CLAUDE LEFORTof suffering alone, that man becomes like God, identifies with Christ, and shuffles off his
mortal coil. At this point, love values the king above life itself. And it is through the
double operation of sacrifice and pleasure [jouissance] that the king’s subjects experience
rapture. Love both nourishes their life and justifies their death. It is the image of the
natural body, the image of a God made flesh, the image of his marriage, his paternity, his
liaisons, his festivals, his amusements, and his feasts, but also the image of his weaknesses
or even his cruelties, in short, all the images of his humanity, that people their imaginary,
that assure them that the king and the people are conjoined. A carnal union is established
between the great individual and his mass of servants, from the lowliest to the most
important, and it is indissociable from the mystical union between king and kingdom.
According to theology and the jurists, the immortal king possesses the gift of clairvoyance
as well as that of ubiquity, but, at the same time and even as he escapes the gaze of his
subjects, he has the gift of attracting the gaze of all, of concentrating upon himself the
absolute visibility of man-as-being: since he is a unique focal point, he abolishes differ-
ences between points of view and ensures that all merge in the One.
Michelet’s extreme sensitivity to the enigma of the monarchical incarnation and of
the role it gives to the natural body within the supernatural body is particularly evident
in his analysis of the condemnation of Louis XVI. We will examine only those elements
that are relevant to our purposes. The question of whether or not the trial should have
taken place is not an issue for Michelet. It is obvious that it should have taken place. It
had a double utility. On the one hand, it restored royalty to its rightful place—’’within
the people’’—by making the people a judge; on the other, ‘‘it brought out into the light
that ridiculous mystery which a barbarian humanity had for so long turned into a religion:
the mystery of the monarchical incarnation, the bizarre fiction that the wisdom of the
people is concentrated in an imbecile.’’ Given that royalty was embodied in a man, the
problem was to establish how the evil could be excised so as to destroy the incarnation
and so as to prevent any man from ever becoming a king. The historian gives his answer
immediately, and then supports it with numerous arguments. ‘‘Royalty had to be dragged
into the broad light of day and exposed on all sides; and it had to be opened up to reveal
what was inside the worm-eaten idol, to reveal the insects and worms inside the beautiful
golden head. Royalty and the king had to be condemned usefully, judged, and placed
under the blade. Did the blade have to fall? That is another question. When he merged
with the dead institution, the king was no more than a head made of wood, empty,
hollow, no more than a thing. If, when that head was struck, even a single drop of blood
flowed, that was proof of life; people began to believe once more that it was a living head;
royalty had come back to life’’ (book 9).
This penetrating analysis can be reformulated as follows: men regard royalty as a
condensation of immortal life, and that life takes the form of a living man: the king. It
has to be demonstrated that the symbol of life is the product of an illusion; belief has to
be rooted out; and the idol has to be shown to be an idol. In short, the inner shadows of
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