose work in east Asia he had supported – the Missions étrangères de Paris (MEP) and the French Jesuits – were pitted against one another. Furthermore, the king’s somewhat contradictory interventions were due to the opposing directions in which his chief advisers on ecclesiastical matters pushed him: his confessor La Chaise towards support of the Jesuits, and his wife Madame de Maintenon and Archbishop Noailles of Paris towards helping the MEP. In the end, Louis decided not to wield his influence in Rome in favour of one side or the other, but to leave the decision to the Holy See while prohibiting publication on the ‘Chinese affair’ in France. In doing so, the article offers an exploration of ecclesiastical policy in the making under the Sun King.