The Creation of the French Royal Mistress: From Agns Sorel to Madame Du Barry (Adams Tracy)(Paperback)

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: Agn s Sorel, Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly, Diane de Poitiers, Gabrielle d'Estr es, Fran oise Louise de La Baume Le Blanc, Fran oise Ath na s de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Fran oise d'Aubign , Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, and Jeanne B cu.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
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