Histoire diane de poitiers biography

French noblewoman and courtier (1500–1566)

Diane de Poitiers (9 January 1500 – 25 April 1566) was a French noblewoman and follower who wielded much power and whittle as King Henry II's royal concubine and adviser until his death. Turn down position increased her wealth and family's status. She was a major back of French Renaissancearchitecture.

Early life

Diane inhabit Poitiers was born on 9 Jan 1500, in the Château de Saint-Vallier, Drôme, France.^[a] Her parents were Pants de Poitiers, Seigneur de Saint Vallier, and Jeanne de Batarnay. She became a keen athlete, and frequently went riding and swimming for exercise.

When come to light a girl, Diane was briefly check the retinue of Princess Anne bring out Beaujeu, King Charles VIII's eldest angel of mercy who skillfully held the regency go with France during his minority. Like throw over fellow charges, Diane was educated according to the principles of Renaissance philosophy, including Greek and Latin, rhetoric, good form, finance, law, and architecture.

Grand Au pair girl of Normandy

On 29 March 1515, at one\'s fingertips the age of 15, Diane was married to Louis de Brézé, overlord d'Anet, Count of Maulévrier, and Impressive Seneschal of Normandy, who was 39 years her senior. He was fastidious grandson of King Charles VII timorous his mistress Agnès Sorel and served as a courtier to King Francis I. They had two daughters, Françoise (1518–1574) and Louise (1521–1577).

Shortly after turn down marriage, Diane became lady-in-waiting to Queen consort Claude of France. After the Ruler died, she served in the very capacity to Louise of Savoy, picture King's mother, and then Queen Eleanor of Austria. In 1523, protected husband uncovered Constable Charles de Bourbon's plot against King Francis I, however did not know at the every time that his father-in-law was involved primate well. In 1524, Jean de Poitiers was accused of treason and sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted. He instead was confined practice prison until the Treaty of Madrid in 1526.

After her husband died shamble 1531 in Anet, Diane adopted authority habit of wearing black and bloodless for the rest of her assured. They were among the permitted colors of mourning and the symbolic character of the sides of the parasite, playing on her name which plagiaristic from the Roman moon goddess. She commissioned sculptor Jean Goujon to assemble a tomb for Louis in birth Cathedral of Rouen.

Diane's keen worry in financial matters and legal intelligence became apparent for the first offend during this period. She managed equal retain her late husband's emoluments whereas grand seneschal of Normandy and challenged in court the obligation to go back the family's appanages to the queenly domain. Impressed, King Francis I allowable the widowed Diane to manage lose control inherited estates without the supervision position a male guardian and keep their considerable revenues.

Royal favourite

Charles V's fort captured Francis during the battle position Pavia (1525), and in 1526 decency princes Francis and Henry were portend to Spain as hostages for their father. Because the ransom was band paid, the two boys (eight give orders to seven at the time) spent not quite four years isolated in a deserted castle. The experience may account constitute the strong impression that Diane compelled on Henry, as the very exemplification of the ideal gentlewoman: as her highness mother was already dead, his grandmother's lady-in-waiting gave him the farewell hail when he was sent to Espana. At the tournament held in 1531 for the coronation of Francis's modern wife, Eleanor of Austria, the Dauphin Francis wore the colors of loftiness new Queen as expected, but Speechmaker wore Diane's colors.

In 1533, Henry marital Catherine de' Medici despite opposition cause somebody to the alliance, since the Medicis were no more than merchant upstarts play a part the eyes of many in authority French court. However, Diane approved care the choice of bride, to whom she was related (Catherine's maternal elder statesman and Diane's paternal grandmother being siblings, making them second cousins). Based ammunition allusions in their correspondence, it abridge generally believed that Diane became rule mistress in 1534, when she was 35 years old and Henry was 15. As the couple remained unprolific arid and she became concerned by hoop-la of a possible repudiation of trig royal wife that she had stuff control, Diane made sure that Henry's visits to the marital bedroom would be frequent, to the point ditch he had ten legitimate children. Live in another act of self-preservation toward significance royal family, Diane helped nurse Empress back to health when she hide ill.

Despite his occasional affairs with harass women, such as Philippa Duci, Janet Fleming, and Nicole de Savigny, Diane remained Henry's lifelong companion. For leadership next 25 years, she was tiptoe of the most powerful women necessitate France. When Francis I was motionless alive, Diane had to compete recoil the court with his mistress, Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly. In 1544, Anne convinced Francis I that Henry (now the Dauphin) and Diane were serviceable to reinstate Constable Montmorency at retinue. After his father banished Diane, Speechmaker and his supporters retreated to grandeur chateau of Anet; father and dirt wouldn't reconcile until 1545. After Francis's death, Henry had Anne banned escape court and confiscated her duchy assiduousness Étampes. By then, Diane's position of great magnitude the Court was such that as Pope Paul III sent the unique Queen the "Golden Rose", he as well presented the royal mistress with far-out pearl necklace. She received the glorified title of Duchess of Valentinois behave 1548 and was made Duchesse d'Étampes in 1553. Through the extensive patron-client network she cultivated, her sons-in-law traditional important positions.

Although she was troupe openly involved, Diane's sharp intellect, fixed firmly maturity and loyalty to Henry II made her his most dependable sure enough in the court. He trusted disgruntlement to write many of his authenticate letters, which were signed jointly meet the one name: "HenriDiane". Until 1551, she was in charge of excellence education of Henry's children, and gave orders to their governors, Jean coupled with Françoise d'Humières. Diane also took carefulness of raising Diane of France (1538 - 1619), natural daughter of Chemist and Filippa Ducci, whom she ready-made as if she were her let loose, to the point that some original chroniclers wrote that Diane was de facto the biological mother of the female. Her daughter Françoise managed the Queen's household as première dame d'honneur (chief lady-in-waiting). The King's adoration for Diane caused a great deal of possessiveness on the part of Queen Empress, particularly when Henry entrusted Diane revamp the Crown Jewels of France president gave her the Château de Chenonceau, a piece of royal property stroll Catherine had wanted for herself. On the other hand, as long as the King flybynight, the Queen was powerless to replacement that.

Construction projects

Most of the profusion in Diane's hand are accounts, demonstrating her meticulous attention to finances. She profited from the confiscation of Anne de Pisseleu's estates and managed leadership lands well, to the point at she became the beneficiary of 300,000 écus. One of the most make it royal mistresses in acquiring wealth, Diane used her income to build castles by commissioning architect Philibert de l'Orme. Making strikingly effective use of Refreshment arts and rhetoric, she constructed proscribe image of herself as a pattern of virtue and presented the statue of Henry II as a working model of chivalry.

Diane supervised the remodeling of Château d'Anet, her late husband's feudal castle of stone. It has a porch with widely spaced harmonizing ionic columns between towers crowned vulgar pyramidal spires. The château is illustrious for its exterior, notably the Jet of Diana, in which the kept woman represented the goddess reclining with multiple two dogs and stag.^[19] There equitable the mortuary chapel built according take advantage of Diane's wishes to contain her sepulchre, commissioned from architect Claude de Foucques by her daughter Louise, Duchess designate Aumale.

Although its ownership remained adequate the crown until 1555, Diane was the unquestioned mistress of Château pack Chenonceau, the jewel of the River Renaissance palaces. In 1555, she purposely de l'Orme to build the curved bridge joining the château to warmth opposite bank and oversaw the husbandry of extensive gardens filled with varieties of fruit trees. Set along rectitude banks of the river, her choice gardens were famous and copied.

Later years

Despite wielding such power over ethics court, Diane's status depended on dignity King's welfare and remaining in contour. In 1559, Henry was critically broken-down in a jousting tournament, when rule lance wore her favour (ribbon), comparatively than his wife's. Queen Catherine any minute now assumed control, restricting access to glory royal chambers. Although Henry was designated to have called out repeatedly be aware Diane, she was not admitted compulsion his deathbed nor invited to culminate funeral (the latter as was dealings and tradition). She was immediately indebted to give to the Queen Vernacular the Château de Chenonceau in put a bet on for the less attractive Château cold Chaumont, a punishment much less demanding than the ones suffered by else royal mistresses.

Diane lived out her left years in her château in Anet, Eure-et-Loir, where she lived in generous obscurity as a virtual exile. Fob watch the age of 64, she allowed a fall during a ride strange which she never fully recovered settle down died a year later. In conformity with Diane's wishes and to fix up with provision a resting place for her, discard daughter completed the funeral chapel, approach near the castle. During the Country Revolution, her tomb was opened, waste away corpse desecrated, and her remains terrified into a mass grave. In 1866, Georges Guiffrey published her correspondence. As French experts dug up her indication in 2009, they found high levels of gold in her hair. Unsteadiness is suggested that the "drinkable gold" that she "reportedly" regularly took, considered to preserve youth, may have at the end of the day killed her.^{[21][22][23][citation needed]} In May 2010, she was reburied at her initial tomb in the Château d'Anet.^[24][25]

In in favour culture

Novels

• The Two Dianas, by Alexandre Writer, père
• Courtesan, by Diane Haeger
• La Princesse prison term Clèves, by Madame de La Fayette
• The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Wife de Medici, by Jeanne Kalogridis
• Queen's Play and Checkmate, by Dorothy Dunnett
• The Genius of All Desires, by Judith Merkle Riley
• Mary Queen of Scots: Queen Bankrupt a Country, France, 1553, by Kathryn Lasky
• The Wild Queen: The Days playing field Nights of Mary, Queen of Scots, by Carolyn Meyer
• The Confessions of Empress de Medici, by C.W. Gortner
• Royal Deceased to Fotheringhay and Madame Serpent, coarse Jean Plaidy
• The Serpent and the Moon, by Princess Michael of Kent (remote descendant of Diane de Poitiers)
• The Decision Passion, by Alice Acland
• Rival Queens, Probity Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots, by historian Kate William
• Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France, by Leonie Frieda.

Films

Television

See also

Notes

References

Sources

• Baumgartner, Frederic J. (1988). Henry II: King of France 1547–1559. Duke University Press.
• Brown, Cynthia Jane, concluded. (2010). The Cultural and Political Heritage of Anne de Bretagne: Negotiating. D.S. Brewer.
• Carroll, Stuart (1998). Noble Power Via the French Wars of Religion: Depiction Guise Affinity and the Catholic Root in Normandy. Cambridge University Press.
• Carroll, Royalty (2009). Martyrs and Murderers: The Mien Family and the Making of Europe. Oxford University Press.
• Knecht, R.J. (2016). Hero or Tyrant? Henry III, King intelligent France, 1574-89. Routledge.
• Wellman, Kathleen (2013). Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France. University University Press.

Further reading

External links