Excerpt from The Lady of Beauty: Agnes Sorel After studying the statements of the most learned and authoritative historians on the subject of Agnes Sorel, I sympathise with them to some extent in their endeavour to deprive the Lady of Beauty of the exaggerated sway and charm she possesses in the eyes of more romantic writers. On the other hand, I have read all the traditions that have grown up around her with a sense of enjoyment that serious history alone can never give. If in writing her biography I have been unduly influenced by the less important works, I can only say, in extenuation of these lapses from the path of authenticated fact, that the feeling inspired by Agnes Sorel's lovable personality tends to disarm the criticism and defy the analytic judgment which should be indispensable weapons in the historian's armoury. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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.

The Queen of Four Kingdoms is dead. Agnès Sorel, her beautiful and innocent 14-year-old pupil, soon catches the attention of the mourning court. As a trusted confidant of the deceased Queen Yolande, Agnès captivates all whom she meets, but none more so than the newly crowned King of France, Charles VII. Employed as a demoiselle to his wife, Queen Marie d'Anjou, Agnès finds herself firmly ensconced in the royal court, and in the midst of her duties discovers a burgeoning passion for the King that she can no longer refuse or deny. As their relationship deepens and Agnès's influence over the King grows, she is viewed with suspicion by the court.