I asked the exact same question yesterday: Make apostrophe closer to letter
With the apostrophe in dropcap
This was my initial attempt, playing with \kern to adjust the apostrophe back inside the capital L:
\lettrine[lines=3,lhang=0.33,lraise=0,loversize=0.15]%
{L\kern-12pt{'}}{objectif}
In my case, this setting gives me this:
Your request: apostrophe in small caps
I have chosen to include the apostrophe in the lettrine. Whether this is good practice is subject to debate among French typographists. If you wish to keep the apostroph in the text and get the text inside the lettrine as in your example, you can use the findent and nindent parameters of the lettrine instead.
For example, with:
\lettrine[lines=3,lhang=0.33,lraise=0,loversize=0.15,findent=-0.7em,nindent=1em]%
{L}{'Esprit-Saint ...}
I get the following:
Using slope to achieve the exact result you desire
In the previous example, I used nindent but this put the second and third lines to the right of the dropcap. In your example, you wanted the second line in the L and the third line to its right. You can achieve that by using slope instead of nindent, although that work with 3 lines (as in your situation).
\lettrine[lines=3,lhang=0.33,lraise=0,loversize=0.15,findent=-0.7em,slope=0.5em]%
{L}{'Esprit-Saint ...}
gives me:
Adjusting oversize to align on top
Finally, you might want to adjust the oversize parameter so the top of the lettrine fits with the apostrophe.
\lettrine[lines=3,lhang=0.33,lraise=0,loversize=0.08,findent=-0.9em,slope=0.5em]%
{L}{'Esprit-Saint ...}
You'll have to adapt the values to your own font.
Note:
After doing all this, I actually settled for this last solution for my own document, instead of the first solution I gave above.
Hint:
To make things easier, to can add your defaults to a local lettrine.cfg file, for example:
\setcounter{DefaultLines}{3}
%%
%% These are *decimal* numbers:
\renewcommand{\DefaultLoversize}{0.25}
\renewcommand{\DefaultLraise}{0}
\renewcommand{\DefaultLhang}{0.33}
% Define default options per letter
\renewcommand{\DefaultOptionsFile}{optfile.cfl}
and then you can set the default options per letter in optfile.cfl:
% options per letter
\LettrineOptionsFor{A}{slope=5pt,findent=-0.5em}
\LettrineOptionsFor{J}{lraise=0.20,nindent=0em}
\LettrineOptionsFor{L}{lraise=0,loversize=0.08,findent=-0.9em,nindent=1em}
\LettrineOptionsFor{P}{findent=0.1em,nindent=0.1em}
\LettrineOptionsFor{Q}{lraise=0.30,loversize=0.15}
How about this:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lettrine}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\defaultfontfeatures{Ligatures={Historical}}
\setmainfont[Ligatures={Common,Rare}]{Adobe Caslon Pro}
\newcommand \prelude[1] {\makebox[8em][c]{\em\scriptsize #1.}}
\begin{document}
\lettrine[ante={\prelude{The Thanksgiving}}, loversize=0.1]{T}{O}
our prayers, O Lord, we join our unfeigned thanks for all thy
mercies; for our being, our reaſon, and all other endowments and faculties of ſoul
and body; for our health, friends, food, and raiment, and all the other comforts and
conveniences of life. Above all we adore thy mercy in ſending thy only Son into the
world to redeem us from ſin and eternal death, and in giving us the knowledge and
ſenſe of our duty towards thee. We bleſs thee for thy patience with us, notwithſtanding
our many and great provocations; for all the directions, aſſiſtances, and comforts of thy
Holy Spirit; for thy continual care and watchful providence over us through the whole
courſe of our lives; and particularly for the mercies and benefits of the paſt day:
Beſecching thee to continue theſe thy bleſſings to us; and to give is grace to ſhow
our thankfulneſs in a ſincere obedience to his laws through whoſe merits and
interceſſion we received them all, thy Son our Saviour Jeſus Chriſt. \qquad \textit{Amen.}
\end{document}
Best Answer
Note that you can configure the defaults for the lettrine in the preamble or in a configuration file so that you need not specify them anew at the start of each section.
I've minimised your example somewhat as much of it was irrelevant to the crux of your question:
If you do not want the remainder of the first word in small-caps, you could do this: