The female political favorite
The French role of political royal mistress was not a function of royal favor alone, although this was a prerequisite. A one-off politically powerful mistress, like Alice Perrers or Dyveke Sigbritsdatter, might flourish solely on the basis of royal favor, even though they garnered massive disapprobation.
But the French tradition of politically active royal mistresses was supported by certain social structures particular to the royal court that, in interaction with the king’s favor, enabled and legitimated a role that eventually became a tradition, part of the French court system.Anne de Pisseleu d’Heilly, Duchess of Etampes from 1534, and Diane de Poitiers, Seneschale of Normandy, Countess and, after Henri II took the throne, Duchess of Valentinois, both began their court careers as attendants to the queen mother Louise of Savoy.[520] Diane’s father, Jean de Poitiers, Seigneur de Saint Vallier, traced his ancestors to the twelfth-century Dauphine, and, although no direct evidence proves it, before moving to the royal court, Diane may have been raised by Anne of France, later Duchess of Bourbon, who served as regent for her younger brother, King Charles VIII. As we have seen, Anne of France is said to have mentored a number of young women who also became politically powerful, including Marguerite of Austria, Louise of Savoy, and Philippa of Guelders.[521] After being married at fifteen to the 55-year-old Louis de Breze, seigneur of Anet, grand seneschal and later governor of Normandy, Diane resided both at the Breze’s chateau at Anet and at court. She would have been part of Louise’s entourage when Anne, born in 1508, first appeared at court, although the precise year of the young woman’s arrival is not known. Anne is believed to have caught Franpois I’s eye when she accompanied Louise as a lady-in-waiting to greet the king upon his return in 1526 from his captivity in Madrid at the hands of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
Although no contemporary source attests to it, later chronicles claim that the king fell in love at first sight with “this young lady of excellent beauty.”[522]Although the royal mistress was a known quantity at the French royal court before Anne and, later, Diane, assumed the role, it did not imply a great deal of political influence. As discussed in chapter 6, Agnes Sorel’s story had been passed down among some families in continuous service to the crown, and her portrait appeared in sketch albums possibly as early as 1515. But her primary claim to fame during that period was that she had inspired Charles VII to recover France from the English.[523] Franpoise de Foix, Countess of Chateaubriant, was recognized as Franpois I’s favorite mistress at least by 1520 when King Henry VIII gifted her a crucifix “worth about 2,000 crowns” at the Field of the Cloth of Gold festival.[524] [525] However, she is never mentioned in ambassadorial correspondence as a political actor.11
Nor does Anne seem to have wielded much political influence during her early years as royal favorite. The first mention of her dates from 1527, ambassador Anthony Browne writing to Henry VIII that Franpois I favored her above all others, although, according to Browne, her beauty was not to be highly praised.[526] A report of 1529 notes that she attended Louise of Savoy during the queen mother’s stay in Cambrai for negotiations of what has become known as “The Ladies’ Peace” between Louise and Marguerite of Austria.[527] Anne features again in ambassadorial correspondence in March 1531 when Francis Bryan writes to Henry VIII that instead of laying or speaking with his new queen, Eleanor of Austria, Francois I spent all his time in Anne’s chamber. The king made a public spectacle of his lack of concern for his Habsburg wife when, during her entry into Paris, he placed Anne before him in an open window and spoke to her for two long hours in view of the general public.[528]
But the predominance of Louise of Savoy, the king’s most trusted advisor, seems to have limited Anne’s significance as a political figure, a hypothesis I base on the lack of any discussion about Anne as a political player among ambassadors during those years.
When Louise died in 1531, however, the way was clear for Anne to begin her rise, and her credit began to grow. First she received the position of governess for the royal daughters. In 1532, the king married her to Count of Penthievre Jean de Brosse, and, in 1534, raised their county of Etampes to a duchy.[529] Her credit was further augmented when sometime around 1536 she became a cherished friend and religious ally of Marguerite of Navarre, sister to the king, Marguerite dedicating her love debate of 1541, La Coche, to Anne, whom she addresses as her “parfayte amye” (“perfect friend”).[530] Anne’s correspondence shows her approaching the Grand Maitre, Anne de Montmorency, before 1538, when he became connetable, asking favors for family members and assuring him that she is carrying out requests on his behalf.[531] She is counted among the highest nobility of the realm, accompanying Marguerite in 1538 when Montmorency was elevated to connetable of French. Similar, she appears among noblewomen attending the baptism of the first son of the dauphin Henri and Catherine de Medicis. In 1538 she accompanied Queen Eleanor to southern France where the Treaty of Nice was signed, temporarily bringing peace between France and the Empire.[532] When in 1539 Franpois I gave the emperor a safe conduct to cross France on his way to the Low Countries, the latter’s ambassador to France Jean de St. Mauris thought Anne important enough to explain to the emperor why she did not like him.[533]By 1540, Anne begins to appear in ambassador letters as a central player in court politics. Ambassador letters, “carefully prepared statement[s] of the political situation.. filling in the background with special attention to the character and motive of the important persons and factions,” are filled with references to “Madame d’Etampes.”[534] Because one of their primary functions was to gather information, ambassadors stationed at the French court enhanced the opportunities for female courtiers to participate in politics.
As far as ambassadors were concerned, women, particularly the royal mistress with her unparalleled access to the king, could be crucial sources and also mediators for passing along requests.As Anne’s credit rose, her authority was bolstered by the artistic program commissioned by Franpois I to transform his chateaux, Fontainebleau in particular, into theaters for his displaying his power. From the early 1530s Italian-born artists like Rosso and Primaticcio helped establish Franpois I as a very particular type of king. He had already been associated with various members of the “neuf preux,” lauded by Pierre Sala as “a second Cesar or Alexander.”[535] Etienne Le Blanc prefaces his 1529 translation of Oraisons de Cicero with a comparison of Franpois I to Alexander, Artaxerxes, Trajan, and Augustus, likening Franpois I’s triumph in Marignano in Lombardy 1515 to “the glorious conquests of Alexander.”[536] [537] But after asserting the French king’s superiority in the matter of war, Le Blanc announces Franpois I’s accession in another area especially:
And if these things declared above were not sufficient to give renown and honor to your name, Sire, you are superior to all the princes of the world because of one above all that is to be marveled at. That is that during your time and during your reign you have caused to flourish Latin and Greek letters, which had long been neglected....' i
This image of Franpois I as a cultivated warrior king was further propagated through the king’s artistic program. To this image, Franpois I added his easy interaction with intelligent women, visualized through the vivid illustrations of heroines of mythical and classical fame that decorated the palace. Margaretha Rossholm Lagerlof notes that Fontainebleau was a “world of female power—a Venus world dominated by sensual pleasures, water, and fertile lands and woods with springs, fruits and animals” where the “slender naked female figure recurring as the nymph, as Venus and as symbol of pleasure is the characteristic visual sign of the place and the style of its imagery.”
As for Anne in particular, the comparison between the cultivated French warrior king and Alexander is also promoted in the program that decorated her apartments in Fontainebleau.
In Apelles Painting Alexander and Campaspe, Alexander and his mistress entwine themselves in a sexually explicit embrace, undoubtedly a reference to the king and Anne. Other images thematize the king’s right to authorize marriages and conduct love affairs with whomever he chose: Alexander marrying Campaspe to Appelles (we recall that Franpis I married Anne to Jean de Brosse) and he himself marrying Roxanne in another. Another image of Alexander with the Amazon queen, Thalestris, showing her climbing into his bed, seems to speak to the nature of Anne’s political role: not the king’s equal, she is nonetheless a formidable match.The overarching lesson of the Alexander program created for Anne’s apartments at Fontainebleau, argues Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier, was to announce that “one man alone controlled all:” to justify the king’s right to distribute offices as he saw fit. More specifically, he justifies his reliance on Anne. Within this context, Anne flourished. Ambassador correspondence of the first years of the 1540s reveals an avid interest in her rise, which was linked to the diminishing credit of Montmorency, the most powerful of the king’s male favorites throughout the 1530s. In early 1540, The Duke of Norfolk describes in a letter to the English king his surprise at being informed by sister of the king, Marguerite of Navarre, that his best chance of getting Franpois I’s ear was to win Madame d’Estampes to his side. The astonished Norfolk writes: “I answered to Her, that I thoght it was a strange thing for me to serche any thyng at suche a woman his hande.”[538] Marguerite replied that she was only advising Norfolk to do what she herself did. In letters of the following months, Norfolk describes his cultivation of this increasingly important court figure, convincing Henry VIII to court her with gifts.
Ambassadorial correspondence more generally throughout the rest of 1541 reveals the growing realization that Anne had to be taken seriously. Certain ambassadors occasionally describe her as silly or flighty.
A couple of characterizations in letters from imperial ambassadors to Charles V in particular have shaped her modern image in a negative way. I noted that Jean de Saint Mauris informs the emperor in August 1540 that Madame Etampes did not much like him. The reason that he adduces casts Anne as vain and stubborn. Regarding the possibility of getting back into her good graces, he writes:I am doing my best according to Your Majesty's instructions. I fancy that the Chancellor and the lady are not much attached to Your Majesty or Your ministers,,. I hear from a good quarter that the reason for her angry feelings is that when Your Majesty passed through this kingdom [to go to Flanders] you did not make so much of her as she expected, which has hardened her heart in such a way that it will be very difficult, nay, almost impossible, to appease her.[539]
Imperial ambassador Nicolas Villey, seigneur de Marnol, describes the duchess to Charles V as “fickle and unstable” (“legiere et instable”) in a letter of 1542.[540] But he worked with her nonetheless: that same year Paget writes to Henry VII that “ThEmpereurs Ambassadeur practiseth much with Madame dEstampes for peax,.”[541]
And yet, it is striking that ambassadors do not make explicit Anne's relationship to the king, referring to her as Madame d'Estampes without further information. She continues to be mentioned as attendant to the queen, Edmond Bonner, for example, writing in 1540 to Thomas Cromwell that “the King, Quene, ladyes, and nobilitie of the Court, went on hunting, comming underneth my dowre, the Quene goyng afor in her litter, having Madame de Estampes with Her in the same,.”[542] At the baptism of Elisabeth or Isabelle, daughter of Prince Henri and Catherine, we see “the Queen, whose train was borne by Mme. d'Etampes as lady of honour, and who was followed by Mme. Marguerite of France, the Princess d'Albret and Mme. de Vendome walking together.”[543]
Diane de Poitiers, too, would conduct politics as an open secret, and her position would be treated in ways similar to Anne’s. The precise chronology or even nature of the relationship between Diane and Prince Henri remains a mystery. They had opportunities to meet because they were often at the same events, but nothing can be pinned down.[544] The earliest eye-witness report of the nature of their relationship from Venetian ambassador to the French court Marino Cavalli in 1547, apparently addressing rumors, denies any physical relationship. According to Cavalli, the 28-year-old dauphin is
not at all a womanizer; his own wife [Catherine de Medicis] was sufficient; for conversation, he seeks that of [Diane], who is 48 years old. He has a genuine tenderness for her; but it is said that there is nothing lascivious in it and that this affection is like that between a mother and son; it is held that this lady has undertaken to instruct, correct and counsel M. le Dauphin, and to push him to all action worthy of him.[545]
Ambassador reports acknowledge the relationship without comment, referring to Diane as the dauphin’s “dama.”[546]
Whatever the case, with the death of Franpois I and accession of Henri II in 1547 Anne was forced from the court, and Diane began to perform the role of royal mistress in plain sight but without overt mention of her relationship to the king, her career both evident and ignored, like Anne’s before her. Because the focus of this essay, however, is on the women’s reputation as rivals, I do not follow Diane into her heyday but turn now to the factionalism at Franpois I’s court for which they have often been held responsible.