Les fonctions de la métaphore du mariage politique du roi et de la république en France, XVe-XVIIIe siècles

The Function of the Metaphor of the Political Marriage Between King and Republic in France from the 15th to the 17th Centuries. From the 15th to the 17th centuries theologico-political metaphors created kind of cosmography of the legitimate monarchy. Closely linked to the corporative fiction, the image of the king's political marriage with the Republic was borrowed from Lucas of Penna by French jurists (associated with the Parliament of Paris) towards the end of the 1470's (and not in 1527), and the ceremonial basis appears to have been even older. During the 16th century, the function of the marriage-metaphor was to modernize the ancient principal of the inalienability of the royal domain which became in 1566 a "fundamental law" complementing the statutory transmission (of power). It would nevertheless be grave error to see, in the development of these fictions, an archeology of constitutionalism. The opposed consequences, on the political level, of the organicist metaphor (absorbing the kingdom into the persona of the "boss") and of the corporative metaphor (posing the possibility of proper representation of the kingdom), lead back to questions of freedom of king and freedom of kingdom. The "State in right" of the Ancien Régime condemned both kings of freedom. This paradox, however, tended to resolve itself durint the enlightenment, when critical space was opened in politics by juridical discourse and ceremonial rituel, both of which had contributed, in an on-going competition to founding the normative order of theologico-political power.Descimon Robert. Les fonctions de la métaphore du mariage politique du roi et de la république en France, XVe-XVIIIe siècles. In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 47ᵉ année, N. 6, 1992. pp. 1127-1147