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The Creation of the French Royal Mistress: From Agnès Sorel to Madame du Barry

2022; Oxford University Press; Volume: 36; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/fh/crac007

1477-4542

Bridgette Sheridan,

Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis

The Creation of the French Royal Mistress: From Agnès Sorel to Madame du Barry examines the development of the role of the French royal mistress in politics and court life from 1444 to 1774. Using an interdisciplinary approach, authors Tracy Adams and Christine Adams argue that while mistresses were certainly a feature of other realms, their role in diplomacy and court life was unique to France. While much has been written about queens and about individual mistresses, this study is overarching in both its theoretical arguments and in its ambitious examination of nine mistresses, including Agnès Sorel, Anne de Pisseleu d’Heilly, Diane de Poiters, Gabrielle D’Estrées, Françoise Louise de La Baume Le Blanc, Françoise d’Aubigné, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson and Jeanne Bécu. Using Fernand Braudel’s theory concerning the role of long- and medium-term structures combined with short-term events in interpreting the past, the authors posit that the role of the royal mistress was distinct from, if tied to, the role of the queen regent. The preconditions or long-term structures that they posit include the broad assertion that women were considered intellectually equal but legally inferior to men, and the theatricalization of the royal court; the medium-term (‘recurring but not fundamental’) structure is the role of the typically male royal mignon, or court favourite. The French royal mistress, they argue, becomes possible at the intersection of these structures. While not all French courts in the early modern period included a royal mistress, those that did involved a charismatic mistress and a king who was willing to be advised by a woman.