Party Central: L'Art de la Fête à la cour des Valois

Renaissance courtiers loved a good party. Fêtes, or celebrations, at court lasted for days and included any number of events: lavish banquets, jousts and mock battles, dramatic spectacles, elaborate costume balls. Festive gatherings served a multitude of purposes: impressing visiting dignitaries, marking births and marriages, commemorating important victories, displaying the skills and ingenuity of court artists--and, of course, manifesting the munificent generosity of the king.

Above and beyond their political purposes, parties were just plain fun. 

Photo credit: Cleveland Museum of Art 

Despite the frequency and extravagance of Renaissance court festivals, however, they are difficult to document. Parties are, after all, ephemeral things: the food is consumed, the decorations discarded, the music fades away. Before the invention of photography, it was impossible to capture such events in real time. Modern historians must rely on written memories and rare artifacts as they attempt to reconstruct the look, activity, and tenor of celebrations at the Renaissance court.

A current exhibition at the Château of Fontainebleau, the primary residence of François I and a favorite of his son Henri II and grandson Henri III, attempts to recreate the Renaissance celebration for modern-day visitors. L'Art de la fête à la cour des Valois, which runs through July 4, presents over one hundred works, many lent from international collections, in an attempt to capture these festivals in all their splendor and document the extensive behind-the-scenes preparation that glory required.

Organized by curators Oriane Beaufils and Vincent Droguet, the exhibit includes paintings, tapestries, parade armor, costume sketches and commemorative pamphlets from celebrations across several reigns. From the most solemn to the most extravagant, Renaissance celebrations were living, moving, breathing works of art that sprouted from the ingenuity of some of the greatest artists of the time: Rosso Fiorentino, Francesco Primaticcio, Robert Delorme, Antoine Caron, and poet Pierre de Ronsard. The collected works at Fontainebleau resurrect the decorations, program, and costumes of some of the Valois court's most magnificent events.

Masquerade balls were central to Valois celebrations. Sketches of costumes designed by court artist Primaticcio for events like the festivities surrounding Emperor Charles V's state visit to Fontainebleau in 1539 (I blogged about that here) survive to this day. 

Photo credit: Musée du Louvre

Photo credit: Musée du Louvre

In order to recreate the feel of the fête for modern visitors, the Château engaged the costume workshop of nearby Disneyland Paris to render two of Primaticcio's sketches into life-sized garments. These faithful, fanciful costumes stand on display in the Château's ballroom, site of so many Valois parties. If you can't make it to the salle de bal in person, you can view the recreated costumes here, courtesy of La République de Seine-et-Marne.

Scribeaccroupi.fr, a French art history site, has an excellent written preview of the exposition, as well as an engaging short film animated by Oriane Beaufils herself. Her enthusiasm for the subject is palpable.

As much as I'd love to view the exposition in person, I must content myself with the printed catalogue, which I expect to arrive next week. I'll share about it soon. In the meantime....

Party on!

(You can find more about the exhibit on Twitter under the hashtags #PartyLikeaValois and #FeteAFontainebleau.)

Diane de Poitiers: Big Stars on the Small Screen

Fans of sixteenth century France, rejoice! A new miniseries about Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of King Henri II, is currently under production for France 2. Filmed on location at the Château de Septmonts near Soissons and various châteaux of the Loire, the cast features superstars of the French silver screen.

Photo credit: Georges Biard

Isabelle Adjani, who played Marguerite de Valois in the 1994 film La Reine Margot, stars in the title role as Diane de Poitiers.

Photo credit: Siebbi

Gérard Depardieu, a fixture of French historical drama (Germinal, Vatel, Le Retour de Martin Guerre) plays the seer Nostredamus.

Photo credit: Georges Biard

Samuel Labarthe (De Gaulle, La Forêt) portrays François I;

Photo credit: L.helas

Hugo Becker (Leonardo, Osmosis), François's son Henri II.

Photo credit: Georges Biard

Virginie Ledoyen (Les Misérables, Notre Dame) plays the part of François's mistress, Anne de Pisseleu, Duchesse d'Étampes.

Photo credit: Georges Biard

French rapper and actor JoeyStarr participates as the comte de Kervannes;

Photo credit: Georges Biard

Guillaume Gallienne (Cézanne et moi) has been cast as the famous surgeon Ambroise Paré.

Didier Ducoin, author of major television movies including Les Misérables, The Count of Monte Cristo, Balzac, and Napoléon, has penned the screenplay. Josée Dayan, of blockbuster TV series Dix Pour Cent fame, directs the miniseries. Anne Holmes, director of French fiction at France Télévisions, sees Diane de Poitiers as a "free, modern, feminist woman" who "incarnates certain of today's values." Although knowledge of the details of Diane's life remains limited, power, love, drama and jealousy--elements TV audiences gobble up--combined to produce her "exceptional destiny." The story of Diane's decades-long hold over the much younger king and her rivalry with his wily wife Catherine de Medici is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

Filming runs through October, with broadcast planned for next year. Let's hope a streaming service quickly picks it up for diffusion to English-speaking audiences.

(Information for this post comes from Le Point, "Isabelle Adjani dans la peau de Diane de Poitiers.")

Royal Frolics: Choosing the "Queen of the Bean" at Epiphany

The Feast of the Epiphany occasioned much merriment--and expense--at the French court during the Renaissance. The tradition of sharing a galette des rois--a cake containing a concealed bean--traces back to early sixteenth century celebrations of Twelfth Night. The person who found the bean in his or her piece of cake became the de facto ruler for the duration of the festivities. Whereas in England the choice of a "king," or Lord of Misrule, predominated, across the channel it was the election of the "Queen of the Bean" that evolved into an elaborate ritual.

According to Robert Knecht in his book The French Renaissance Court (p. 75-76), it was custom at the court of François I to chose not only a Queen of the Bean, but a bevy of eighteen ladies to attend her. The women wore beautiful new clothes, which the King provided: undergarments of crimson velvet with slashed sleeves held together by gold clasps and outer garments of grey satin fringed with velvet and lined with mink. Matching belts, necklaces and bracelets complemented the attire; the Queen wore a plumed bonnet atop a long golden or silver snood adorned with precious stones. When it was time for supper, the Queen of the Bean rose from her seat next to the true queen, Eléanore, and took the King's hand. The monarch led her and her ladies into the hall where two tables had been set. The Queen of the Bean sat above Queen Eléanore, the dauphin's wife Catherine de' Medici, and the King's sister Marguerite de Navarre at the shorter table; the King joined the eighteen attendants at the second table. During the meal, the Bean Queen was served with the ceremony normally reserved for the real queen, who surrendered any precedence during the twenty-four hours of her rival's reign.

One wonders just how random the choice of the Queen of the Bean was, especially since at the court of François's son, Henri, the king himself chose her name. In 1550, the Venetian ambassador describes how Henri II came into the queen's chamber to pick a name out of a hat. However, Henri discarded several names before announcing that of a "young, really beautiful and most charming" lady who belonged to the circle of his sister Marguerite. The young lady touched his hand and retired to dress "honorably." At dinner, Henri sat in the middle of the shorter table, flanked on his right by the Queen of the Bean and on his left by his mistress Diane de Poitiers. The real queen, Catherine de' Medici, sat next to the Queen of the Bean, along with the king's sister; the cardinal of Lorraine, the duchesse de Guise, and the Constable of Montmorency sat beside Diane. A ball followed the banquet. The next day, the King escorted the Queen of the Bean into Mass before the real queen; after Mass, everyone dined in the same order as on the previous evening, then watched a joust in the palace courtyard. The feast concluded with another banquet and a final ball, which brought the Queen of the Bean's short reign to a memorable end.

[Photograph courtesy of Gorrk, Wikimedia Commons.]

This article was originally posted on January 6, 2010.

December 5: Death of a King

On this day in 1560, King François II died at the young age of sixteen. François was the eldest son of Henri II and Catherine de Medici (and therefore grandson of his namesake, François I). He had become king only the year before, when his father Henri died after a freak jousting accident that lodged a lance splinter in his eye and brain.

François had never been a robust child; small for his age, he suffered from eczema and a chronic ear infection that ultimately caused his death. In mid-November 1560, a large swelling appeared behind his left ear, indicating the inflammation was spreading to nearby bone and tissue. Fever and violent fits took hold; prescribed bleeding and purgations further weakened his body. The infection formed an abscess in his brain and, in the absence of antibiotics, nothing could be done to save him. François fell unconscious on December 5 and passed away by nightfall, a month short of his seventeenth birthday.

His wife of two years, Mary Queen of Scots, had nursed him tenderly throughout the ordeal. A year older than François, Mary had been raised at the French court with him since the age of five. The two shared a strong bond of friendship and love, although it remains uncertain whether François's underdeveloped physique had prevented them from actually consummating their marriage. Mary was devastated by François's death, which dramatically changed the course of her life. Although she could have remained in France with her estates and status intact until she found another royal husband, Mary chose to return home to her kingdom of Scotland. Little did she know that her choice would ultimately lead to her own death at the hand of Elizabeth I of England.

Silk and Spectacles in the Place des Vosges

photo: AINo

Place des Vosges, the centerpiece of the Marais district on the Right Bank of the Seine, was one of the few architectural undertakings of King Henri IV, who ascended to the throne in 1589 and eventually brought an end to France's religious wars. Originally named Place Royale, the square was intended to be a revenue-producing site, dedicated to the manufacture of silks and other textiles. The four-story red brick buildings that line the square were designed to house factories on the second and third floors. The ground floor shops, accessible through sheltered arcades, would sell the goods manufactured upstairs; factory workers and shop staff could live in dormitories and apartments on the fourth floors, under the eaves.

In tandem with its commercial purpose, Place Royale would provide Paris the public setting it lacked for the grand processions and elaborate spectacles that marked important events like royal births and marriages. Accordingly, the square was paved with cobblestones, and two pavilions were built for the royals' viewing pleasure. The Pavilion du Roi,

photo: Bruno befreetv

marked with Henri's monogram,

photo: Bruno befreetv

was erected on the north side of the square, and the Pavilion de la Reine anchored the south.

Construction, begun in 1605, proceeded to a rapid conclusion by 1612. However, the notion that the buildings would house factories died along with the king when Henri was assassinated in 1610. His wife Marie de Médici, regent to his young son Louis XIII, abandoned the manufacturing project and allowed the elegant buildings to be subdivided into residences for the wealthy. Later in the century, an equestrian statue of Louis XIII was erected in the center of the square.

This statue remained in place for 150 years, until it was destroyed during the Revolution--along with the square's royalist name. The new moniker, Place des Vosges, commemorated the first district that raised a volunteer army to repel the Prussian invasion. Fifteen years after the restoration of the monarchy in 1814, a new statue of Louis XIII--the one presently gracing the square--was installed.

photo: Mbzt

Place Royale was built on the site of the Hôtel des Tournelles, a royal residence dating back to the fourteenth century. The residence comprised a collection of buildings and pleasure gardens spread over a twenty acre estate. François I's mother, Louise de Savoie, had lived there, and his mistress Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly later used it as her Parisian residence. Henri II, François's son and heir, held his coronation there in 1547 and granted its use to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. It was at the Hôtel des Tournelles in 1559 that Henri II died after a horrific jousting accident. His widow, Catherine de Médici, had the buildings demolished several years after his death. The space was used as a military training ground for many years until Henri IV dedicated it to his innovative project.

Hotel des Tournelles and surrounding area around 1550. Published map of Paris.

[The information about Place Royale's commercial origins comes from Alex Karmel's delightful book,  A Corner in the Marais: Memoir of a Paris Neighborhood (1998).]

Too big for the Christmas stocking...

This FRANCE TODAY article on gift giving opens with the example of Henri II giving the château of Chenonceau to Diane de Poitiers and François I presenting the fortress and village of Dourdan to Anne de Pisseleu. Modern generosity seems a bit lacking in comparison, wouldn't you say? I know I'd love to find a château under my tree this Christmas!

The Queen of the Bean

The Feast of the Epiphany occasioned much merriment--and expense--at the French court during the Renaissance. The tradition of sharing a galette des rois--a cake containing a concealed bean--traces back to early sixteenth century celebrations of Twelfth Night. The person who found the bean in his or her piece of cake became the de facto ruler for the duration of the festivities. Whereas in England the choice of a "king," or Lord of Misrule, predominated, across the channel it was the election of the "Queen of the Bean" that evolved into an elaborate ritual.

According to Robert Knecht in his book The French Renaissance Court (p. 75-76), it was custom at the court of François I to chose not only a Queen of the Bean, but a bevy of eighteen ladies to attend her. The women wore beautiful new clothes, which the King provided: undergarments of crimson velvet with slashed sleeves held together by gold clasps and outer garments of grey satin fringed with velvet and lined with mink. Matching belts, necklaces and bracelets complemented the attire; the Queen wore a plumed bonnet atop a long golden or silver snood adorned with precious stones. When it was time for supper, the Queen of the Bean rose from her seat next to the true queen, Eléanore, and took the King's hand. The monarch led her and her ladies into the hall where two tables had been set. The Queen of the Bean sat above Queen Eléanore, the dauphin's wife Catherine de' Medici, and the King's sister Marguerite de Navarre at the shorter table; the King joined the eighteen attendants at the second table. During the meal, the Bean Queen was served with the ceremony normally reserved for the real queen, who surrendered any precedence during the twenty-four hours of her rival's reign.

One wonders just how random the choice of the Queen of the Bean was, especially since at the court of François's son, Henri, the king himself chose her name. In 1550, the Venetian ambassador describes how Henri II came into the queen's chamber to pick a name out of a hat. However, Henri discarded several names before announcing that of a "young, really beautiful and most charming" lady who belonged to the circle of his sister Marguerite. The young lady touched his hand and retired to dress "honorably." At dinner, Henri sat in the middle of the shorter table, flanked on his right by the Queen of the Bean and on his left by his mistress Diane de Poitiers. The real queen, Catherine de' Medici, sat next to the Queen of the Bean, along with the king's sister; the cardinal of Lorraine, the duchesse de Guise, and the Constable of Montmorency sat beside Diane. A ball followed the banquet. The next day, the King escorted the Queen of the Bean into Mass before the real queen; after Mass, everyone dined in the same order as on the previous evening, then watched a joust in the palace courtyard. The feast concluded with another banquet and a final ball, which brought the Queen of the Bean's short reign to a memorable end.

[Photograph courtesy of Gorrk, Wikimedia Commons.]

The Princes in the Tower, French Version

Those familiar with English history know the story of the Princes in the Tower--Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, the young sons of King Edward IV, who, after the death of their father in 1483, were imprisoned in the Tower of London and never seen again. The same history buffs might not, however, realize that France had its own version of imprisoned princes--François and Henri, the two young sons of François I, who were handed over to Charles V as ransom for their father and spent four years in miserable captivity in Spain.

The Treaty of Madrid, which François signed in 1526 to secure his release after the disastrous Battle of Pavie, contained many concessions to Charles V--the most notable being the transfer of Burgundy to the emperor and the renunciation of French claims to Flanders, Naples, and Milan. When François tried to convince Charles that he needed to return home to effect the transfer, Charles demanded that he hand over two of his three sons as hostages until the terms of the treaty had been fulfilled. François, who had spent the past year as Charles's prisoner, seems not to have balked at resigning his young sons, aged only seven and eight, to a similar fate. Perhaps he expected their absence to be a short one; perhaps he placed the well-being of his kingdom, struggling under the regency of his mother, over that of his own flesh and blood. Perhaps he was simply eager to make any deal necessary to gain his freedom. In any case, he agreed to the exchange, which was arranged to take place on March 17, 1526, at the border town of Bayonne.

The trade occurred in the middle of the Bidassoa River, which separates France from Castile. Two boats, one carrying the French king, the other his sons, met in the middle of the river at a raft that had been moored into place. The king hugged his sons and blessed them, telling them he would send for them soon. The two parties switched boats; the princes were rowed back to the Spanish bank while the king proceded to the French. As soon as he landed, François leapt onto his horse, shouted, "Now I am king; I am king once again!" and galloped off to meet his court at Bayonne. There is no record in the extensive descriptions of the exchange that he even looked back at the young sons he had just abandoned.

At first, the princes and their entourage of seventy persons were treated cordially; Eléonore, Charles's sister and François's new wife by proxy, treated the boys as sons. But as the weeks passed and it became obvious that François had no intention of surrendering Burgundy, the treatment of the princes grew harsher. They were taken away from Eleanor and moved to a castle farther south. After a foiled rescue attempt in February 1527, Charles took them further into Spain and dismissed nearly all their attendants. François, hoping to pressure Charles into releasing the boys, entered into league with England and the papacy. When that failed, he declared war on Charles in late 1527.

Of course, this declaration worsened the boys' situation. They were moved to the fortress of Pedraza in the high mountains north of Madrid, where they lived a spartan existence amidst Spanish soldiers. A French spy saw them twice in July 1529; townspeople told him the younger boy, Henry, hurled constant verbal abuse at the Spanish when the princes were permitted to attend Mass. Tired of Charles and François's posturing, Louise de Savoye, the king's mother, and Marguerite d'Autriche, the emperor's aunt and regent of the Netherlands, began negotiations to end the war. In August of 1529, the Treaty of Cambrai, or la paix des dames as it came to be known, was hammered out. Instead of ceding Burgundy, François agreed to pay 2 million écus for the ransom of his sons.

The princes remained in Spain while the king worked to raise the huge sum. Louise sent a man to Pedraza to check on the condition of the princes and to let them know they would soon return home. The man, Baudin, found the boys living in "a dark, disordered chamber with no adornments except straw mattresses." The window, high up the wall, was covered with bars. The boys had received no lessons since their tutor had been released months earlier; their French was rusty, since they only could speak it between themselves. They did have two small dogs to play with, but spent only minutes a day outside playing under the watch of fifty soldiers. Now aged eleven and twelve, they had been in captivity for four years.

François finally managed to collect the ransom by June of 1530, an incredibly difficult feat that nearly bankrupted the kingdom. A train of thirty-two gold-laden mules left Bayonne for the same spot on the Bidassoa River where the first exchange had taken place. The boys were reunited with their father and the court at Bayonne on July 3. On July 7, François married Eléonore, who had accompanied the princes from Spain. He thus fulfilled one of the stipulations of the original Treaty of Madrid.

How did four years of captivity affect these young boys and their relationship with their father? That is a subject for a future post. One can only imagine the sense of abandonment these young children felt, as well as anger towards a father who so blithely surrendered them so he could once again "be king."

(Source: Henry II, King of France 1547-1559 by Frederic J. Baumgartner. Duke UP, 1988. Photo of Pedraza Castle courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

The Captive King

Last we saw of King François, he had been taken prisoner by imperial forces at the disastrous Battle of Pavia (24 February 1525). French troops, fighting to recapture the duchy of Milan that François's predecessor Louis XII had lost, were surrounded and roundly defeated by Charles V's army. The King of France's captivity at the hand of the Holy Roman Emperor would last a little over a year and color the two monarchs' relationship for the duration of their reigns.

After the battle, François was taken to the Castle of Pizighettone near Cremona, where he remained for three months in the custody of the Spanish captain. Captured companions accompanied him, including his childhood friend Anne de Montmorency (who would remain François's most trusted counselor and eventually rise to the most powerful political position in France). These men were eventually given safe-conducts that enabled them to travel back and forth between Italy and France to negotiate the king's release. François appointed his mother, Louise de Savoye, regent during his absence. Louise established her court at Lyons, near the Italian border, to facilitate communications with her son and the emperor.

If François and his mother had hoped that Charles would quickly release him for a cash ransom, they were mistaken. Charles presented a long list of demands that included paying Charles's debts to Henry VIII, abandoning French claims to Milan and Genoa, and most importantly, ceding the duchy of Burgundy. The emperor planned to seal the settlement through the marriage of his niece, Mary of Portugal, to the Dauphin. Although François appeared amenable to some of the terms, he refused to negotiate as long as he continued to be held prisoner. He forwarded Charles's terms to Louise, who rejected them outright.

Hoping to cut short negotiations made all the lengthier by the distance separating the two courts, François begged for a face-to-face meeting with Charles. In June, he was taken to Spain on a fleet of galleys decorated in his honor, given a royal welcome in Barcelona, then moved to Valencia. He asked that his sister Marguerite be given safe-conduct to negotiate a peace, that he be moved closer to the site of negotiations for easier consultation, and that a truce be declared while the talks were in progress. Charles agreed to all three requests, yet continued to avoid meeting with François in person.

When the French ambassadors met with Charles in Toledo, the emperor continued to dismiss any discussion of a ransom. He was willing to make some concessions in his original demands, but claimed there could be no lasting peace as long as Burgundy remained in French hands. France, however, refused to consider surrendering the region; in fact, François, now in Madrid, made a secret declaration to the French ambassadors that he would never surrender Burgundy freely and that, if forced to do so, his action would be null and void.

Charles almost lost his opportunity to profit from the situation when François nearly died in September from a combination of acute depression, anorexia and a nasal abscess. The French king ran a fever for twenty-three straight days and lapsed into a semi-coma after Charles did, finally, come to see him. Later in the month, the abscess burst and François unexpectedly recovered. Peace talks resumed, this time facilitated by Marguerite, who had arrived during her brother's illness, but were suspended once again when Charles found the proposals unacceptable.

By the end of the year, the strain of the king's absence was growing too great for the kingdom. Louise de Savoye decided to abandon Burgundy and convinced François to accept Charles's terms. On January 14, 1526, the parties signed the Treaty of Madrid. In return for his freedom, François ceded Burgundy and abandoned his claims to Italy. He also agreed to hand over his two oldest sons as hostages until the terms of the treaty were fulfilled. In return, he demanded the hand of Charles's sister Eléonore in marriage, in order to keep her from marrying Charles de Bourbon, the prince of the blood who had sided with Charles during the war. Charles, swayed by advisors who believed the French king could be trusted, agreed. Little did he know that two days before the French king signed the treaty, he had made another secret declaration nullifying the surrender of Burgundy.

Betrothed by proxy to Eléonore in January, François remained in Madrid until mid-February, possibly for health reasons. Charles arrived, and together they traveled to meet Eléonore. A few days later, Charles set off to Seville to marry Isabella of Portugal, and François began the long journey back to France with his Spanish escort. The heartrending exchange of the monarch for his two young sons, which deserves a post of its own, was set for March 17 on the river Bidassoa.

[Source: The material for this post was condensed from R. J. Knecht's account in Renaissance Warrior and Patron, pp. 216-48.]

A Second Unrealized Tudor Match

As I revealed in my last post, François's sister Marguerite d'Angoulême was offered as a child bride to the young Henry VIII of England. Fortunately for her, perhaps, she was rejected. Another match between the Tudors and the Valois--this one between François's second son, Henri, and Henry VIII's first daughter, Princess Mary--came much closer to fruition.

Mary was three years older than Henri, and discussions regarding the union of the two royal children grew serious around 1530, while the young prince was being held hostage by Charles V in Spain [subject for a post of its own]. The Peace of Cambrai (1529), which secured the ransom of François's sons, included a clause affirming the French-English marriage. But in October 1530, negotiations with England stalled, for two reasons: François suspected Henry VIII intended to use Henri as security for the debt François owed him, and secondly, questions over Mary's legitimacy were beginning to cloud the issue. Henry VIII was by this time seeking an annulment of his marriage with Mary's mother, Catherine of Aragon, and François feared marrying his son to a bastard. Negotiations did continue until 1532, but once the outcome of Henry VIII's suit became evident, François abandoned the match. Instead, he wed Henri in 1533 to Caterina Maria de Medici, the cousin (often called the niece) of Pope Clement VII. 

How would the match between Henri and Mary, had it occurred, have changed history? It's interesting to speculate. It doesn't seem as though it would have derailed Henry VIII from his quest to rid himself of Catherine of Aragon, since he continued with his suit even as he negotiated with France. What is interesting is what would have happened once Henri became Dauphin. At the time of the negotiations, he was only second in line to the French throne. However, his older brother François died in 1536. The couple would eventually have ruled both France and England. This surely would have had great repercussions on the playing out of the religious question in the two countries.

[Source: Henry II, King of France 1547-1559 by Frederic Baumgartner (Duke UP, 1988)]

The Rise and Fall of a Royal Mistress

A fascinating and powerful figure at court during the second half of François I's reign was Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly, the duchesse d'Etampes. Anne was born in 1508 (making her fourteen years younger than the king) and began her career at court as maid of honor to François's mother, Louise de Savoie. When François returned to France in 1526 from his imprisonment in Spain, he discovered the lovely--and ambitious--Anne and took her as his lover. She became his official mistress and for the next twenty years, until his death in 1547, she wielded significant influence in political and artistic circles at court.

The poet Charles de Sainte-Marthe called Anne de Pisseleu "la plus belle des savantes et la plus savante des belles" ("the most beautiful among the learned and the most learned among the beautiful"). Indeed, Anne needed intelligence and a sharp wit, in addition to looks, to keep the attention of François, who prided himself on his learning. She cultivated poets and writers like Jodelle, Magny and Dolet and championed the artist Primaticcio, Rosso's chief competitor at Fontainebleau. She beautified the many properties the king bestowed on her and her husband (in 1532, for propriety's sake, François married her to Jean de Brosse and elevated the couple in rank) and undertook architectural projects. Through her favor, distant relatives and sympathetic friends obtained appointments to court offices and the military. She completely outshone, in beauty and influence, François's second wife, Eléonore d'Autriche, sister of Charles V, whom François was forced to marry as a term of his release.

Though she faced no competition from the queen, Anne did face a real threat to her power and influence from another source: Diane de Poitiers, the dauphin Henri's mistress. As relations between François and the dauphin soured, the court split into factions: those who supported Anne and her circle, those who looked to the future and threw their support behind Henri and Diane (including the powerful Grand Master of France, Anne de Montmorency), and the few who remained quietly on the sidelines with the queen. Anne did all she could to contrast her youth to Diane's age (Diane was only five years younger than François, and therefore twenty years older than Henri); she also differentiated herself by embracing the religious ideas of Luther and Calvin. Whereas Diane remained an ardent Catholic, Anne, along with François's sister Marguerite de Navarre, adhered to the reformed faith and encouraged François's tolerance of it as long as she could. Politically, her circle threw its support behind François's third son, Charles, the son François preferred.

Unfortunately for Anne, Charles died before François and upon the king's death, Henri took the throne. Anne's rivalry with Diane assured she was no longer welcome at court; in fact, she was accused of selling state secrets to France's enemy Charles V, stripped of her jewels and many of her possessions, and banished to her estate in Brittany. She died there in 1580, having outlived both Henri and Diane by many years.

The duchesse d'Etampes, pictured above around the time she became François's mistress and to the right at the height of her influence in the late 1530's, is one of the viewpoint characters in my new novel. Despite her importance, little has be written about her; much of what has been written focuses on her rivalry with Diane. An interesting source in French is this excerpt from a book by Etienne Desjardins; David Potter has written a recent article on the politics of the various court factions. In the novel, I'll be considering whether those rumors of her selling secrets to Charles V just might be true.