In this essay on how Eleanor of Austria (1498-1558), consort of Francois I (1494­1547), became the first “foreign” French queen, I take as a point of departure a recent observation that Eleanor seems insignificant “when juxtaposed against other women of political and cultural power in the Habsburg dynasty and Valois court during the first half of the sixteenth century.”1

Although the observation may be true, it is important to add that powerful Habsburg and Valois women were not queens of France. Or, to be more specific, if they were queens of France, they were queens regent or queens who had come to the marriage as rulers in their own right.^{[589] [590] Relative to the reigns of other non-regents or non-proprietary queens of France, like Marie of Anjou, Charlotte of Savoy, Claude of France—who was also Duchess of Brittany and nevertheless seems not to have been very politi­cally influential—Catherine de Medicis before the death of Henri II, Elizabeth of Austria, Louise of Lorraine, Marguerite of Valois, Marie-Therese, Marie Leszczynska, or even Marie-Antoinette, famous for other reasons, Eleanor’s}

seems entirely typical.

Still, if the queens I have just mentioned represent a common institution, each dealt with a unique set of circumstances. Eleanor’s challenge was to insure peace between bitter enemies, her brother Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and her husband Franpois I, who were active players in a frequently shifting three-way rivalry that also included Henry VIII of England. Enthusiastic crowds greeted Eleanor when she made her various entries into the towns of France as the embodiment of a peace treaty with the Empire. But reconciling Charles V with the French king proved impossible. No previous French queen had been charged with such a task. True, Anne of Brittany had been married to Charles VIII as part of a treaty to end the conflict between France and Brittany, and Marguerite of Valois would be married to Henri of Navarre, later Henri IV, to make peace between Catholics and Protestants. But Anne came to the marriage as sovereign Duchess of Brittany, and, in a practical sense, Marguerite never really served as queen of France.

The sharpest difference, however, was that neither Anne of Brittany nor Marguerite of Valois was perceived as foreign.^[591] Nor would Eleanor have been in a different time. Raised by her French-speaking aunt, Marguerite of Austria, in Flanders, Eleanor became foreign as a result of the enmity between Charles V and Franpois I. In what follows, I first lay out the context for Eleanor’s reign and then suggest that her career represents the epitome of the French version of queenship, which, beginning with Eleanor’s reign, was strongly identified with foreignness.