ABSTRACT
When Louis XIII of France was born in 1601, a crowd of people pushed their way into the delivery room to see the new heir to the throne, causing the midwife to express concern at the number of people surrounding the baby.1 Henri IV snapped at the woman, “Shut up, shut up, Midwife! Don’t worry about it! That child belongs to everybody: everyone must enjoy him!”2 Louis would state at 13 years old that he never really had a childhood, claiming that “it is not with kings as with ordinary men, but they are born complete-nurtured, reared, educated, and accomplished.”3 Yet the journals of his doctor, Jean Héroard, belie Louis’s claim to have been a ready-made, socialized adult, showing a child who at a tender age threatened to kill his governess and, while practicing his letters, doodled a pigeon, a bird of paradise, and a swan.4 Héroard documented how the many stages of the boy’s childhood held the court’s fascination. As the boy’s father said they would, everybody at court enjoyed him, observing with great interest his nursing problems, precocious sexuality, games, and toilet training. Héroard treated him in accordance with paediatric and child-rearing manuals of the time, from ordering that the newborn be given a bit of wine for stimulation, to his criteria for selecting the boy’s nurse, to deciding when he should begin to punish the prince physically.
