Kings throughout medieval and early modern Europe had extraconjugal
sexual partners. Only in France, however, did the royal mistress
become a quasi-institutionalized political position. This study
explores the emergence and development of the position of French
royal mistress through detailed portraits of nine of its most
significant incumbents: Agnès Sorel, Anne de Pisseleu d’Heilly,
Diane de Poitiers, Gabrielle d’Estrées, Françoise Louise de La
Baume Le Blanc, Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart,
Françoise d’Aubigné, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, and Jeanne
Bécu. Beginning in the fifteenth century, key structures converged
to create a space at court for the royal mistress. The first was an
idea of gender already in place: that while women were legally
inferior to men, they were men’s equals in competence. Because of
their legal subordinacy, queens were considered to be the safest
regents for their husbands, and, subsequently, the royal mistress
was the surest counterpoint to the royal favorite. Second, the
Renaissance was a period during which people began to experience
space as theatrical. This shift to a theatrical world opened up new
ways of imagining political guile, which came to be positively
associated with the royal mistress. Still, the role had to be
activated by an intelligent, charismatic woman associated with a
king who sought women as advisors. The fascinating particulars of
each case are covered in the chapters of this book. Thoroughly
researched and compellingly narrated, this important study explains
why the tradition of a politically powerful royal mistress
materialized at the French court, but nowhere else in Europe. It
will appeal to anyone interested in the history of the French
monarchy, women and royalty, and gender studies.
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