Sexual Surveillance in Paris and Versailles under Louis XIV

Present-day surveillance of sexual behaviour puts harmful pressures on the sexual privacy and autonomy of individuals, especially pressures on women’s reproductive rights, on the rights of sexual minorities, of victims of domestic violence, and of gendered ethnoreligious minorities. This chapter shows with the example of Ancien Regime France that surveillance as a means of disciplining unsanctioned sexual practices has a long history. It examines examples of prescriptive documents in which the French state shows a strong preoccupation with proper sexual behaviour. The chapter discusses how authorities adapted the concept of surveillance to the social position of the people under investigation. It examines the supporting role of religious discourse in sexual surveillance by considering the example of Introduction a la vie devote, where Saint Francois de Sales strove to instigate his readers to diligently guard against their own sexual urges.