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.

Tells the history of the French Renaissance through the lives of its most prominent queens and mistresses.

The first full length study in English to examine the life and the afterlife of Agnès Sorel (1428-1450), a favourite of King Charles VII of France, and first in the long genealogy of French royal mistresses.

Victorious Charles: A Ladies' Man is a fascinating historical account of the lives of the nobility and the poor in 15th Century France, under the reign of King Charles VII. Charles VII was a warrior King who reigned at the time of France's decades-long war against Henry V's England. Charles is also often remembered for his numerous high-profile affairs, including one with the beautiful Agnes Sorel, known at the time as the Dame de Beaute. The book explores Charles' youth, his crazy mother, and the positive influence of his aunt, Yolande d'Aragon. Charles ruled during the time of Joan of Arc, "The Virgin Warrior" who fought valiantly for France in the war. She delivered Orleans from the English, before being burned at the stake after a religious court sentenced her to death, proclaiming her a sorceress. The late Caroline (Cally) Rogers Neill Sehnaoui was born in 1944 in Manchester, NH to a 16th generation American family of English and Scottish descent. Her father was educated at West Point and Princeton, and her mother's ancestor was William Barton Rogers, who founded MIT in 1861.

The King's eyes went to a young woman across the room. Theextraordinary face startled him. He had never seen such perfection. He couldnot believe that she was real, she must be an apparition, a figment of hisimagination, born out of his starved existence, but she was real and he knew inthat moment that she must be his.So intense would be his love for her that he showered her with jewels,gave her castles and chateaux, and then he made her official mistress, the firstofficial Mistress of France, equal to his wife the Queen. But with it came a price,jealousy -- "Jealousy which is as cruel as the grave."This is a story of love, desire, envy, and jealousy, those qualities of thehuman heart which are timeless and universal.

'Winged Wheels in France' is a travelog penned by Michael Myers Shoemaker. The book lays out his experience traveling throughout Europe, most notably, to the following countries: France, Switzerland, Spain, and Germany.