Louis XIV Loves Called Inferior
Viennese Psychologist Agrees With English Author That Complex Ruled King
By DOROTHY DUCAS
The mistresses of Louis XIV, those ladies about whom you used to oh and ah when you came to that portion of your history book, were unattractive damsels, the lowliest and least respected of the royal entourage, and the Sun-King chose them only to hide his own feeling of inferiority.
This is the modern version of the romantic tale of one of the gayest and wickedest courts in all history, a version written recently by an Englishman, Sisler Huddleston.
But behind that story is another man, a short, stocky man with pince nez glasses perched defiantly on a nose that quivers when its owner speaks; a man with a brightness in his eyes that holds attention; a man whose name is known all over the world wherever educated persons gather.
He is Dr. Alfred Adler, Viennese psychologist, now in this country. He has never met Sisley Huddleston, and he will read the book, "Louis XIV in Love and in War," for the first time on his voyage back to Europe starting May 31.
But were it not for this scientist, to whom Mr. Huddleston has dedicated his tome, the new material on Louis XIV of France could not have been written. For Dr. Adler discovered the inferiority complex.
Keynote to Character
"Do you agree with Mr. Huddleston that the inferiority complex of Louis XIV furnished the keynote to his character?" Dr. Adler was asked today, in his suite at the Gramercy Park Hotel.
Mr. Huddleston says the French King was most at home with women who were least like the grande dames of the court, therefore choosing as his mistresses the lame, the dull, the plain, the lowly, the shrewish and the middle aged.
"Absolutely!" replied Dr. Adler. "A man who feels inferior always chooses as his partner the crippled, deformed, drunkard, scoundrel. Then he can feel sure his mate always will be thankful.
"In Shaw's 'Pygmalion' we find an educated man takes a flower girl out of the streets, educating her simply to make himself feel powerful. Goethe married his housekeeper. Scientists often marry their maid servants.
"A man can decide whether he will agree with his inferiority complex or overcome it, though. If he wants to overcome it he looks high so he can be praised for his choice. If he agrees, he just wants to feel sure of feeling [ilegible]
[ilegible] lecturing since January at the New School for Social Research, 80 per cent of the people in the world have inferiority complexes. It is more common among women than men, too, because "our culture gives a privilege to the male."
All inferiority complexes can be cured: the more intelligent the persons, the quicker the cure. Even Louis the XIV could have been cured, had any psychiatrists been known in his day. Most possessors of these complexes don't know they have them, Dr. Adler said, until they are tested for the adequacy of their social adjustment.
All Problem Children
"You can see the widespread possession of an inferiority complex when I name a few classes of people who almost universally have it," continued the psychologist. "They are problem children, neurotic men and women, criminals, suicides, drunkards, bachelors and single women.
As a boy Louis XIV was dressed in rags, went uneducated, and often wanted for money, Mr. Huddleston reports. As a King then he turned for sympathy and consolation for past humiliations and present fears to women who were the lowliest at his court. This is the usual procedure for the victim of an inferiority complex, Dr. Adler said.
Louis's first love, Marie Mancini, niece of Cardinal Mazarin, was an ugly duckling, according to Mr. Huddleston. Louise de LaValliere was "insignificant and shrinking." The elderly Mme. de Maintenon, widow of the scurrilous writer Scarron, was "a poor, ailing, bigoted woman who had acted as governess to the King's illegitimate children." Mme. de Montespan was ridiculously fat. Henriette, sister of Charles II of England and wife of King Louis's brother, the Duc d'Orleans, was "tall, thin, slightly hunchbacked—she coughed frequently and was sometimes shaken with convulsions." Even Louis XIV's wife, Marie Therese, daughter of the King of Spain, was heavy-jowled, bad complexioned, with black teeth.
Dr. Adler said he was gratified to have this book inscribed to him. It is the third time such an honor has been paid him. "The A B C of Individual Psychology," by Philip Meiret, and "Technique of Education," by a group of German scientists, also were dedicated to the originator of individual psychology.
Fuente: Dorothy Ducas, «Louis XIV Loves Called Inferior. Viennese Psychologist Agrees With English Author That Complex Ruled King», New York Evening Post, miércoles 22 de mayo de 1929, p. 9. Transcripción hecha sobre la imagen de la página en Old Fulton NY Post Cards (fultonhistory.com, «New York NY Evening Post 1929 Grayscale - 3178»), corrigiendo el OCR de la plataforma, que mezclaba la pieza con la columna de ajedrez y omitía dos párrafos de la primera columna (Shaw, Goethe; «A man can decide…»). La imagen corta el pie de la primera columna. Se respetan los errores del impreso: «Sisler Huddleston» (por Sisley) en el segundo párrafo, «grande dames», «Philip Meiret» (por Philippe Mairet).