Agnes's political role
It will be useful to begin with what the primary sources do not say about Agnes as a political player. The elaborate narratives common in popular histories and
Agnes Sorel and Antoinette de Maignelais: A star and a footnote | 99 the custom of calling her the first “maitresse-en-titre” or the first “official royal mistress,” as the expression is typically rendered in English, make it is easy to overestimate her visibility during her lifetime.[320] But despite the claims of modern historians, the expression “maitresse-en-titre” was manifestly not invented for Agnes Sorel.
No contemporary document refers to her in that way.[321] Indeed, the word “maistresse,” to designate a beloved woman whom one was courting or hoping to marry, begins to appear only later. The first edition of the Dictionnaire de l,academie franςaise defines the word as “girls and women sought after for marriage” and adds that it can also be applied “to someone who is loved by another.”[322] Henri IV routinely addresses his favorite, Gabrielle d’Estrees, as “ma maistresse,” in letters of the last years of the sixteenth century.[323] Brantome, writing during roughly the same period, refers to the Duchess of Etampes as Francois I’s “principal lady and mistress” (“sa principalle dame et maistresse”).[324] As for the later addition, “en titre,” it normally means incumbent, as in “champion du monde en titre,” the current world champion, although it can sometimes mean “official,” as in “comptable en titre,” a qualified or official accountant. The composite expression “maitresse-en-titre” becomes common only around the mid-eighteenth century as a general way of designating a favorite or current mistress,[325] used to refer to the king’s favorite mistress but by no means restricted to this use.Agnes, then, is never referred to as anything like official mistress. The titles that she held were associated with the properties given her by the king: she was the Dame de Beaute, Roqueceziere, Issoudun, and Vernon-sur-Seine, although it is not clear that she actually exercised any real control over these towns.[326] Another thing that the documents do not say is that Agnes was publicly acknowledged as the king’s mistress; it is not true as one historian writes, that in 1444, the king “publicly designated Agnes Sorel as the first official royal favorite” during a joyous
entry.[327] There is no trace of such a presentation in any document. Nor was she ever mentioned as the center of attention at any festival, or even at any festival.
Still, chroniclers were aware of Agnes, and the attention that she receives from them far surpasses that devoted to any other woman of comparable rank of her time. As a basis of comparison, we might take the mistress with whom Charles VII’s father, the insane Charles VI, was supplied to protect the queen from the abuses that he showered on her. Odette de Champdivers figures in exactly one chronicle and then not even by name.[328] The chroniclers who mention Agnes and were either rough contemporaries or active within about fifty years after her death and therefore able to consult people who had known her include Thomas Basin; Jean de Bourdigne; the Bourgeois of Paris; Jean Chartier; Georges Chastellain; Jean Le Clerc; Jacques Du Clercq; Mathieu d’Escouchy; Robert Gaguin; Nicoles Gilles; Jean Juvenal des Ursins; Olivier de La Marche; Thierri Pawels; Pope Pius II, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini. With one exception, Jean Chartier, who claims that the king never touched Agnes below the chin, they affirm that Charles VII loved Agnes madly, that she was beautiful, and several note that the king bestowed inappropriate material favor upon her.
For a hint of her political activity we can turn to Olivier de La Marche, Burgundian memoirist and chronicler, who writes in an entry about negotiations that took place in May and June 1445 that the king had recently taken up with a beautiful lady and that she did much good for the kingdom “by bringing before the king young men-at-arms and excellent companions, by whom the king has since been well served.”[329] This suggests that she was able to influence the king’s appointments.
In addition, we have mentions of her influence over the king in three depositions, each related to court factionalism and plots to overthrow the king along with Pierre de Breze, his righthand man and the dauphin’s nemesis. One recounts, for example, that Pierre de Breze controls the king through “that Agnes who serves the queen.”[330] In another set of depositions relative to a different bit of political intrigue, the deponent refers to Pierre who has the king’s ear partly through the help of Agnes, “from whom Pierre has whatever he wants.”[331] The same document says that the deponent had been instructed to inform the king that the dauphin was so upset with the king that he, the dauphin, was going toAgnes Sorel and Antoinette de Maignelais: A star and a footnote | 101 put things in order himself and chase Agnes away. In addition, the deposition lists code names for members of the court. Agnes’s is Helyos: Heloi'se? The sun?
Agnes unexpectedly joined the king in Normandy in January 1450, having crossed France, pregnant, to tell him, according to one chronicler, that he was about to be betrayed by some of his people and turned over to the English. She then fell mortally ill of what we now know was a sudden ingestion of a massive amount of mercury.[332] Certain chronicles reference the dauphin’s hatred of Agnes and a handful of sources suggest that he had her poisoned.[333] Simply the fact that contemporaries thought that the dauphin might have done her in indicates a perception that she was influential.
The evidence adds up to what may have been clout with the king, but a profile so low that no ambassador was ever given instructions to seek her out, or, at least nothing indicates that any ever did. Nor is her presence ever mentioned at festivals, something that would have suggested her importance. Ambassadors to Franpois I’s court, for example, routinely mention that Francois’s most significant mistress, the Duchess of Etampes, was present at court festivities, often mentioning where she was seated and with whom she spoke. But Agnes’s presence at such events was never noted.